Safe in My Hands

Lien smells Da Hong Pao tea

She smiles because Zean knows Da Hong Pao tea is her favorite.

Her eyes flick open and the clarity smashes down on her with the force of a head-on collision. Mei Lien realizes where she is.

She immediately wants to cry again, all those bad memories from yesterday came all at once. The last thing she remembers is a manly voice saying something to her but yet she could not identify what the stranger said.

When she walks to the bathroom, Mei Lien realized her medical bands on her forehead. Yep, last night is very vague. After she walks out to the bathroom, she sees the chair has been turned so that it's facing the bed now instead of the door. There's a blanket thrown over it haphazardly, and it's obvious someone was there last night while she slept next to the chair is Da Hong Pao tea.

She realizes that she is in a stranger's house, she knows that she didn't go to work. She is already feeling her manager going crazy. Perhaps, Zean also knows about her disappearance.

She bitterly laughs...

She is in love with a man who physically hurts her. Of all people, she has no idea how she let herself get to this point.

She uses to question many times while growing up about what was going through her mother's head in the days after her father had hurt her. How she could love a man who had laid his hands on her. A man who repeatedly hit her. Repeatedly promised he would never do it again. Repeatedly hit her again.

Mei Lien hates that she can empathize with her now.

But sometimes the reason women go back is simply because they're in love. She loves Zean, she loves so many things about him. Mei Lien wishes to cut her feelings off for the person who hurt her was as easy as she used to think it would be. Preventing your heart from forgiving someone you love is a hell of a lot harder than simply forgiving them.

'How could she love him after what he did to her? How could she contemplate taking him back?' those questions usually she uses to ask herself when she saw his mother suffering. Yet, now she is the one.

"Mei Lien?" A manly voice says, his eyebrows draw together, like if seeing her so fragile somehow hurt him.

She remembers his strong fragrance, yes, he is the stranger who helped her. Now that she can see he is tall, even taller than Zean, his skin is like porcelain yet mainly with define jaw and those dark eyes that can easily reflect 'I am the emperor' she has been 3 years in the industry but this man can't be any jealous of any good-looking man.

He squeezes her shoulder and leans forward, kissing the top of her head. So fast, that she could process what is happening. She closes her eyes as she soaks up the familiarity of him. His smell, his touch, his comfort; so rock-solid, yet comforting.

"You okay?" He asks.

'I am not.' Mei Lien thought.

Minutes later Mei lien separates from his embrace, she still conscious about he been a stranger,

Fu#k, She doesn't know his name.

The man in front of her, looked at her trying to understand her abruptly move.

He knows, everything about her, while she doesn't remember.

He used to hug her every time her father used violence into her mother, yet she was a little girl to understand at that time.

He knows he was part of her memories, they used to hang out together at night, neither his and her mother knew.

Until one day, she didn't come to him anymore, she just disappears from his reach. Then, when he thought he would never see her. On his worse; his mother died, it was the day she debuted as a singer.

Yet destiny reunited them together.

But fate breaks them apart, she never came to see him.

While he hid in the shadows, she was the brightest star between all,

He became her protector and her, his unique start.

"Mei, don't you know me?" His elegant voice rings in Mei Lien's ears.

'Mei, don't you know me?'

'Mei'

'Mei'

'Mei'

'Mei'

Repeats in Mei Lien's mind as a broken radio.

This voice...

His deep voice...

His dark pupils...

His... Hiss.....

Lost memories from her past leap with rage.

L-liang...

'You are always safe in my hands, Mei' A young boy whispered to her, as deep as she recalls.

The same young that she used to know 'Zhao Jin Liang'.