At that point, Kate regretted her words. Gosh! I really can’t control the words that come out of my mouth! I just blurt out whatever’s on my mind! Why did I say that? We’re no longer as familiar with each other as before, so I should really mind my words!
Suddenly, the situation around them seemed to come to a bizarre silence. She realized that she was in the wrong, so she took the initiative to provide a response, “I was just joking. Don’t take it to heart.” He replied, ‘I didn’t. I enjoy this feeling. You haven’t spoken to me like this in ages!”
There was an inexplicable tone of grievance in his voice, and Kate couldn’t contain the sadness within her as soon as she heard his words. The tears seemed to well up in her eyes. Actually, we haven’t even spoken to each other for so long, what more to say to speak in such a manner!
“Did you hurt your arm from that day?” Kate asked. He hadn’t intended to let her know about this but unexpectedly, she had seen it with her own eyes, so he decided not to hide it from her. And so, he commented, “Yeah. I didn’t feel anything at that instant but the next day, there was some slight pain so I went to get an X-ray done.
Subsequently, the doctor made me put it in a cast. The cast makes it look quite serious, but I’m actually fine.”
Kate wasn’t quite used to Nathan’s current way of interacting with her, so she smiled out of instinct. As for Nathan, he voiced out upon seeing her smile, ‘What’s so funny?”
She responded, “In the past, even if it was just a tiny cut, you would have tried to rest in bed for a few days if you could. You were so exaggerated in your ways. Right now, though, this is such a bad injury but you seem quite nonchalant about it. I can’t believe that you actually said that you were fine! The doctor wouldn’t have put a cast on your arm if you were fine?!”
At that point, Nathan had a slightly guilty look on his face. He seemed to be reminiscing about the past, and there was once when he had been hospitalized after getting into a fight with someone else. He had been unconscious in the hospital for three days, and this woman here had taken care of him carefully for that period. From then on, he had given her the nickname of Katie the silly. After all, she was quite silly indeed.
He never did expect her to actually stay by his bedside and care for him. After all, she could have just arranged for a caregiver. However, as soon as he regained consciousness, he was startled by the sight of her. Her eyes were bloodshot from staying up all night and her eyelids were swollen. She looked very haggard and she looked no better than him, who was the patient.
At that moment, he had been very touched, but he didn’t think too much about it because she had given him a scolding as soon as he regained consciousness. She had scolded him for being stupid and for not running away from danger. She had also chided him for overestimating himself and fighting against a whole gang by himself.
Her scoldings seemed to cause the slight feelings he had for her to dissipate into thin air. Subsequently, he started to torment her and despite not being in pain, he purposely yelped exaggeratedly. He also requested for her to feed him and serve him drinks from time to time.
In fact, now that he thought of it, he must have developed feelings for her back then. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have purposely tried to attract her attention and torment her just to see the anxious look on her face that came about because of him. He relished seeing her run around because of him.
Right now, though, he didn’t quite understand the reason, but he no longer wanted to cause trouble for her. Furthermore, he didn’t want her to worry though he was injured. As he looked at her, he somehow felt slightly sad.
“Then do you prefer who I am right now or me in the past?” Nathan asked as he looked at Kate.
As soon as she heard that, her expression turned cold and she instinctively denied it, “Neither.”
She clearly heard him take a deep breath as soon as she finished her sentence. She realized that her words were quite hurtful but she was like a prickly porcupine right now, and she instinctively chose to reveal her prickly side out of instinct and cause hurt instead of being subjected to hurt.
After all, no one would wish to go through the same pain all over again. She had learned a hard lesson after experiencing that in the past. She was afraid that the sincere feelings, which she expressed, would be spurned so despite being deeply tormented, she chose to cause hurt to the other party too.
Nathan realized that the incident in the past. wasn’t something that she could get over easily, but he had no way of changing the past. Each time he thought of this when he was by himself late at night, he was so tempted to bash the despicable self that he was.
