Til Death... [Chan]

7

When I woke up the next morning, I was surprised to see Chan in the bed. He sat beside me, stroking my hair the same way he had last night. The body heat radiating off of him must've had me kicking away the comforter in my sleep because it was now a messy lump at the foot of the bed. Chan hummed an unfamiliar song as he fingered my hair, and it all felt very domestic, which was strange because we had just met.

"Good morning," he sang with a smile tugging at his lips.

I sat up, unsure of how I should act around my stranger-husband. "Hi," I stretched, raising my hands above my head. His eyes immediately dropped to my waist which had become exposed in the process. I became keenly aware of the fact that I was only in my bridal underwear and Chan's wedding shirt. I pulled the comforter back up and tossed it across my lap to cover myself more.

"You left," I recalled. "I waited up for you for hours."

He frowned at hearing that. "I'm sorry if I worried you. I just needed to take care of something."

I knew he'd gone to see the doctor. I knew he'd beaten him up. Why wasn't he telling me now?

"You should've given me a reason, Chan. I thought..." My voice trailed off, and my cheeks blushed in embarrassment again.

"You thought what?"

"I thought you didn't think I was pure enough for you," I mumbled while twisting the ring on my finger and staring at it intently to avoid his gaze.

"Ophelia..." My name oozed from his lips like honey. "Tell me you didn't sit here all night thinking that."

I shrugged, continuing to stare at my fingers and recalling how awful I'd felt about myself in his absence.

He brought forth a finger to lift my chin so that my eyes were forced to meet his, "Ophelia, I need you to hear me when I tell you that I do not care what you did with former partners. You could've slept with hundreds of men...or women, and it wouldn't have bothered me one bit. My parents were the ones who cared about that."

"Really?" I asked, wanting to believe him, but unsure because of everything that had been drilled into me about love and purity since birth.

"Yes," he answered matter-of-factly.

"Then why did hearing that I had been...you know..." I blushed timidly, "...touched down there make you so angry?"

Chan reached out and placed his ringed finger on top of mine. The metals clinked against each other, drawing my attention downwards again.

"I was just angry at the circumstances, Ophelia. He shouldn't have done that to you. It pissed me off even more when I realized it only happened because of my family," Chan explained.

"Oh..." I murmured, but then the question I had been pondering after he got home flashed into my mind. "Why do you care so much?"

He had an amused look on his face, "I'm your husband. It's my job to care."

"But we're still strangers," I reminded him. I don't think I'd beat someone up who hurt him. I'd definitely support him emotionally, but physical violence was pretty extreme to resort to right away.

"You can have empathy for strangers," he argued.

"But you usually don't beat up people who hurt strangers hours beforehand, do you?" I caught him in a trap but hadn't realized that, in doing so, I'd accidentally exposed my eavesdropping.

"How did you know that I went to see him?" Chan inquired with an unreadable expression. When I didn't answer, he grew impatient. "Ophelia? How did you know?"

"I overheard you on the phone last night," I confessed. "I heard you say that he was your father's mess now."

Chan's eyes examined mine nervously as if looking for something, as though he wasn't sure so was being honest, "Is that all you overheard?"