Love Began with the First Meeting

[World] Silent Sorrow: I will give you one last chance during the urban warfare, eight days from now.

Obsession didn't reply, but After Your Birth and their group members did it in his name. After that, those guys went offline thinking lazily that it was merely a meaningless game. What was the worst that could happen?

Olivia shut down her laptop, and lay flat on her bed. She recalled everything that had happened that day-the events in the game, and the posts in the school forum. Why was Charlie concealing his last name? Why did he remain ambiguous about Evelyn? Why wasn't he explaining his real relationship with Evelyn to others? "Olivia..." Anna called, concerned about Olivia's constant tossing and turning. She got up and asked, "What's wrong?"

Realizing that Anna hadn't fallen asleep yet, Olivia chose to get down from her bed and explained her concerns. Finally, she asked, "Isn't Charlie serious about Elsa? Or does he have other issues bothering him?"

Compared to her roommates, Anna tended to be much more rational and view the whole picture. She was always like that because she was taught to think twice before making any decision. She analyzed carefully, "Charlie knows about Elsa better than anyone, and maybe he preferred to settle the dispute after lights out, so that she wouldn't get involved."

"Wouldn't it be more efficient to just tell the truth about his relationship with Evelyn?" Olivia argued.

After pondering on her point, Anna questioned her with a smile, "Since Charlie and Evelyn are from the Long Family, won't revealing their true identities bring harm to Elsa? That could be a reason."

Olivia found it hard to comprehend.

Anna heaved a sigh seeing her unsatisfied expression. She put it in another way, "Long Family only has average influence in A City, but their reputation and wealth is unparalleled compared to other well-established families here. If it is made public that he is from the Long Family, then Elsa would be the girl who abandoned Allen for the sake of marrying the wealthier Charlie."

Her compelling words took Olivia by surprise. She goggled at Anna and exclaimed, "That's right! Why didn't I ever think about that?"

"Elsa is like a huge balloon, which could pop any moment. If all these secrets are exposed, she might end up taking a rough path." Anna's eyes shone as she stared at the ceiling with a bright smile. "Charlie has taken all these precautions to protect her ever since he transferred to this school in a bid to nourish his relationship with Elsa. A man like him would never let Elsa get hurt for his own gains."

"How do you know that?"

Anna laughed, "Just a guess!" After a second thought, she corrected herself, "It's kind of what I analyzed from his behavior. Just think about it. When Allen and Elsa broke up, Charlie showed up immediately. But they had never met each other before that." Moving her body towards Anna, Olivia whispered, "In my opinion, Elsa is super lucky to have such an amazing guy. We will have to think of a way to persuade Charlie to do us some favors if they get together one day."

"You should ask him to take you to France for shopping."

"Oh!" Olivia laughed, "That's a great idea!"

While Olivia and Anna were cracking jokes in low voice, tears flowed from Elsa's closed eyes. She hadn't fallen asleep because every moment she had gone through with Charlie from their childhood kept lingering on her mind. So, she ended up listening to the conversation between Olivia and Anna.

She didn't want to eavesdrop on them, but since they were talking about Charlie, she couldn't help but listen. She was moved to tears by Anna's analysis of Charlie's behavior and his reasons for doing all the things he did.

Elsa bit her lips to stay quiet. She remained still and allowed her tears to roll down her cheeks and fall on the pillow. She always thought about the downside of getting along with Charlie. Although she enjoyed his company, she still hoped to keep a certain distance from him unconsciously. The simple reason was that she was afraid of being made fun of by him.

But she never knew that he had done a lot for her in secret to protect her, including refusing to clarify his reason for coming to this school.

Elsa couldn't help shedding more tears. She had to try even harder to control her whimpering sounds.

Charlie was done for the night and was already in bed. The dim light from his cellphone screen fell on his face. On the screen was a picture of a ten-year-old Elsa. In the picture, her dress was torn by some tree branches and her cute underpants were exposed a little. He thought back about the day when that picture was taken. She was weeping non-stop, and screamed as she wiped her eyes.

"Charlie, you are such a bad boy. I'm going to tell the teacher about what you did to me," she said, sobbing.

"All right, please stop. I didn't mean it!" Despite his frequent teasing of Elsa, he spared no effort in trying to console her. He had never seen her cry in front of him before that day. However, his words didn't comfort her. She cried louder instead after he tried to console her. Charlie couldn't figure out why he was so bad at making Elsa happy, when he was incredibly good at cheering Evelyn up.

He turned on his cellphone and opened the camera in his phone. "Elsa, please stop crying. If you don't, I will take a picture of your weeping face and show it to everyone." He clicked a picture of her at the time since she wouldn't stop crying. "Wow, that's a cute picture."

Instead of ceasing her cries, Elsa screamed louder.

Charlie was flustered by her cries, so he crouched down to wipe her eyes gently and kept making her small promises, but nothing worked. His pacifying surprisingly ended up with his improvised words, "Alright, okay. I will be responsible for you from today. I will marry you when we grow up!"