shifu (hiatus) > Books: favourite-plots‎ (49)

"What are the circumstances behind the person who became the world's greatest villainess?"

"What are the circumstances behind the person who became the world's greatest villainess?"

"I notice he’s wearing a white button-down, half untucked into his curiously unrumpled black slacks. His shirtsleeves are folded, pushed up past his elbows."

“I won’t let go until you’re ready,” he tells me. “Don’t worry. Take your time.”

“Don’t torture me,” he says, meeting my eyes again. “It’s a cruel thing to do, even to someone like me.”

“You should get a dog, love. I hear they share much the same qualities.”

“You want me and it’s killing you. You deserve so much more than charity. You deserve to live. You deserve to be alive. Come back to life, love. I’ll be here when you wake up.”

Adam’s fist is frozen only inches from Warner’s face. It’s caught in Warner’s hand.
Adam is shocked into silence, his whole body shaking from the unspent energy. Warner leans into his brother’s face, whispers, “You really don’t want to fight me, you idiot,” and hurls Adam’s fist back with so much force that Adam flies backward, catching himself just before hitting the floor.

“I’m here for you, kid. That’s what friends are for.”

“I was happier,” Adam says, “when I thought she was dead.”

“Are you okay?” he’s saying. “God—are you okay? What happened? Are you all right?”

He’s here.

He’s here and all I want to do is fall apart but I don’t.

“Do you want me to leave?” Warner asks.

“No,” I say too quickly. “No.”

Warner leans back, just a little. “Tell me what you want,” he says desperately. “Tell me what to do,” he says, “and I’ll do it.”

I turn on Warner, chest heaving, fists clenched. “Give them what they want. I don’t care what it is,” I say to him. “Please, you have to negotiate. You have to make this work. I need him. I need my friends.”

Warner looks at me for a long time.

“Please,” I whisper.

“I don’t want you to be repulsed by me”

“You’re perfect,” I tell him, so overcome I forget myself. “All of you. Your entire body. Proportionally. Symmetrically. You’re absurdly, mathematically perfect. It doesn’t even make sense that a person could look like you,” I say, shaking my head. “I can’t believe you would ever say something like that—”

“I thought you could sense feelings,” I say to him. “I thought mine would be so obvious to you.”

“I can’t always think clearly,” he says, frustrated, rubbing his face, his forehead. “Especially when my emotions are involved. I can’t always be objective—and sometimes I make assumptions,” he says, “that aren’t true—and I don’t—I just don’t trust my own judgment anymore. Because I’ve done that,” he says, “and it’s backfired. So terribly.”

“Why don’t you understand?” He looks up at me and his eyes are so full of pain and devastation it actually takes my breath away.

My hands are shaking. “Understand what—?”

“I love you.”

He breaks.

His voice. His back. His knees. His face.

He breaks.

He has to hold on to the side of his desk. He can’t meet my eyes. “I love you,” he says, his words harsh and soft all at once. “I love you and it isn’t enough”

Which means right now, I’m watching him bench-press three hundred and fifteen pounds. Three forty-five-pound plates on each side of what Kenji told me is called an Olympic bar, which weighs an additional forty-five pounds. I can’t stop staring. I don’t think I’ve ever been more attracted to him in all the time I’ve known him.

“You’re not attracted to him?”

“I’m attracted to you.”

“I’m serious,” he says.

“So am I.”

“How easy is it to take this thing off?”

“You know,” he whispers, his lips at my ear, “the whole world will be coming for us now.”

I lean back. Look into his eyes.

“I can’t wait to watch them try.”

"I once had a thousand desires,
But in my one desire to know you,
all else melted away"
- Jalal al-Din Rumi

"The rose’s rarest essence lives in the thorns.
- Jalal al-Din Rumi"

A trickle of blood slid down his arm.
He felt nothing. He only saw it.
Because nothing hurt like missing her.

Khalid bowed deeply, touching his fingertips to his brow. “I wish you happiness, Vikram Singh.”
“And I you, meraa dost—my greatest friend.”

“And now, so do I. Keep watch over your shadow, Khalid-jan. Because, for the first time in eighteen years, I won’t be there to watch it for you.”

Shahrzad knew it was Khalid. She sensed rather than saw him.
As always. As ever. As a rose to the sun.
Her knees shook. A chill ran from the nape of her neck to the soles of her feet.
“Shahrzad?”
Low and unassuming. Unmistakable. When Shahrzad met his gaze, everything around her melted away. Even the driving rain came to a sudden standstill.
A moment suspended in time. A pair of amber eyes across a balcony.
And there was no more fear. No more worry. No more judgment.
Her knees no longer shook. Her heart steadied in her chest.
In that moment of perfect balance, she understood. This peace? These worries silenced without effort?
It was because they were two parts of a whole. He did not belong to her. And she did not belong to him. It was never about belonging to someone.
It was about belonging together.

The last thing he saw was her face.
In the end, there was only love.
So much more than he deserved.

“I’ve missed the silence of you listening to me.” Shahrzad attempted a weak smile. “No one listens to me as you do.” His expression turned quizzical. “You don’t wait to speak,” she clarified. “You truly listen.” “Only to you,” Khalid replied gently.”

One hundred lives for the one you took. One life to one dawn. Should you fail but a single morn, I shall take from you your dreams. I shall take from you your city.

And I shall take from you these lives, a thousandfold.

“What are you doing to me, you plague of a girl?” he whispered.
“If I’m a plague, then you should keep your distance, unless you plan on being destroyed.” The weapons still in her grasp, she shoved against his chest.
“No.” His hands dropped to her waist. “Destroy me.”

“Love is—a shade of what I feel.”

“Shazi,

I prefer the color blue to any other. The scent of lilacs in your hair is a source of constant torment. I despise figs. Lastly, I will never forget, all the days of my life, the memories of last night—
For nothing, not the sun, not the rain, not even the brightest star in the darkest sky, could begin to compare to the wonder of you.

Khalid.”