"Yes, please tell her to come up."

Cheng Xiao hung up the phone in her room, ending the call from reception.

The realization Bona would be there in a few moments was absolute bliss, after the rough few hours she had just spent all by herself.

That much time was enough for her emotions to shift through an array of high-functioning panic, hair pulling, eyebrow raising, and the complete void.

It wasn't that she was exactly surprised about what she had heard. She was well aware she had messed up pretty badly, and she totally expected Eunseo to be upset. But maybe she had been tricked by her deepest hopes that she wouldn't be that mad.  

She had always seemed mysterious – that was a big part of her charm after all. So it would only be logical that she wouldn't want to dive into her own feelings and expose them like that, so... assertively. And then after she says all of that, she just storms out of the door without even looking back? It didn't make sense. Why had she even told her she loved her only to leave? What did she intend to achieve with that? If she wanted to confuse her, she had definitely made her goal.

It was inevitable for Cheng Xiao to reflect on her own feelings about the confession. It didn't come as too much of a shock, though it felt somewhat good to know that she was right about it. She was always aware of the way Eunseo looked at her and catered to her every need so diligently, and boy, did she love it. Similarly, she was also well aware of her own 'special' interest towards her neighbor. Aware of the way she found herself lost in thought, swooning over her uniquely shaped nose, her chiseled cheekbones that rose even higher when she smiled, the way she stumbled over her words (or herself) so adorably, or how she seemed to read into her so well.  

The attraction between the both of them was evident, and there was no point in trying to question it or deny it. Cheng Xiao felt it the moment she saw her burst into her hospital room. But could she call it love, like Eunseo had? How could she, when she only had solid memories of her for the past few days?  

They had known each other for a little longer, but it didn't feel like it at all with how fragmented her memory was. It was weird that spending the whole day in her company for a few days in a row didn’t trigger any more memories. Though according to what Eunseo had said, it was not like she had given her much relevance before, so maybe that was it. Cheng Xiao eventually decided that trying to figure out why her memories came to her or not was going to turn out fruitless.

But she couldn't shake those thoughts away. She had a really hard time believing she had been that dismissive and avoidant of her. It seemed very out of her, like she couldn't imagine herself doing so that often and to the point of even being rude. As if Eunseo had confused her with someone else.

Hearing Eunseo express her feelings about her pre-incident self brought her back to when she found out she fired Mei Qi and hurt her to the point of her saying she dreaded her presence. The feeling that everyone else around her knew her better than she knew herself pounced back into her mind, and even though she had promised herself not to beat herself up over her memory loss, it was now becoming harder and harder to deal with.  

Finally, the awaited knock on the door saved her from her own mind. She jumped out of the massive hotel bed and rushed to open the door.

As soon as she saw the blonde personal assistant, she threw her arms around her neck. But surprisingly, Bona almost instantly pushed her away. She grabbed her shoulders with her hands and brought her to an upright position, in order to face her directly.

Bona's intense stare scanned her up and down while she stood, appalled. She looked her dead in the eye for a few moments, then sighed loudly, her shoulders dropping along. Bona pulled Cheng Xiao back into a tight hug, burying her boss' face in her own shoulder while her hair.

"What am I supposed to do with you, Xiao Xiao?" Bona whispered softly in her ear.

Both girls laid on the enormous, fairly luxurious king-size bed with their backs facing down.There was a significant distance between them and they stared at the ceiling rather than at each other.

"Wow." Bona said, after hearing everything that had just happened. "I don't even know what to say. Or maybe I do, but I don't know where to start."

"You don't ha--"

"First of all, out of all the dumb things I've ever watched you do since I met you, this was one of the dumbest. You got me worried sick, even more so when I was stuck at the company and had to leave it to author girl to come check up on you. Did you really prefer to risk being in danger than being in a what you deemed less than desirable company? What exactly did you plan to do? Did you plan to tell me yourself?"

"No, I guess I didn't thin---"

"And then she comes here even though you blatantly ran away from her and confesses to you, then dramatically leaves." Bona scoffed and rolled her eyes. "I knew it, though. Soooo damn obvious. She doesn't fool anyone with the way she acts around you. Had you noticed it?"

"Yeah. Sort of." Now that Bona was finally letting Cheng Xiao speak, she actually had very little to say.

"So, how do you feel about it... about... her?"  

"I really don't know. I'm still trying to take in everything that happened tonight. My brain has sort of been on autopilot from the moment I ran away... like someone else is acting and thinking for me. I still haven't come to terms with the fact I did something so terrible, with the fact that she likes me that way but apparently hates me now... I'm sorry, I'm not making any sense."

