This extra chapter is dedicated to KrinRulez. Thank you for the 5-star review!
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Mo Aini could not sleep at all. He kept feeling a big storm is coming, something that will sweep all of them to their feet and have them hit the ground on their bums.
Suddenly, he found a timer on his phone.
He didn't set that up.
The timer was an hourglass, the sand shifting back and forth in quick succession as it was turned upside down, then turned again. The timer says he currently has 41 days, 23 hours, 12 minutes, and 34 seconds left.
Sand.....
This must be Liu Sha's message to him. But what is the timer for?
He asked it, and he was met with another: [System management is currently unavailable, please try again later. ]
"This fucker....." Mo Aini mumbled.
Right beside him, the sleeping tiger wrapped in a cocoon of blankets shifted slightly. He seems to not be getting any better sleep than Mo Aini. He was sweating, and muttering something.
Mo Aini took off a few of the blankets and patted his cheek. He whispered softly in his ear. "Shh.... It's alright. It's alright...."
He was making comforting gestures like pushing back the stray strands of hair on his face, and kissing him every now and then. The roots of Hu Chuntian's dyed blond hair are now black. A signifier of how long they've known each other, and how long they have been too busy with so many things for him to remember to dye it again.
Just as he was thinking this, the Tiger Emperor suddenly caught his hand.
"Da Ge!"
His blue eyes were wide, and even in the darkness, they seem to have a sort of strange ethereal glow. The shine was not quite human-like. It has a ferocious yet also alluring energy, like you can sense the danger while also being pulled in...
"Don't leave me. Da Ge." Hu Chuntian said, not as a plea, but as a command.
Even without the commanding tone, Mo Aini would always answer. "Never. I would never leave you."
He stretched out a finger to ease his knitted brow, then slowly trace lazily all over his face. His long lashes..... The tall bridge of his nose..... His flushed cheeks..... His lips..... And finally, a soft rub on his chin.
Hu Chuntian remained on guard despite this, but his tense expression start to soften even just by a little bit. When Mo Aini placed the back of his fingers by his jaw, and tilted his chin up, his full attention was on him. The ferocious aura was subdued, and what was left was that alluring innocence.
He looks so.... sincere. His desire not to lose Mo Aini was so strong and sincere that his Da Ge could also feel it in his heart.
"Hu Chuntian, don't be scared anymore. I'm here."
Hu Chuntian's fluttered his eyelashes a bit, like a child disbelieving when he was given a treat after being denied.
"Da Ge... I feel like..... Like....." He stammered, unable to say it.
"Like?" Mo Aini prodded him gently. "What is it?"
"We're running out of time."
Mo Aini's blood ran cold. The timer is on his phone. How could he have sensed that?
He remembered Ma Jianyu's story, about the Tiger and his beloved person that is just not meant to be. And that he had to leave that person behind in order to save the world from ruin....
No. He shouldn't think of such things. Like She Haoran said, it is just a legend. And it's a legend from THEIR universe, not his.
He doesn't even know what the timer means, or if it meant something. Liu Sha is full of tricks, and this could be one to get him to give up and accept to be taken out of this universe.
"We're not running out of time, A-Tian. We'll be okay." Mo Aini placed a small kiss on his shaky lips. "I promise."
Hu Chuntian just teared up, wrapping his arms around his Da Ge like he was afraid if he doesn't hold on to him tight, he will disappear.
"How? How can we stay together, Da Ge?" He whimpered. "We didn't make any progress. Even when we told them, they didn't regain the memories of their former selves like me."
"I know. But..... Like I said before, maybe it's best that we let them do it by themselves. On their own time."
Hu Chuntian shook his head. "But we don't have time! The Good Ending, Da Ge. Once the ending of the route is done, those Shuaige bastards will take you away from me, permanently."
Mo Aini frowned, also considering this. Perhaps this is what the timer meant. Though why would Liu Sha suddenly give him a timer now when it's already the last route doesn't make any sense.
It is to gloat? To claim his victory over ruining his and A-Tian's chance to be happy together?
"That will not happen."
Mo Aini said with much determination now. He can imagine those Shuaige fuckers laughing at him, and it fills him with so much rage to prove them wrong. So much as he could imagine just going on to straight-up massacre each and every one of them.
He lifted Hu Chuntian's head up and showed those determined eyes. "I won't let it. Even if they succeed, I will come back."
"But I don't want you to come back anymore, Da Ge." Hu Chuntian said.
He suddenly blinked, and lost his momentary courage. "What?"
"Da Ge, we always get separated, and we always come back again. If you lose me, I come back to you. If I lose you, you come back to me. But that means..... That there's always a gap between us."
