DiDi watched her walk away and from his left, his best friend emerged.
He and Xi Zi had come for coffee and breakfast in the mall since he lived near the area. They were on their way to Starbucks when they saw Chen Feiyu and Shen Yue talking under the LED board pathway.
"Asshole of the year..." Xi Zi announced.
"Don't start with me!" he growled out.
"Or what? You will scream at me and tell me you don't love me too?"
He clenched his fist. "Li Xi Zi!" he warned.
"If you think I am afraid of you or that I will back down from a fight, you are sorely mistaken. I am not Wu Xi Ze."
Sometimes, the man was a pain in the neck.
"What I said is the truth."
"I am also NOT Wu Yi Fan. I am not gullible."
"Well, whatever you are, I don't want to ever be in a fight with you. You disappeared and you only came out now, when everything was done."
The other guy rolled his eyes. "First, I was just talking to you and before I knew it, you were already in a word war with Zi Wei's moronic ex. Second, I haven't even recovered from my shock at the turn of events and you were already walking away with Ms. Writer. Third, you and beauty started a fight of your own and you screamed at her you did not love her and she walked away crying. Fourth and final point, nothing escalated to a fist fight so you have no need for me."
"She wasn't crying" DiDi didn't know why he zoomed in on that detail.
"She was. I saw her."
"I didn't."
"She had her back to you. And I think with how angry she was, she wouldn't have even wiped her face until she was sure you could not see her anymore."
"Well I don't care" he responded coldly.
"I knew there was a reason that even when you could pass as James Dean you never got in to showbizness. You suck at acting."
DiDi turned away from his friend. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"She's right, you know. You ARE more furious about the fact that she did not defend you."
His hand started to itch, looking for something to punch. "I have to be in love with her to be angry about that."
"And you're not?"
"I'm not."
Xi Zi shrugged his shoulders. "If you say so."
"I. DON'T. LOVE. THAT. WOMAN!"
"AGAIN. If you say so."
"Why don't you believe me?!?"
"What is it to you if I don't believe you?"
He shook his head and went back to the parking lot. DiDi does not want to talk to the other man anymore.
Why is he being pushed to say that he got angry because Shen Yue did not defend him or seemed to not have even made any efforts to defend him against Feiyu?
He does not need HER defending him.
He can defend himself fine against anyone.
And he can thoroughly defend himself against that bastard of an ex that his sister had.
Of course, he did not expect to see that guy at all.
He had effectively been able to avoid him and Zuer for years.
When he saw Feiyu again, he would have dismissed the guy if he had not seen that it was Shen Yue he was talking to.
The writer had seemed happy and smiling at first and when her face fell after something that Feiyu said, his feet went into high gear, walking towards them.
He didn't even exactly know what he was thinking but when Feiyu called Yue callous to even consider dating him, everything around him went dark.
The son of a b*tch was a hypocrite!
And he shouldn't be going around accusing other people of being cruel when he himself effectively ripped out the heart of a most beloved sister and DiDi, himself.
Did Feiyu ask nicely when he stole Zuer away?
Did he think about the pain he would bring Zi Wei when he cheated with another woman?
WHAT RIGHT DID HE HAVE TO ACCUSE SHEN YUE OF CALLOUSNESS FOR DATING DIDI?!?!?
"Oi! Don't drive while you are raging like that!" Xi Zi piped up from behind him "You might kill someone."
"It's either I get away from here or I punch you."
"Well punch me. As I said, I am not Wu Xi Ze. I can take your punches and then punch you right back. That is infinitely better than you killing someone on the road."
DiDi knows his best friend is right but he cannot contain his resentment.
Maybe it would have been better if he had just punched Feiyu in the face a while ago.
But surely Yue would have stood with the other guy and he would have seen blood right after.
If he did not know Dong Xin, he would have questioned Yue's taste in friends.
He does not know anyone else who so blatantly gets friendly with snakes.
"I am serious in telling you to NOT drive" his best friend bid for attention again.
DiDi realized that he was standing beside his car fiddling with keys.
"We're not going too far from here. We'll just grab coffee somewhere else."
"I'll drive" Xi Zi told him "I'll go back for my car later."
"I. Won't. Kill. Anyone."
"We're not risking it." Xi Zi nicked the keys from his hands and pushed him towards the passenger seat's door.
He reined in his anger and did as he was directed.
OK.
Maybe he indeed could kill someone with the way his blood is rising right now.
But he doesn't want to just stay where he is because he could do something crazy – like apologize to Shen Yue.
"Was she really crying?" he asked the other guy now, a lot calmer than he was a few seconds ago.
"Yep."
"Good."
Xi Zi pinched his nose at that statement. "It is official. You are more of an idiot than I am!"
"What are you talking about?!?"
"Di, when we talk, I don't lie to you. Even if what I say makes me look stupid or an asshole or a loser, just like this thing that I have for Xiao Wen, I wouldn't lie. And I know you are like that too. You don't lie to me. So, if you are not going to say the truth, then I will just think that you don't know what the truth is at all too."
Trust the man to bring him a knockout punch, DiDi thought morosely, dampening the fury that had built itself inside him.
He took a heavy breath.
"I still don't like her writing that book about Zi Wei"
"Then tell her."
"I did that countless of times already!"
"Not THAT! Tell her you like her but you are torn about it because she is writing Zi Wei's book."
Force of habit had him ready to respond in the negative but he had decided to already recognize that truth.
This is the first time he would acknowledge to anyone what he truly feels.
His heart thundered.
"That's hard, Xi Zi. She does not trust me. She will think it is one of my ploys to get her to stop writing."
"It isn't?"
Now he really wanted to punch the other guy.
"ARE YOU AN IDIOT?!? I'm sure you already see how much I am struggling with the damn hassle of liking the woman!"
His best friend laughed out loud and DiDi began to see black.
He is going to make sure that he will invite Xiao Wen to one of their corporate parties and he will have her sit beside Xi Zi the whole night so he can laugh out this loud at the other man's face too. He will move mountains to do it.
"I'm just testing you!" Xi Zi answered as another Starbucks came into view "So... are you admitting that you got angry because Miss Beautiful Writer did not defend you against that foul and sniveling worm your sister calls an ex?"
"When I said I did not expect her to defend me, that was true. We're enemies. Why would she?"
"But you hoped she would?"
DiDi fought the urge to break his head against the dashboard.
He does not know why he waited for her to say something in defense of him.
He does not know what absolute insanity has come to him.
"Yes" he answered in defeat.
Xi Zi patted his shoulder. "That's ok. It's normal to hope. Even IF hope is that fucker who crashes your party and stays to drink all of your beer."
And there could be nothing more true.
Liking Shen Yue is an inconvenience.
Hoping she could like him back is an inconvenience.
HOPE.
WHAT A GODDAMN INCONVENIENCE.
He had prayed for years for someone to come along and take him out of the cave that Zuer had put him in. Why is it that when he thought he finally had a rope out of that darkness, it wasn't an angel but a minx who held the ropes?
"You always go after the wrong kind of girls Wang He Di" he told himself.