Cheng Xiao rolled over on her side, her back now facing Bona. The latter rolled over, facing her best friend's back, and pulled herself closer to her, to a point her chest almost touched Cheng Xiao's back. She started her hair once again. That seemed to be a gesture she was particularly fond of.

"You make perfect sense to me." The blonde smiled reassuringly, even though the other girl couldn't see it. "You don't have to think about that now. It's okay."

The girls let the peace of silence in for a few moments.

"But you do know you're a huge idiot, right? Don't scare me like that again." Bona drew her body even closer to her friend's, tightly holding her by her waist.

Cheng Xiao chuckled softly. Bona was right. She was an idiot. But that was the one small thing she had already come to terms with. The rest, there was indeed no use in thinking about it at that moment. Much more so because there was something else in the back of Cheng Xiao's mind. Something she had tried to ignore and give no importance to, but there was just no way she could hold it back anymore. She had to know if those memories that came back to her were real, and that her mind hadn't made them up to fill up some gap. Now was exactly the time.

"Bona." Cheng Xiao turned around, in order to face her. Her eyes burned with courage.

"Yes?" She answered, somewhat tensely. She seemed to have been taken aback by the sudden seriousness with which Cheng Xiao was approaching her.

"I need to know something." Her whole body started to shiver in anticipation for the answer to the question she hadn't even asked yet.

"W-what?" Bona's lips were a straight line, and her grasp seemed to stiffen.

"I need to know... I... You..." Cheng Xiao took a deep breath. "Are we a couple?"

Bona looked as if blood had left her veins.

"W-we're not a couple." The blonde's eyes twitched compulsively in an attempt to avoid Cheng Xiao's.

"But we used to be."

Bona swallowed. She took a while to answer. Cheng Xiao was impatient, to the point it felt as if her breath had gotten stuck on .

"Yes."

Both girls' bodies loosened up, but the air in the room only seemed to be harder to breathe. Each of them rolled back to face the ceiling in their own time.

"Were you going to tell me?"

"Maybe. It just crossed my mind that you were better off not knowing.... or something like that." Bona said as she bit her lip.

"Better off not knowing?! How could you hide something like that from me? You know how desperate I've been for the slightest bit of information about my past and you think I'm better off not knowing something that important?” Cheng Xiao's whole face felt tense. She could feel the pressure on her forehead and her jaw.

"Nah, forget it. I really just didn't have the guts to tell you." Bona sighed.

Cheng Xiao felt betrayed. She had remembered small pieces of her past with Bona some time ago – back when they were looking for her phone in Eunseo’s house. That time, she remembered their first kiss. But that wasn’t enough to conclude anything, so she decided to shrug it off, thinking it might have been her imagination instead. Then, in her dreams, other moments started surfacing back. Their summer trip to China, the day Bona got the job working for her, their petty fights over what to order for lunch.

Progressively, it  became harder for Cheng Xiao to ignore them and shrug them off as dreams. She was taken over by the hunger to know exactly what had happened between them, for how long and if it was somehow, though it seemed unlikely, was still going on. But there was just never the right  moment to confront her about it, until now. In a way, she already knew Bona had been hiding it from her, but being aware of it beforehand wasn’t enough for her to be incredibly understanding of her possible reasoning for doing it.

Even though she was upset, she didn’t want to keep pointing fingers. Now was the moment to ask about things she had been wondering about for so long.

“I’m sorry, okay? “ Bona's hands traveled to her own face, covering it as if in shame. Her voice became muffled. “it’s not something that’s easy for me to talk about either. You’re right. I was selfish. “

“Not easy to talk about? Why is that?”

Bona removed her hands from her face, letting them fall on her sides. Her gaze became sorrowful.

“What do you know?“  

She was avoiding the question.  

"Not a lot. I just remembered some loose moments of us together. I know that it started in college and that we were still together when you joined the company because the flashes I had were of those periods. I know nothing about how long it lasted exactly, when and how it ended… nothing.”

Bona rolled over in Cheng Xiao's direction once again. The latter did not follow, preferring to keep staring at the ceiling.

"You're right. It started in college, right before I graduated. You were still in first year. I joined the company really soon after that, though. But it lasted until about 5 months ago. We dated for over 3 years."

Cheng Xiao felt close and dry up. This had been a serious relationship. 3 years?! That only made it worse that Bona had hidden it from her. But obviously, what she was the most curious about was...

"Why did we break up?" Cheng Xiao's face was still stuck in a thoughtful, slightly annoyed frown. This question made her a bit nervous, since Bona had obviously been trying to avoid providing details on that matter.

