Lihua lay curled up in her bed, too giddy to sleep. It was already 10:35 PM, and she lay reeling in a sort of excitement. Before she had come back home, Cora had hugged her thanking her for her looking out for her, she was honestly shocked, after all, Cora wasn't one to let her feelings be known, she looked like she was genuinely happy and for once, almost carefree. Hu Lei had promised to have the rings engraved and delivered by the next day, and then she and Fu Hao had had dinner together, their relationship was progressively getting better.
Tired of forcing sleep upon herself, she sat up staring at the starless night sky, a pillow wrapped around her chest. She felt like everything was finally improving, it was almost too good to be true. Did that mean she would soon be living peacefully with Fu Hao, without the occasional spell of silence and awkwardness between them?
She collapsed back on her bed, her hand spread by her sides. She let her mind wander until she was lulled to sleep by a gentle breeze from the window, letting the day's events and her train of disorganized thoughts melt into the darkness.
Sunlight filtered into the room and the rays languidly highlighted her face. Her eyes soon fluttered open and the heavenly aroma of food wafted into her nostrils. "Pancakes!", She sat straight up recognizing the smell of her favourite breakfast meal. On her way down to the kitchen she kept questioning herself, wondering if due to hunger, she was hallucinating.
Fu Hao stood above a pan of sizzling pancakes, and a plate of beautiful golden pancakes on his left. She rubbed her eyes to make sure she wasn't seeing things, and even after, continued to stare. She didn't know what looked more delicious, the mouth-watering pancakes, or Fu Hao donning a white apron, a pair of black joggers just above his hips, and a white Tee.
"Are you done staring?", He turned around placed the spatula on the grey marble countertop and stared at her with an eyebrow cocked,
"I wasn't staring, why would I ?, I've seen much better looking before, it's not new", She crossed her arms turning her head sideways as she shamelessly denied her act of gawking,
"Oh, really?, You've seen much better", The temperature in the room dropped a few degrees and she could immediately identify the jealousy and iciness in his tone,
"Seen much better?", She let out an exaggerated laugh, "No, no, I was just joking, you know what I'm like, after all, no one is as good-looking as you, your looks can put even professional models to shame", She finished her 'speech', with a cheesy smile and fluttered her eyelashes at him. It was obvious her coaxing skills had improved,
His attention turned back to the pancakes nearly cooked in the pan, "You should go freshen up, the food should be done by the time your down",
He didn't need to tell her twice, she ran back up for a shower grinning from ear to ear, as she had no jobs that day, she was free to use the day however she liked and could spend as much time as she wanted eating,
A few minutes after she left, the doorbell rang, he put his spatula down to attend to the door. Only a small package and a letter sat on the doorstep, he brought them in noting their receiver. Both of them were addressed to Lihua, but the letter had no sender. The package, on the other hand, came with a note, and that was what caught his eyes first,
"The rings as you requested engraved and designed with love"-Lei
His eyes darkened considerably as the temperature dropped once more. His eyes remained emotionless and so did his face. He placed them back down on the side like he hadn't even seen them, and turned to resume his initial task.
She came down only moments later donning a casual yellow summer dress with her hair pulled into a simple half updo and messy tendrils framing her face. They sat down to eat together, and it was just like any other day, with Lihua bringing up topics to talk about and ranting, and Fu Hao, sitting quietly listening,
She noticed he was less responsive today, but she just decided to attribute it to the fact he had a lot on his mind, running a company wasn't exactly an easy job. They soon finished their breakfast, and Lihua went to do the dishes, Fu Hao left for the office without saying a thing to Lihua, she felt a bit bad, sure, but she didn't let it weigh her down too much
Settling down on the sofa, she noticed the packages on the table and opened the package, "Oh, the rings", she couldn't contain the grin that broke out on her face as she imagined herself giving him the rings when he came back in the evening, the letter caught her eyes next, but just as she ripped it open, her phone rang,
'Yu Cheng',
"Uh, what's he calling me for?", She picked it up sceptically thinking up a million reasons for his call,
"Mrs Fu"
"Assistant Yu, is anything wrong?"