The Overnight Chosen Wife: darling, kiss me deeper

He was still telling his mother how Linhou and Yue were meant for each other when his father came from upstairs and wrapped his arms around her. "Baby." He kissed her ear like Shuihan wasn’t there.

"You know what? I’ll be on my way. I did promise Linhou and Yue some snacks." He fled. He would be out of his mind if he stayed to witness his parents’ display of affection. The two liked to hug and hold each other whether he was there or not, and if he complained about it, they would shove their love story down his throat.

Lanni turned around to kiss him. "Honey, are you done with work?"

"Work is too boring without you by my side. Come, let’s do it together." He urged, running a hand down her shoulder in a way that made it obvious that work was the last thing on his mind.

She looked around and sighed in relief when she didn’t see Shuihan. Turned out he had fled far enough. Even then, she pinched her husband’s nose. "Don’t be playful. The kids are still here."

He didn’t care. "They should know when to leave."

She could neither agree nor disagree so she let it be. He shot his eyes towards the terrace to make sure the kids were too focused on each other, then he carried his wife in his arms and headed up the stairs.

___

Outside.

Yue glanced at the time on her phone with a frown. "Shuihan is taking too long. I guess I’ll just leave."

"Don’t." He reached to stop her, and she frowned. They both knew Lanni lived a bit far from the city and it would take her an hour to get home, and the sooner she left, less likely she was to get stuck in traffic.

When he didn’t retract his hand, she sat back down in concern. "Okay. You are acting strange. Is there something you are not telling me?"

Linhou swallowed. "That guy is not good for you." He said, referring to her boyfriend.

This was not the first time he was revealing this kind of attitude agaisnt him, so she decided to hear him out. "Why? Do you know him?"

Linhou ran a hand down his hair in frustration. "No. But I don’t like him. I just know he isn’t good. Gut feeling..."

He knew he sounded like an idiot and from her gaze, she thought so too.

"You are out of your mind." She finally remarked and stood to leave.

"I have a bad feeling about him. My gut has never been wrong! Hey!" He yelped when she suddenly elbowed him in the side.

"Why am I friends with you again?" She rolled her eyes. "First, you can’t stop sneaking into my room, then you try to tell me what to do, and now that I’m finally in a relationship, you don’t support me but instead find all sorts of excuses why I shouldn’t?"

She stopped speaking and looked him right in the eyes. "Why, Linhou?"

His mouth felt dry. He didn’t ever notice it before but there was a hint of seduction in her gaze, and when she looked at his lips, it was as though she was inviting him to kiss her. So he leaned over, only to stop in his tracks. What if he was seeing that only because he didn’t want her kissing another guy?

But she wouldn’t want that from him. She had a boyfriend.

He raked his fingers through his hair, messing it up even further.

"When will you ever see me as a man?"

She sucked in a breath sharply. "You want me to see you...as a man?"

"What? No no. That’s not what I mean." He snapped out of it, too late as she was on her way back to the house before he could say a word more. She was leaving.

"Why did I say that?" He grumbled to himself. "Wait. Why do I even want her to see me as a man?"

"It’s okay. She will come around."

He nearly jumped out of his skin before he remembered that Shuihan had been with them a moment ago.

___

The next morning, he finally drove home. It was Saturday and he didn’t have to go to work so the night before, Shuihan had talked him into spending the night.

It was still a bit early for his mother who was a night owl, so he opened the door and entered as quietly as possible—only to see a man sitting next to his sister on the living room couch and holding her hand.

He knitted his brows in anger and before anyone could realize it, he grabbed the young man and punched him in the face.

"You bastard!"

"Jiang Linhou! What on earth is wrong with you?" Xiaomu screeched.

"This son of a bitch!" Linhou pushed him to the floor and hovered over him, throwing punch after punch.

"Linhou, stop!" Luna called as she ran downstairs.

"Linhou!" Xingyu roared, and before Linhou could process it, he had been grabbed and pushed away from the young man.

