Chapter 5
Dorian stood on the balcony for a full thirty minutes. When he returned to the living room, shrouded in a chilling aura, his face was already grim.
He stared at his phone screen for two more seconds, then irritably tossed it onto the sofa.
His long strides carried him to the fridge, where he pulled out a bag of the vegetable potstickers I had made last time but hadn’t eaten, specially freezing them.
He thawed the potstickers with a blank expression, cooked them, then sat at the dining table, head bowed, eating them slowly and deliberately, one by one.
The hazy grey smoke curled around his brow bone, making him appear even more distant and cold.
Watching him quietly eat the potstickers, a thought suddenly popped into my head.
Dorian… he probably cared about me a little.
I was surprised, then it dawned on me.
Actually, strictly speaking, today wasn’t Dorian’s real birthday.
Dorian’s actual birthday was a week ago.
But five years ago, on that very day, Dorian’s grandmother passed away, and Celeste also left him. From then on, Dorian didn’t want to celebrate his birthday.
It was my idea to move his birthday back a week. And it was always me, relentlessly enthusiastic, who would arrange his birthday celebrations.
I was an orphan. At the orphanage, my birthday was the happiest day of the year.
I just wanted him to be a little happier too.
The first time I celebrated his birthday, I secretly spent months learning a game he loved to play. I planned to stay up all night playing with him, but I fell asleep on his lap at 2 AM.
When I woke up, Dorian was above me, arms crossed, his usually stoic eyes curved in a half-smile, “All-nighter, huh?”
The second time, I cooked a huge dinner table, cutting several of my fingers, and only the longevity noodles and vegetable potstickers were edible.
Dorian ate everything, though, and even he, usually so quiet, praised the potstickers several times.
I was always one to seize an opportunity, so I puffed out my chest,
“Your heart isn’t good, and these potstickers are my special recipe, packed with ingredients that are good for your heart, so I studied really hard to get the perfect shape and taste.”
Dorian looked at me for a long time then. “Anya, why are you so good to me?”
I smiled, “Because I like you! I really, really like you.”
Before I could confess more, Dorian cupped my jaw and leaned in to kiss me.
Dorian always hid his emotions, but that was the first time I felt such an overt, intense emotion from him.
Then we tumbled into bed.
That night, we were both so clumsy, exploring each other.
But later, he seemed to become a natural, his hands gripping my waist, his deep, dark eyes reflecting my tear-stained face.
He was silent but fierce, late into the night.
But it turns out, my stubborn persistence worked. The third and fourth times I celebrated his birthday, Dorian just went along with it.
It made me think that five years of devoted care and constant companionship must have left some mark on his heart.