"But we always manage to get back together again, right?" Mo Aini protested, not understanding where Hu Chuntian is getting at. "That's the good thing! No matter how big the gap that separates us, even if its whole fucking universes apart, we still managed to—"
The now philosophical Tiger Emperor placed a finger to his lips. "I know, Da Ge, I know. I also think that it's a good thing. It's not something all relationships have, to strongly hold on even in the face of such tribulations."
"But..... please hear me out first." He frowned, trying to pick his words carefully. "What if this means... That it's just not meant to be? What if we are two forces that can never be one?"
Mo Aini opened his mouth to interject again, but Hu Chuntian continued presenting his theory.
Hu Chuntian lifted his two fingers to demonstrate. "....Like magnets of the same pole. Even if you do manage to stick them together for a short amount of time, once you get tired of holding them, they will repel each other."
He put the two fingers together, then pulled them very far apart.
(What the..... Since when did this tiger with E- on all subjects and got held back a year ever known about how magnets work!? This all doesn't make any sense!) Mo Aini justified in his brain, even though in his heart, he actually understands the analogy.
But he couldn't accept it.
They can't be magnets that repel each other. They attract each other! Since the start, no matter how much of an opposite they are to their ideal type!
"Hu Chuntian, that's—" Mo Aini wanted to say it, but his clever tiger did not stop talking.
"There are just things in nature that sometimes become close, but never met. In mathematics, there is such a pair of a line and curve like that, what they call 'asymptotic'. You are the curve that gets so, so close to me, yet we can never intersect, because my world just follows a straight path predetermined by Shuaige, or perhaps, fate itself."
Mo Aini was incredulous. "You're comparing our relationship to a bunch of mathematical mumbo-jumbo!? Where did you even learn all that!?"
"When you first tutored me in the library, it's the very same lesson on the book. Coincidence? It can't be, Da Ge." Hu Chuntian's eyes were wide now, looking a bit scared and unhinged.
"It must be a warning, a tell-tale sign that we have ignored because we were so invested in each other's company, or it was inevitable that we will be blind-spotted by the fact that no matter how much we want to continue fighting fate itself, we will surely be defeated by our own hubris—"
"Hu Chuntian!"
Plop! Mo Aini squished his face with both hands!
"Stop rambling for a second!" Mo Aini couldn't help his voice from rising at the end of this demand. "I get it already! I've listened to your side of the argument, can you now listen to mine!?"
"But Da Ge, I'm presenting valid points. Am being smart." Hu Chuntian said with his lips puffed up from being squished. "Am not dumb anymore....."
"I never said you were dumb. Nor that your points are invalid." Mo Aini frowned, and angrily kissed those puffed-up lips. "I just want you to shut up for a second and calm down!"
Hu Chuntian tilted his head a bit. "But I'm calm. Aren't you the one who's shouting and needs to calm down—"
"I DON'T CARE ABOUT FATE!"
Mo Aini declared for all the world to hear.
"If it exists, if it doesn't. If we're meant to be, if we're not meant to be. There's no point in thinking about it! It's all garbage!" Mo Aini stopped squishing and went on to hug Hu Chuntian tightly as if crushing him. "All I know is I'm not gonna give up! I'm not gonna give up, ever! Even if it's illogical, even if it's fruitless! I already gave up on you so many times!"
"Da Ge.....I can't breathe....." Hu Chuntian and his serious demeanor were breaking from finding this situation somehow funny.
"Oh, sorry. " Mo Aini let go just a little bit to give him space to inhale, but still held on tightly. "But still! We don't give up, okay!? I won't allow you, we stay in this together, you hear!?"
"But that's kinda unfair, Da Ge.... Don't you think? Deciding for me when I will or will not give up." Hu Chuntian, his voice muffled from the smothering embrace. "What if I'm so tired already? I still can't give up even when my heart is worn-out and exhausted to the limit?"
"Then...." Mo Aini lowered his head a little. "I'm sorry for exhausting your heart so much..."
Hu Chuntian felt like he was in a dilemma here. What he said was true, and needed to be said, yet at the same time, he really doesn't like seeing his Da Ge upset or apologizing like this.
He was about to comfort him when—
"And I'm sorry that I'm asking you to exhaust it even more. Hu Chuntian, even when you have fully broken down and gotten tired, I will carry you. If your heart is worn out, I'll carry it for you." Mo Aini smiled. "Until we reach the end that we wanted. Our Good Ending."
"So yes, I'm being selfish. I'm being unfair." Mo Aini smothered him with lots and lots of kisses, the last one a huge lip smack on his forehead! "But I still can't let you give up!"
Hu Chuntian felt like sobbing again, but eventually, it just eased into a defeated sigh. "..... Da Ge. I really love you so much."
And so, even when the sands of time are slowly falling down, they just decided to get buried together. Fuck everything else.
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