295 A nightmare
It was a moonless night with chilly winds rustling the air around Jun. He found himself standing on a terrace with the city night view glimmering beyond him.
What is this place…
He shuddered, thinking about the past life. The night tonight felt eerily similar to the night he died in his car crash of suicide.
He took a step back when suddenly, he saw Ai standing right before him. But she wasn’t inside the terrace. She stood outside the terrace’s railing, upon a narrow platform that barely fit her feet together.
“Ai?”
He took slow steps towards her. “Ai? What are you doing here?”
When he reached closer and realized that she was actually standing outside the railing, the color drained from his face. “Ai…No! It’s dangerous over there! Come inside! W-wait. Don’t move. I will help you!”
“You cannot help me, Jun.”
Jun stopped abruptly. Her quiet voice coupled with her impassive expression made his heart pound in his chest.
“Don’t be an idiot, Ai!” He extended his arm and anxiously urged her. “Hold my hand, Ai! Quickly!”
Ai stared at his outstretched hand but didn’t make any attempts to move at all. She softly shook her head. “You cannot help me. I am supposed to fall.”
“What nonsense! Just stop talking and give me your hand!”
“I am supposed to fall, Jun. It’s fate. Just like how Chen Zixin was hurt.”
Jun froze.
“You cannot win against fate. I died by falling from this place in my past life. I will die once again just like that.”
“No…Don’t talk like that, Ai. I won’t let you die. I won’t let you die!”
Ai showed a pained expression. “Nothing can stop it, Jun. I am sorry.”
Her body started tilting backwards, and Jun scrambled towards her. “No! Ai!”
He stretched his arm once again to catch hold of her, but he narrowly missed by an inch. It was empty air in his palm, and he could do nothing but watch Ai fall and vanish into the darkness.
“Ai…” tears fell from his face and he screamed. “AI!!!!!”
Ai opened her eyes and woke up with a jolt, hearing a loud scream. At her side, she saw Jun was restlessly moving in bed, sweating and breathing hard.
“Jun?”
“Ai! Ai!” Jun kept screaming her name in the dead silence of the night.
“Jun, I am here,” she quickly held his hand and patted his cheek to wake him up. She then gave his shoulders a hard shake and loudly called out his name. “Jun!”
His eyes snapped open, and he gasped wide awake. He woke up with a start and looked around the room, confused.
“Jun,” she wiped the sweat off his forehead.
“T-this is our room…” he mumbled in a daze. “I was there…”
She turned his head to make him face her. “You were having a bad dream. It’s okay now. I am here with you,” she gently whispered to soothe him.
Jun grabbed her head and looked at her cautiously from head to toe. His hands trembled as he touched her cheeks and hands. “You are…alright.”
You are not dead. Not dead…
Ai felt the fear in his gaze, and her heart ached. The corner of his eyes were moist, and she could imagine how horrible of a nightmare Jun might have seen.
“It’s because of Chen Zixin, right?” She slowly asked.
The failure of preventing his accident from happening had taken a huge toll upon Jun’s heart. He thought everything was in control but then suddenly, it wasn’t.
Jun felt deathly tired. He ever so slowly pulled her into his embrace. It was the first time that Ai felt his hug so weak, shivering and diffident.
“Ai, I saw you fall in my dream. You were standing outside the terrace railing. You fell, but I couldn’t save you. I couldn’t pull you back…” his hoarse voice was filled with gloom and self-doubt. “You said that I cannot change fate. That I cannot help you, and then you fell.”
Ai pursed her lips. “Is that what I said? Then that woman in your dream cannot be me. Because I never say hopeless and sad things like that. I will never say something like that to you. It must be somebody else.”
“…It was you.”
“Then you need to look at me a little harder. You misunderstood another woman as me. I am hurt,” she tried to lighten the mood.
Which did make Jun burst into a soft chuckle involuntarily. “What?”
She beamed hearing his chuckle and continued her drama. “Yes. I didn’t know you were dreaming of other women when you have such a cute girlfriend. And here you get possessive if I even look at another man. Isn’t that unfair?” She questioned the sincerity of his love.
Jun knew what she was trying to do and hugged her tighter. “Indeed, it’s unfair. I am sorry.”
Ai seriously nodded.
“Ai.”
“Hm?”
“Can I really protect you?”
“If not you, then nobody else can protect me either,” Ai spoke without any hesitation. “And I don’t want anybody else protecting me either. It has to be you.”
He trembled.
“Jun. Chen Zixin’s accident doesn’t reflect your failure. You already did what you could based on your previous life’s memories. Nobody knew that somebody else had pulled the strings, and you cannot act on something that you don’t know about. How is it your fault? You are being too hard on yourself,” she scolded him.
“…Really?”
“Really.”
“I am scared, Ai. I promised you that you never have to be afraid of falling ever again. What if I failed that promise?”
Ai pinched his cheek. “You have never failed me before, and I know that you will never fail me in the future too. Jun, don’t take everything on yourself. Don’t feel that it’s only your responsibility to protect everything and everyone. I want you to rely on me too. But you don’t. When it comes to your problems, you take everything by yourself whether it was announcing your breakup to your family all alone or right now with the accident.”
Jun cleared his throat.
“I can hear your guilt with that cough.”
“…”
Ai thought about something and quickly got off the bed. “Wait here for me.”