"What’s wrong with you?" Xiaomu helped the young man up while glaring at her brother.

"Don’t help him, sis. He doesn’t deserve you." He straightened his clothes and wiped a blood drop from his lip. He had caught the young man off guard and thrashed him black and blue, but he had not gotten away unscathed either.

He pointed a shaky finger at the man. "Qiao Feng, did you really think we would never bump into each other?"

He turned around to face his parents who were waiting for an explanation and realized just how unreasonable he had been. He still explained anyway. "This man was with another woman yesterday, and now he comes to my home to flirt with my sister?"

"Really, Linhou?" Xiaomu crossed her arms in disappointed. "You just wanted to ruin my day, didn’t you? We were merely doing our project."

"That didn’t look like any project I’ve heard of." He countered.

She was infuriated. "So what if it wasn’t? And so what if you saw him with another woman? She could be his sister."

"She is not." He snapped.

"You don’t know that." She looked over at her parents, wondering why they were not scolding Linhou for what he had done.

"Han Yue doesn’t have any siblings. At least none that I know of!" He roared.

"Yue?" Luna raised a brow.

"Yes." He answered his mother then turned back to his sister. "Do you believe me now?"

"Why would I ever trust you?"

"I’m your brother!"

"That’s enough." Luna stopped them. Xingyu had brought over a first aid kit and an ice pack to help Qiao Feng, so she dismissed the twins to their rooms to talk to the young man.

"You should know that I will never forgive anyone who plays with my daughter’s heart." Xingyu warned.

Xiaomu overheard her parents’ warning and turned around to glare at her brother who was a step behind her.

"Some brother you are! When did you ever act like one? You don’t even love me, yet you want to control my life when I go out with guys you think don’t deserve me." She growled. "Why don’t you control your favorite sister Yanyan, or Yue who you think is more of your sister than I am?"

"What?" He was taken aback, but she entered her room and shut the door.

The words were stuck in her mind and he kept replaying them, and they shocked him each time. How could she even think that way?

...

For the next few days, Xiaomu avoided him like the plague and not even their parents could get them to be in the same room at the same time.

He knew it was distressing their mother so he planned on going to her room to talk on Wednesday night, but she came to his room first.

"Mumu," He was taken aback when he opened the door to find her standing there, probably thinking of knocking.

"I’m sorry. I acted like a child." She looked down remorsefully. "Can I come in?"

"Of course." He stood out of the way to let her in.

"I didn’t avoid you because I don’t want to see you," She explained. "I just couldn’t face you after acting the way I did—like a jealous little girl."

He was silent for a while before he finally processed it. "I didn’t know you felt that way." He started. "I have always loved you. I thought you hated me so I stayed out of your life as much as I could."

She felt weird talking about it. "I don’t want to talk about that. I know blood doesn’t always define everything. I was being unreasonable."

"No." He stopped her from speaking. "I can’t believe I didn’t ever notice how much damage I was causing by being that close to her."

It was awkward for him too, but he went on. "I’ll let you in on a secret. I didn’t stop loving you when Yanyan arrived. I still do. I love both of you." He explained.

She remained silent. She had never been jealous of Yanyan. In fact, she loved her sister more than her life. It was only impossible for her and her brother to get along when Yanyan was away because he would be too busy hanging out with Yue.

"And Yue..." He swallowed.

"What about Yue?" That was what she was interested in so she listened.

"That’s not the kind of thing you discuss with your sister." His face suddenly flushed and she was taken aback.

"Do you like her?"

"Well, we are best friends. But you do know that friends don’t replace family, right? This is the kind of discussion we should have had as pre-teens but although it’s too late, you should know that it doesn’t matter who comes first. She is my friend and you are my sister, and I love you both."

She didn’t hear anything he said after suddenly looking flustered.

"No. Are you in love with her?"

His eyes widened. "No." He nodded even though he had denied it. "I... I don’t know, okay?"