You Won’t Understand Me - Chapter 107

Whenever Yul would bring that up, Zeng would counter him with the same argument he had made before.

“Lu jie and Zaria had been together longer than us.”

Yul didn’t miss a second before replying, “And we had been together longer than most straight couples.” His answer made Zeng go silent. He opened his mouth but no words seemed fit to counter the argument. Yul looked him in the eyes, gaze demanding an answer, “Is this actually about the time, Zeng ge?”

Zeng fidgeted. Yul scoffed and took another grumpy bite of his doughnut, powdered sugar coating his lips, “I am not seeing it that way.”

Zeng nodded. “You are right,” he admitted, “But it’s not about the time but about the timing.”

Yul was confused. Zeng sat up straight and got closer to him. Yul was more confused when Zeng raised his hand only to find his boyfriend wanted to wipe the sugar from his lips with the pad of his thumb. “It’s difficult to have a conversation with you when you are looking like that.”

Yul huffed and Zeng pinched his cheek and said, “Tell me what you think marriage can do more for us.”

Yul had his answer prepared, “It will unite us in a true sense. Isn’t that why people want to marry?”

“But we are already together. We are going to be together,” the doctor reassured.

“Are we?” Yul retorted back.

Zeng raised an eyebrow, “You don’t believe me?”

“It’s not that, Zeng ge,” Yul stuttered now, “I am just… I don’t know… desperate maybe. I see my colleagues settling down. Heck, even the criminals we catch are married and have kids. And in all this, I wonder where my place is. I wonder why this happiness can’t be mine.”

Zeng froze. The words felt too familiar. It was like history repeating itself again. His bitter past came rushing back all of a sudden.

His heart was sinking further every moment as the words repeated in his head only with a different voice now, accusing him and demanding from him something that went beyond his capabilities. The difference was that it was not William this time, it was Yul.

He gulped, a trembling edge to his voice, “I- I am sorry.”

Now he felt guilty and equally hurt. To be honest, he had already felt the same, for years now but for him, avoiding it was the easier way. However, Yul was different. While Zeng avoided, Yul confronted.

Zeng wished he had been this spontaneous. He wished he could agree to the marriage at the drop of a hat. However, as evident from his past, whenever he truly wished for something, it never went down well. He never gained anything but lost a part of him in the process. He had known that his selfishness was most likely to result in disaster or worse, somebody hurting. Either him or the other person. Zeng didn’t want that. He could only wish for what he could see now or could see happening in the future. Going into unknown territory was equivalent to asking for failure. And he can’t have that with Yul.

He got up and began to leave. Yul knew that action all too well. It meant that he had said something that made Zeng feel cornered and so he had decided to retreat.

“Wait, what happened?” Yul asked, catching him by the wrist.

“Let me go.”

Now Yul was sure he must have said or done something wrong to elicit such a response from Zeng.

“Did I step on a landmine?” He asked, not letting go.

Zeng unwrapped Yul’s fingers from his wrist. “It’s nothing.” He left and went to the bedroom, got changed and engrossed himself in reading his books.

After a while, Yul came into the bedroom and stood close to the bed where Zeng was sitting.

Zeng waited for him to go away but the man didn’t move an inch. He sighed and looked up from his book, eyes boring into Yul through the spectacles.

“What?” He asked, glaring at him.

Yul glared back, “You are mad at me.”

“Aren’t you too?” Zeng questioned back.

Yul wiped his hand over his face. Zeng could see the vein throbbing in his temple. He waited for him to storm off the room and go somewhere else but Yul didn’t. He stayed.

Yul had learnt it the hard way that communication was the key in every relationship, especially with Zeng, who was the type of person to leave the room for interruption and so there was no way he was leaving this conversation without going to the root of it.

He snatched the book from Zeng’s hands and put it on the bed. He crossed his legs sitting before him.

“What happened?” He asked calmly, “And please don’t lie or say it’s nothing.”

Zeng looked at him, Yul looked back at him with determined eyes that conveyed that he was not going to leave without an answer. Zeng looked away, giving in.

“You promised that marriage and children would never meddle with what we have between us,” Zeng said, looking at the distant scenery out of the window, “It feels like only I remember that.”

Yul sighed. He remembered his own words that he had spoken to make Zeng stay. Everything that he had promised back then was contrary to what had been happening these days.

“I-… Fuck!” He sighed, “I am sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Zeng said quickly, “You are not wrong for wanting something you deeply desire and saying it out loud. It’s just that I feel like a fool being unable to do anything for you.” His lower lip trembled and he bit it in order to not cry. “I can not give you a marriage. I can not give you children,” Zeng said with a shaky breath. “I am not capable of it. I can’t do it, Yul, I can’t-”

Yul hugged him before he could finish.

“I am sorry,” he said, “That was selfish of me. I am sorry.”

“Don’t apologize for something you meant when you said it,” Zeng sighed in his shoulder, a tear escaping his eye which he quickly wiped away without the other noticing.

“I am apologizing for hurting you,” Yul said, pulling away and taking Zeng’s face in his hands. “Yul is sorry.”

Zeng snorted, “Don’t talk like a baby. You are not.”

“You are the baby,” Yul said, touching his forehead to Zeng’s, “You were crying, weren’t you?” He said, noticing the wetness around Zeng’s doe eyes.