With a knee down, his keen gaze on hers, he proposed the million-dollar question, “Will you marry me?”

In the dim lighting, he watched the sparkles in her eyes glimmered. She nodded her head gently as she pulled him up on his feet. In pure glee, she answered, “Yes!”

Offering her hand towards him, a smile escaped her lips when he placed the seal of the initiation of the engagement – the ring on her finger. His lips locked hers, encapsulating the seal of their engagement.

This figment of the imagination of her response, where he proposed, rewind repeatedly at the back of his mind, like a broken recorder. Subconsciously, he felt adrenaline rushed throughout his entire body; an indispensable gummy smile crept on him, where his eyes crease to almost fine lines from the overwhelming enthusiasm.

“Will you marry me?”

B with sincerity, those words escaped his parted lips. A soft exhale followed thereafter in relief, that he had managed to muster the courage to get that question out of his system, after almost forever. His palpitating heart, which refused to calm down, did no justice to him in the silence lingering in the room. Like his heart was in his mouth, awaiting her response, his mouth was parched.

The unexpected prolonged waiting time caused him to be perplexed, with his eyes shut, he inhaled a deep breath. Silently hoping the best answer for him within the depths of his heart, out of all the possible answers in the universe, he only wanted an answer – and that is a ‘yes’.

Under the dimly lighted warm amber recessed lighting along the perimeter of the room, his ebony orbs trailed from her attention-seeking bare flawless shoulders to her face to scan for an answer. Rather than detecting a hint of facial expression, his gaze was greeted by her expressionless hazel orbs – which was always found on her blank face that he had been familiar since he had known her. When their gazes interlocked, she shifted her gaze towards the glimmering light that radiated from the refractions within the white sapphire stone, on the white gold band.

“I have been thinking about it seriously,” his words broke the silence in the private room of the restaurant, capturing her attention on him and he continued, “Over the past two weeks when you were angry at me, I realised something.”

“What is it?” She questioned in an almost inaudible whisper as if was caught in between thorns.

This is it! This is my chance! This is my opportunity!

Empowered by the courage within him, instead of kneeling down on a knee, he bounced from the ground to stand on both of his feet. Inhaling yet another deep breath, he brought their physical distance closer, as the distance inched nearer, the aroma of the argan oil shampoo’s waft was more prominent, he breathed out his confession, “Over the past two weeks, I realised that I don’t think that I can live life without you anymore…”

Her eyes flickered rapidly as her head recoiled slightly. Her shoulders elevated from inhaling a deep breath and holding it there. For a long moment, the elevation was maintained for her breath was being held by the revelation which sent her to freeze. was left ajar due to the gravity’s nudges, where her upper lips curled backwards. His eyes trailed over to watch her lips intently and he observed the several attempts for the words to leave the tips of her tongue where she stammered in uncertainty, “O-oppa…”

His eyes found its way to hers. Yet, he was observant to notice her desperation in wanting to turn her head away from him as her feet stumbled a few steps backwards. Not liking the newly enhanced distance between them, he brows the arched into furrowed brows, in which she stuttered, “O-oppa, what are you saying?”

“What I meant is that I might have already fallen for you,” as firm as the confession parted his lips, his gaze on her was an unwavering one. Upon hearing that his confession was spoken out of his mouth, he felt the insides of his chest expanded in relief the moment his true feelings were finally revealed to her.

“What?!”

Like a pulley, the fear trembling down causing her to shake sent her to raise her voice – the more afraid she was, the higher her pitch became. Fixating his gaze on hers, it was obvious that her eyes were void of emotions but clouded by disbelief.

In an attempt to fix his blunder, he inched a step forward where he spoke, “I can exp- “

“Was that baby contract, which you suggested, just a ploy?!” she shrieked, interrupting his explanation, where he noticed her denial with her higher pitch, her intensified glare and raised brows on him.

No! This can’t be! Why didn’t she accept my proposal? Where is this heading to?!

His moment of relief was instantly replaced by a panicky one, where he felt his heart beating rapidly as if it wanted to jump out of his chest. His muscles were tightened by the tension, so was his throat – he felt choked. If he could, he wanted to self-destruct that very moment. But he couldn’t, for his feet were engulfed by the restaurant’s carpet. In between his controlled deep breaths to suppress his vulnerability, his meek voice escaped his lips, “No…”

With him turning meek, she became the one who inched a step towards him in an account for their distance. The realisation that the tables had turned caused him to gulp a lump of saliva down his throat as he watched the combination of the flaring of her nostrils, as well as, the intent glares that was fired from her orbs.

With her pair of arms on his chest, she sent a strong push which caused him to stumble, as she shouted fumily, “I should have known it all along! Why else would you be so persistent in nudging me to sign that stupid contract of yours! I must be stupid to be wavered by your damn persuasion!”

That moment he attempted to garner all the required words in piecing his explanation together, but he fumbled, “When I get you to sign the contract, I didn’t know that I had fallen in love with you then. However, this two-week distance that we had, made me realised that my heart was plagued by the essence of you.”

He bit his lip as he gazed to look over at her eyes. They say that eyes are the windows to humans’ emotions. But the window before him had a curtain installed – her hazel orbs were void of all emotions, both positive and negative – she had her blank expression on.

He didn’t know what to do but enabled silence to engulf within them, hoping that it would be able to compensate for the tension. He knew clearly that a wrong move would cause the end of him, for her blank expression could only mean that she was processing the information and he couldn’t agitate her anymore. With his sudden revelation, he was afraid that he might have pushed her limits.

Despite his patience in trusting time to deliver the revelation to ingrain in her mind, his eyes never failed to be on hers. Over time, he observed that she had slowly regained her composure. Her anger had subsided when he noticed that her gaze had softened and the