Through the corner of her eye, she saw Bona's stare drop and her body curl up in bed. To see a woman as confident and outspoken as her in such a vulnerable position felt strange. But somehow, it also felt familiar to her. That was natural, as they had apparently dated for 3 years prior to the memory-wiping incident. A relationship can't last that long without vulnerability.

"To be honest... And especially after all this time, I don't understand why we broke up."

Cheng Xiao finally turned her head to face her, puzzled. She stayed quiet, hoping Bona would elaborate on her answer.

"We had something really beautiful, and strong, and I was so happy... and so were you. We were happy both being lovers and coworkers. Then when you took over the company, you started to act so... different. You started to become more assertive, bossing people around. You were always irritable and annoyed and you often wanted to isolate yourself and avoid everyone. I couldn't recognize you. Eventually, you started to act like that with me too, and I didn't feel like I was dating the same person I fell in love with anymore." Bona's voice slightly cracked near the end. Her face showed longing for what was lost.

Cheng Xiao felt a tear form in the corner of her eye. What Bona had just said confirmed what she had been worried about for some time. She was indeed a bad person. She was mean, rude, irritable, bossy, annoying, petty, everything that she simultaneously feared she had been and couldn't imagine herself being. But it was true. Even though it didn't feel like that was who she truly was, she had to accept that it was the truth. And her old self might just surface at any time. She was scared of herself more than ever.  

"I was stupid." Bona suddenly lifted her upper body, supporting her weight with her arms on the bed. "I shouldn't have given up on you so easily. You must have been hurting and instead of being there for you I just let you go..."

Bona was now on her knees on top of the bed, her eyes letting her tears flow. She was looking right at her ex-girlfriend, who stood almost motionless, her jaw tightly clenched and her body stiff. She also let tears flow as she listened.

"I knew that the Xiao Xiao I loved was still there somewhere. I was so dumb I didn't try harder to bring you back, but... since you lost your memory... I don't know why but you... I was right, you're still you." Bona said between intensified sobs. "Still the one I loved... the one I love."

Cheng Xiao couldn't believe her ears. She was already distraught with having learned she had been in a serious relationship with who she thought was only her best friend and assistant. And that she had hidden it from her knowing she was desperate to know more about her past after the memory loss. But now, learning that Bona was still in love with her had made her reach a whole new level of shock. She hadn't even considered that option.

Getting confessed to by two people on the same day was a lot to handle for her – or anyone at all. Especially when she had no idea what she felt about any of them. How could she, when she hardly knew herself, when she hardly knew what she had felt about them before? There was nothing she could think about saying.

"I don't know exactly how much you remember and I don't know how you feel now, but..." The blonde wiped her tears with the ends of her sleeves. "I think this is our second chance. I think we can go back to what we once were."

With that, Bona laid one hand on one side of Cheng Xiao's face, caressing it. The latter's breathing, which previously felt like it was jammed in , suddenly accelerated, along with her heart rate. Her touch was simultaneously unsettling and comforting.

"Bona, I don't know what to say." She said in between her irregular breaths. Aside from not knowing what to say, she much less knew what to do.

The hand Bona rested on her cheek travelled to her lips. She rested her pointer finger gently, as if shushing her.

"You don't have to say anything now. Just please... Give me a chance. Give us a chance. Let me show you I'm right."

The finger rested on her lips slowly started moving downward, through her chin, neck, chest, stomach, until it stopped just under the lower hem of her shirt. Then, the girl's hand sneaked under the shirt, making Cheng Xiao wince and arch her back with the bare, cold touch on her lower back. With every inch of distance Bona closed between each of their faces as she leaned in with an increasingly intense gaze, her heart beat faster and faster, her eyes widened more and more until they couldn't be any wider, the rise and fall of her chest grew more and more urgent.

When there was virtually no more distance between their lips, the blonde girl moved her other hand to tightly intertwine her fingers with the woman she loved. Cheng Xiao corresponded, lacing her own fingers with hers, grabbing her hand just as tightly.

Before the distance was closed for good, one last whisper escaped through Bona's warm breath.

"Please."

And with that, Cheng Xiao's lips took in the sweet, lustful, forbidden taste of hers.

---

A/N: Aaaaaaah please don't murder me! So Boxiao is/was indeed a thing. I'm pretty sure a good chunk of you saw it coming hehe :) I did try to hint at it until now. Obviously there have to be some complications for poor Xiao, who got confessed to twice in a day and doesn't know what to do and is too confused for her own good. What I wanted to convey with this chapter was... Vulnerable humans make questionable and unpredictable choices. I'm so bad/embarrassed of writing scenes like the one at the end I cringed at my own writing aaaaah. Well, I hope you enjoy it. Please remember this is an Eunxiao fic hehe :) Thank you for supporting this story!