Li Na was in a state of total dread. She'd been woken by the trembling beside her; the soft pillow began to shake and she was startled as she swam up to full consciousness. Her head had been lying on Li Jun's chest, with her leg flung over his thigh as if attempting to pin him to the bed like a human octopus. He will be surprised about her funny sleeping posture. Once fully awake, her hand moved across to his shoulder and she felt his chest, slick with sweat. That was when the guttural roar started, a horrible, awful noise from the back of Li Jun's throat: low, feral, and terrifying. She'd moved so she was hovering over him, and started trying to wake him; gently at first, but as his trembling and the noises worsened she became more desperate, shouting his name and shaking his shoulders.
When he finally opened his eyes she flinched at the emotions of fear and pain she could see in them. She could tell the moment that he came back to her, relief flushing through his features and the wild look receding. But as he stared up at her, stroking her cheeks, her nose, her eyelids, then running his fingers through her curls, she could still see some sort of desperation clouding his features.
"Ha! yo...you are alive?" he whispered.
'Yes, What was that?' she whispered, almost afraid to know what could have scared him enough to make such a dreadful sound, and asked her if she was alive.
'Nothing,' he rasped, and she watched in fascination as the blank mask fell over his face, eradicating the fear and desperation from before.
'Li Jun …' She swallowed, then gritted her teeth, determined not to let her voice waver, 'that was not nothing. You were having a nightmare. I mean, I'm not even sure you could call it a nightmare; that doesn't seem to do it justice. It's like you were living through something. I've never seen anything like it. Look, you can talk to me, I –'
He cupped one side of her face with one hand and laid the other across her mouth, cutting her off. 'Could you for once in your life just be quiet?' he said angrily.
Before waiting for an answer, he flipped to the other side of the bed and grabbed the duvet to wrap it around his body, making him look like an over-steamed dumpling and he slowly walked into the bathroom.
Li Na, not knowing what to do next, wandered into the kitchen in a daze. When his nightmare had woken her up in the night, his way of silencing her questions had been devastatingly effective; but as she looked back on it now she realized that it was colder and more clinical than the night before. More like he was trying to run away from something and using anger as camouflage. They hadn't even really done the did, for goodness' sake, and in the morning she wished she had woken up with him as far away from her as possible on the bed. Li Na loves to hug something by nature, and she knew that for them to have woken up in that arrangement would have had to involve some pretty epic disentanglement maneuvers on his part. The thought of him pushing her as far away as possible as she slept made her feel suddenly cold, and a strange feeling of foreboding swept over her.
She needs breakfast, she thought, her positive nature breaking through, forcing her to make the best of the situation. And by the time she'd finished her Salted Soy Milk breakfast which she took from Li Jun freezer, she'd come to the conclusion that she was over-reacting, that he had just had a bad night's sleep and everything would be fine.
She should have listened to her common sense and first instinct.
'Um … I made you a bowl of salted soy milk,' Li Na said as Li Jun came striding out of the bedroom, his hair still wet from the shower. Her breath caught in her throat at the sheer beauty of his large powerful frame, damp dark hair slightly curling at his neck, thick stubble covering his strong jaw; sometimes it seemed a little surreal that she even knew him, leave alone that she was in his house.
"I made you some toast as well," she added, holding up a plate.
" I know you are hungry, come have some,'' she observed with a slight smile: This was one of the rare occasions she was willing to cook either for herself or for anybody.
Li Jun suddenly looked at her and snapped as he saw what she was wearing, his eyes transformed into a blackish pool of hollow pit as he realized that it was one of Chu Hua's gifts to him. "What are you doing in my underwear?" He asked angrily.
"What?" Li Na was shocked at his tone of voice, it looked as if the Li Jun that she knew has disappeared and someone unknown has replaced him.
"I asked you a question!" Li Jun snapped, his eyes clouded with anger.
Why is he so suddenly angry? Why doesn't he remember? What happened?
Li Na stared at him, trying to wrap her mind around what was happening. It was as if she didn't understand what had just transpired between them. Eventually, she moved towards the wall as she began repeating three questions over and over in her head.
A tall and angry Li Jun looked down at her. He was wearing a black T-shirt and a pair of washed-out jeans, which made him look like an angel of Vengaence. His fists were clenched, and Li Na saw the tendons standing out in his muscled arms.
"Calm down, Don't you remember what happened last night, Li Jun?"
"No, thankfully I don't. Just get out and change from that boxer and shirt you are wearing." He muttered through clenched teeth, his gaze fixed on her stunned and mortified face.
Li Na's head jerked out of her stupor. She searched his eyes, noting his complete and utter lack of memory and his irritation. He might as well have put a bullet through her. She felt the bullet pierce and enter her heart, and she felt her heart begin to bleed slowly and her face was flush with utter embarrassment.
She stared at him silently, as the memory of her mother embarrassing her and images of her ex-fiance shouting and calling her names flashed through her thoughts. Then something extraordinary happened. Something inside of her, which had been building for years, finally snapped.
"Don't you dare shout at me," she growled And immediately lost her temper
"Don't you dare speak to me like that, you stupid drunk!" she snarled. "Who the f*ck do you think you are? After everything, I did for you last night? I should have let Ms. Stinky perfume go home with you! I should have let you sleep out in the bar or worse, mugged by thieves in the alleyway! You ungrateful thing"
"What are you talking about?"
She leaned toward him, eyes flashing, cheeks flushed, and lips trembling. She shook with anger as the adrenaline coursed through her veins. She wanted to hit him. She wanted to wipe that stupid expression off his face with her fists. She wanted to slap him to remind him that she is his professor.
Li Jun shuffled his feet unconsciously as he breathed her sensual and enticing scent. But that was the wrong thing to do in front of professor Li Na, who was practically enraged.
She tossed her head in fury and stomped out of the bedroom, muttering various and interesting expletives in both Chinese and English, a sure sign that she was very angry.
"Báichī!" she spat from the laundry room.
Li Jun slowly began rubbing his eyes, in spite of having one of the worst hangover headaches of his life, he was experiencing a mixture of anger and desire at the image of Li Na in his T-shirt and boxer shorts, intensely angry and shouting at him in various languages. He was upset and enraged since he hadn't had a dream like this in a long time, and Li Na wearing the last gift Chu Hua gave him before her death made him snapped. He was also attempting to figure out who Ms. Smelly perfume was at the same time.
Seeing her coming out with her in her jeans and camisole, she suddenly grabbed a bag from the chair and threw it at him.
"What are you doing?"
"What does it look like I'm doing? That's the stupid sweater you gave to me last Thursday and I'm returning it to you. I'm also getting the hell out of here before I take one of your stupid belts and strangle you with it!"
Li Jun frowned, for he had always thought that those belts are durable. "Who is Ms. stinking perfume"
"Are you kidding me? That's is your department secretary, you stupid Oaf. Ms. Haichi!"
Li Jun's eyebrows shot up. Ms. Haichi? That perfume-addicted secretary...
Turning away from her, he kept fiddling with his phone and tried calling Guang to get some flowers so that he could go visit Chu Hua's grave.
Li Na feeling irritated saw that he was prowling about, trying to call someone from his phone, the only sign of any emotion was how clenched his jaw was and how jerky his movements were.