𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐄𝐧𝐞𝐦𝐲'𝐬 𝐇𝐮𝐬𝐛𝐚𝐧𝐝 || 敵の旦那様 (𝐁𝐋) ✔ [COMPLETE]

27. Disproportionate

"Oh you, sly fox." She immediately jumped on him, wrapping herself around him like a parasite winding around a well-grounded tree and writhed salaciously as she said "What you did earlier was a ploy to make me chase after you right? Even that subtly cunning part of you gets my heart racing."

"Is that so?" he asked and tightened his hold on her. "Good for me indeed."

"Right?" she said, smiling. "I love everything about you, including the way you reek of power and manliness... every single part of you is so superior to any man in the entirety of Blazing Sun."

General Haoran vaguely heard her chattering on and on about something while his mind wandered on any holes in his plan- to use this woman as a decoy if the Minister of revenue was to question where he had gone. He could use the excuse of parading the Manor with her to escape suspicion if the Minister were to get a whiff of him walking around every nook and cranny of the Manor. After contemplating his plan and making sure he had a leeway out if things were to go wrong, he began actually concentrating on the woman beside him. For a great performance in front of the Minister might as well play along with her.

The General, after that, observed her intensely and painstakingly slowly. His eyes raked through every inch of the skin and features on her, lingering in some parts and moving reluctantly through others. After a while, he looked slightly shocked. Something wasn't right... her face was disproportionate. But the last time he saw her, she seemed fine?

Her eyelashes were a bit too thick... and eyes were a bit too small And her lips were thinner than the average...

They should be more like... more like...

Suddenly General Haoran recounted the image of Fu Lin treading out of the dressing room by elegantly raising one singular hand through the curtain of beads. Following the pale, thin hand came through a scorching, striking colour of red. A colour that embodied a robe which draped neatly over his upper body and gathered around his hips in weaves. When he raised his downcast eyes and smiled softly, everything changed. Fu Lin had very little lashes and his one or two lashes curved like the branches of a tree in autumn, blended well with his 'shocked' eyes, which were also bent in charming curves as he smiled. And his lips, which often had a foolish edge to it and always seemed like someone forced a cherry among them, had straightened out and its corners lifting in a refined smile. And finally, the most hazardous feature on him was the sparkling red dot between his brows... It was the feature that made General Haoran realise that this man was a royal through and through.

What 'passable'?

What in the world was he thinking when he said that?

He suddenly had an infuriating urgency to look at Fu Lin's face. The woman beside him was still chattering about something that fell deaf on his ears as his feet spurned forward involuntarily.

The more he gazed at this woman's face the more he realised what disservice he had done to

Fu Lin by comparing this woman with him and as a heavy stench of pungent perfume suffused into the General's breath from her, he immediately let go of her walking away.

He felt at ease knowing he much preferred the subtle smell of jasmine over any corrigible elite perfume that often wafted off of the greedy nobles.

He wanted to see Fu Lin. Now.

As he began walking towards the dining room, Jing Hui, who was rejected yet again, stood despairingly by the wall with tears threatening to spill over from her eyes. She watched his retreating back for a few minutes silently and then finally couldn't take it anymore as she asked,

"Why do you not like me? Tell me one good reason so I can let you go in my heart." The General paused minutely and stood, not replying. Then he said,

"If you still dare to ask why after all you did, I only have one reply for you: I do not like you because you are you. But I know you are someone utterly incapable of accepting a reason like that so I can give you another reason that you can pacify yourself with" The General said coldly. "It's because you smell of perfume."

Jing Hui looked dumbfounded, but the General did not have any more time to waste on her. Therefore, he quickly made his way through the myriad of turns and corners until he came to a stop right before the dining hall, as he heard the clear noise of a ruckus happening. From the looks of it, the Minister was heaving and his voice was strained with both anger and frustration.

"You... are perhaps a stone? I've been throwing insult after insult at you like a dog getting dragged through the mud but all you do is ignore me and sip tea," The Minister huffed, he was so destroyed by irritation his voice appeared slightly drunk too "Even a fly would know better shame and dignity than you! Tell me, why are you not bothered by my words?"

After a long moment of silence, Fu Lin's heavy thick Eastern accent came out, albeit a bit choppy because of his throat injury. "Good Sir, what is your name?"

"You do not even know my name?" The Minister of revenue asked, shocked.

"That's right sir. I do not know your name nor of what minister you are." Fu Lin's voice like the airy breeze lolled about "In fact in my mind... I call you 'pregnant-lookalike', because I couldn't find it in myself to be bothered to know who or what you are. That is how insignificant you are to me- and you ask me why I don't care for your words?"

When General Haoran heard Fu Lin's voice, he fell into a mental vise, eyes widening into a trance. Like ink blotching and trickling drop by drop into a clean bowl of water, a warmth he

couldn't fathom spread itself through his body. The silent void that had been gnawing away at the General had been immediately filled to the brim.

He suddenly realised that the intense yearning he felt for some sort of noise... was actually for Fu Lin's voice.

With this realisation, a sudden pang of pain shot through the General, among the joy. It meant that Fu Lin had talked for a while but chose not to. He went as far as resorting to writing notes instead of exchanging a meagre few words. Perhaps Fu Lin considered the General undeserving of enough respect for him to consider a regular conversation between equal individuals.

And it was understandable why he would do so. The General did, after all, wield his blade at Fu Lin and try to threaten him into submission.

Though it was understandable, it was still hard to digest. It was as if the more he realised what about Fu Lin appeals to him as a person, the more he found out how much Fu Lin hated him. He didn't like this sense of inequality. He was a man who was accustomed to giving people equal measure of whatever they gave him. If they were sincere about him, that is.

That doesn't mean he was a man who forced affection and emotion out of others on his own terms. He would apologise if he is supposed to and if it would help the situation. But here... he could not apologise to Fu Lin. And Fu Lin now hates him.

And he, for whatever reason, harbours goodwill towards the man.

Unequal measures do not happen in the General's life, therefore he clenched his fists as he thought,

"I shall hate him too."

*******************

General Haoran's math: 

He's nice but not nice to me = he's not nice 

which = I don't need to be nice to him too. 

ლ(ಠ_ಠ ლ) smh