"I didn't expect you to call so soon," said a deep charming voice on the other end of the call making Quinn frown as she took the cell phone away from her ear.
She suppressed the feeling in her chest and said, "You already know what your potential suitor's parents are doing. I am in a very tight spot."
"So you agree?" asked Lief after a long silence.
"I would like to negotiate. As long as you help my mother I am willing to discuss it," she said swallowing her saliva knowing full well that her offer was ridiculous.
As expected Leif fell eerily silent for a long time that she almost thought he fell asleep. After a minute or two he cleared his throat and said, "I will handle your mother's issue. The fabricated evidence they have on her won't hold up... It should be sorted by tonight so you come and see me tomorrow morning at my office. I will send a car."
Quinn lowered her head with a complicated look in her eyes. This... was she really doing this? Recalling everything her mother had been through she couldn't let her suffer again.
She bit her lips till they were brighter than usual. "En," she replied after a long while, "thank you."
At the sound of the call hung up, Leif closed his eyes with a slight smile at the corner of his lips. If Quinn had been there to see this smile she would have changed her mind immediately. Let her mother go to the rural part of the world and farm for a living. Yes, she would have to do most of the work but it was better than agreeing with Leif. Her mother was born a spoilt princess after all.
She threw herself on the bed and exhaled while pinching the ears of the fluffy lamp plush with a green bow tie. From the looks of it, this wee lamb had been with her for a very long time. Its fluff wasn't as fluffy as before and its tummy looked like it had been crudely operated on.
"Mumu, it's just marriage, right? It shouldn't matter, right?" she said seeking counsel from a lifeless wee lamb that looked like it was on its last lag.
Counsel member Mumu just looked at her blankly with no opinions. Quinn sighed heavily as she pulled Mumu into a tight embrace.
After ten minutes, sounds of her even breathing sounded in the air. She had a lot of things to worry about but after a day filled with ups and downs, she was so exhausted.
Just like every other night, it wasn't dreamless. She recalled sitting at the back of the class while flipping her pen in between her fingers trying to make sense of the chemical equations when a thin boy half a head shorter than her stood in front of her desk and placed a gift bag.
Quinn raised her head and looked at him for a second or two before saying, It's not my birthday today."
The little boy stubbornly looked at her wordlessly like he wouldn't leave until his gift was accepted. Quinn lowered her head and continued to study the equations though she couldn't understand anything because she could feel that boring gaze searing through her skin.
After a moment of lingering silence, she raised her head and looked at him. They had known each other for so long but after all the times she had rescued him he didn't even remember her birthday. Everyone even those people she didn't know wished her a happy birthday but this person didn't even remember.
"Why are you still here? It's not my birthday anymore. You can leave," she said but the boy still stood still staring at her with that indifferent cold gaze like he was dealing with a stranger, an outsider he had no feelings for.
Quinn raised her brow and asked, "Still not leaving?... Then I will leave."
After saying that she got up and bumped the corner of her desk by accident but since she was trying to maintain her intimidating demeanor she clenched her fist and carried on walking.
The things on her table instantly became messed up and her pencil case hit the floor. The boy wanted to follow and even took a step forward but his OCD kicked in and he couldn't leave the messy books and stationary like that thus he bent down and picked it up.
When Quinn turned around he found the boy picking up the things fallen on the ground. A hint of disappointment flashed in her obsidian eyes.
She walked away from the battle but this war was far from over. From that day onwards the boy would wait for her at the door of her class at each break and end of school with that stupid gift bag in his hand.
Quinn stubbornly refused to give him a second glance. She would deliberately ignore him as she passed by him. This went on for a week, well, that is until he caught up with her on the Friday at end of school. As she walked down the stairs with her mother on the call he heard a soft and barely audible voice call out, "Quinn... happy birthday."
Quinn's steps paused and she slowly turned to look back. When she turned around she saw him standing a step higher than him giving him a height advantage.
He handed her the gift bag wordlessly. Looking at him now one wouldn't believe he was the one that spoke just now.
Quinn tried to suppress the joy in her heart as she took the gift bag with a disinterested look on her face. When she opened it her heart almost vaporised into bits. She liked cute fluffy things as long as it wasn't alive. Her grandfather had already made her kill her pet so she didn't dare ask for one. This gift was that Mumu, the lamb that slept in her arms each night.
"Thank you," she said and the boy just stared at her like a portrait in an art gallery. Quinn knew his personality too well and how much it took for him to speak to her.
She suddenly smiled and grabbed the boy's wrist pulling him to come along. He wasn't happy being touched thus he struggled a bit. Fearing he would run she took his school bag and said, "Fine I won't touch you but I will take this as collateral. If you dare run I will... I will tell the entire school that we we.. we kissed."
That seemed to put the fear of god in him. Quinn didn't know why she said that at that time but she was only a teenager herself and she knew this would scare him. She was really in a good mood after receiving such a special gift from him thus she dragged him to get some milk tea outside the school.
The dream or rather the distant memory ended when she was trying to get him to drink the taro milk tea.
When she opened her eyes she was holding Mumu tightly her eyes red. She hated thinking about him because it would remind her of the last time she saw him. The day her little lackey died.