6
Tokay, I’ll eat my poop.]
[This awkward, deliberately avoidant vibe… something’s not right.]
[Oh, Cole turned off the light.]
[Is there anything my premium VIP membership doesn’t let me see???】
In reality, nothing happened.
Cole, wrapped in a thin blanket, slept on the floor. His breathing was extremely shallow.
I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, unable to sleep.
Because the bed was too squeaky. Every time I turned over, it would creak.
2015
I used to complain to him about it, too. But my complaints were always accompanied by a resigned sigh. “Cole, don’t be so… hold back a little.”
We were young and reckless back then.
Now, one turn.
Creek.
And remembered.
And I wasn’t the only one who remembered.
Cole threw off the blanket, wearing only a thin gray t–shirt, and walked out the door, closing it behind him.
Flick.
In the deep, neon–lit night, a cigarette glowed in his hand.
When I first knew him, he didn’t smoke. He was a good boy.
He wasn’t smoking now either.
Just lighting it.
In the distance, headlights swept by.
Cole and Ashton, who had just gotten out of a car, came face to face.
“Delivering the cake,” Ashton explained, craning his neck to peer through the window. He saw the separate blankets on the bed and the floor.
A knowing smile spread across his face.
“What can I say,” Ashton said. “She’s just too clingy.”
Though they barely knew each other and the other man wasn’t responding, Ashton felt an inexplicable need to assert his presence
2015
“She’s been wanting this for a long time. She insisted I buy it. She won’t eat it if anyone else gets it for her. Tomorrow, when she wakes up and
sees it, she’ll be moved to tears.”
“Hey,” Ashton raised his eyes. “You don’t know, do you? I was her first love.”
“Is that so?” the other man finally replied.
“Why would I lie?” Ashton said. “She’s on this show to win me back.”
The cake.
I didn’t see it when I woke up the next day.
The live stream ended.
This time, for the post–interview special, all four of us were gathered together for the first time.
I was late, the last to arrive.
A staff member handed me an earpiece. My newly washed hair was too smooth, and I couldn’t get it to stay on.
Across the room, Vera and Ashton were drawing question cards.
I lowered my head. The earpiece was about to fall off.
A hand from my left swiftly caught it.
“Thanks,” I said, trying to take it from Cole.
But he didn’t let go. Instead, he helped me put it on, adjusting it as he did.
It wasn’t an overly intimate gesture. Just colleagues helping each other out. After all, the cameras were here, the crowd was here.
“It’s caught,” he said.
My hair and the earpiece.
He had to lean in closer.
From across the room, Ashton’s voice came, his peripheral vision catching me and Cole.
It was a normal action.
If not for the fact that Cole, on instinct, kissed my hair.
The scent was too familiar. I rarely change the products I use; my shampoo has smelled the same for years.
The scent of his own washed hair.
The room suddenly fell silent.
Ashton shot to his feet.
Cole pulled his hand back and said to me, with extreme politeness and restraint, “Sorry, I accidentally brushed against it.”
The producer, realizing what had happened, quickly saved the situation. “It happens. Let’s move on to the next question.”
After all, it was just a fleeting moment, a touch and then a retreat.
So fast that Ashton didn’t even get a clear look,
It must have been an accident.
He sat back down.
The question game.
When it was my turn to draw a card, I got the “First Love” card.
The producer asked me, “Is your first love your greatest love?”
Ashton, who had been lounging lazily, sat up and looked at me. The eyes of everyone in the room darted between me and Ashton.
Chapter
Everyone thought he was my first love.
“Yes,” I said.
Hearing my answer, Ashton sat up straighter, unable to resist a smug glance at Cole. But the other man was distracted.
Cole was turned to the side, looking at the snow falling outside the window.
The window reflected my face.
“Same question,” the producer said. “For Cole to answer.”
He was in my group. The card questions were the same.
Vera was not his first love.
No one knew who that person was.
“She’s annoying. She’s really, really annoying.”
Cole’s voice was extremely soft. So soft that the end of his words carried a hint of unprecedented grievance.
Everyone in the room perked up, their ears open for gossip.
“Such resentment,” the producer asked. “What did she do?”
“For example,” he turned his head, drawing out his words, “marrying someone else, but saying that I was her greatest love.”
It made no sense. No one in the room understood.
But Ashton still frowned unconsciously.
The producer flipped the last card.
“Chloe, what do you want to say to your first love right now?”
A hundred safe answers popped into my head.
But what came out was, “I hope he doesn’t hate me too much.”
It was a reasonable answer. Everyone in the room could understand it. They all thought I wanted to reconcile with Ashton.
Ashton’s smugness returned. He raised an eyebrow, clearly intending to string me along, not giving me an easy way out.
Until, to the same question, Cole answered, “I was lying just now. I don’t hate her.”
That’s when Ashton started to realize that something was not quite right.
20.10 W
Chapter 2
