It had been three weeks since the attack. The police was still investigating but it was taking some time to find clues about the three masked men who destroyed everything. Three weeks during which Tong Nian had done her best to rest and take care of herself. The bruises on her face were slowly disappearing, and her foot was doing better day after day. To everyone, Tong Nian was her old self again. She was laughing with the boys at lunch, having fun with her best friend, enjoying her time at her University and sleeping well in her husband's arms - most of the nights. But Han Shangyan knew her better than anyone else. He knew that behind that smile she was giving to all of them, there was some pain and fears. He knew it because he was the master of hiding his feelings. Everyone who looked at her would have thought that everything was finally ok, that she was focusing on her work and her couple, and that beside the police investigation, the attack was just a bad memory.

But Han Shangyan was not everyone. And when she was studying in their meeting room, in front of her laptop, he could see her blank stare, doing nothing but watching her screen as if she was completely empty. He could see that sometimes, she was holding tears, not allowing herself to let it go. Everytime he asked if she was ok, she answered that she was fine, giving a soft kiss on his lips or his forehead. And everytime, it broke his heart a little bit more. 

Was she feeling that she was not allowed to be in pain? Was she forcing herself to be fine because that was what people waited from her? He didn't want to push her, he tried to convince himself that she would finally let it go, when she would be ready. But the only time she really talked about what happened was when she testified for the police. This was the only moment she had cried, the only moment he had felt that she was not holding it. But since then, she never shared any memories of that night. She was so good at it that even Han Shangyan had believed, at one point, that everything was ok now. But it was not ok. He knew it. 

He was hopeful, though, that the next competition planned for the team would give her a good breathe. This time, he didn't give her the choice and forced her to come with him. And she gladly took the invite. 

Gun knew how much she loved going on a trip with the team. They were alway sitting at the front of the bus while the boys were behind, making fun of their cuddlings with fake disgusted faces. If the trip was long enough, she would put her head on his shoulders and he would try his best to make her super comfortable, not moving and barely breathing not to wake her up. Sometimes they listened to music together, other times he would just pretend to be sleeping when he was in fact watching her in secret. Once at the hotel, he would have to spend a lot of time with the boys, training, so he would just let her have fun in her own way - which mostly involved computers and coding - and would join her for diner, just the two of them, in their hotel room. And he would always, always, take half a day to escape somewhere with her, not telling the rest of the team where they were going. And all of them knew they better not asked anything. He was a married puppy to his wife but still a very scary boss to them. So he was confident that this time would not be any different.

And it all started well. The trip was exactly like expected, Demo, 97 and the boys made fun of how much Gun was feeding his wife with candies and chips, Wu Bai was being his broody self again, and since they were sharing the bus with Solo and his team, they all had hours to talk about game strategies. When she discovered the hotel room, Tong Nian jumped in her husband arms, so small hanging on his giant body like a panda. The view was amazing, the wifi was working very well, and he even brought some good romcoms in his bag. 

"It's perfect", she whispered to him, hugging him just in front of the large window, contemplating the beautiful sunset on the skyscrapers. He left her after diner to join the boys at the training room, making sure everything was fine and that she would not be bored. 

"Don't go to sleep without me", he winked, still not sure, after a few months of marriage, how his sexy tone felt like in her ears. But she smiled back at him, teasing him like she always did: "I'll try".

And she really did try but when he came back a few hours later, she was deeply sleeping on the couch, still wearing her clothes on. He knew that she had waited for him and he sometimes felt guilty to be absent this often. He kneeled in front of her, slowly approaching his face to her, caressing her cheeks in the most delicate way ever, trying not to scare her. She slowly opened her eyes, smiling gently at him. He was looking at her with pure adoration, as if she was the most precious jewel in the world, one he used to be scared to break but that he was now proudly bringing with him everywhere he could. 

"Hey, sleeping beauty", he was kissing her small nose with the tips of his lips, inhaling her delicate flowery perfume. "Hum...", she answered, half asleep but very pleased by this mark of affection. 

"Should I help you go get in bed?"

"Hum... I think I should take a shower before", she said, to his disappointment. All he wanted to do was cuddle all night long in the fresh sheets of this expensive hotel room. It didn't go unnoticed to her. "But maybe... you can lead me to that giant bathtub... way too big for a lonely small girl like me", she added. 

Han Shangyan was always surprised by the confidence she had started to show him after their wedding. She always knew what she wanted, she was the first one to kiss him after all, but she was also that unsure young girl living in a romantic dream, sometimes too naive, sometimes too childish. He loved every aspect of her, the sexy wife, the shy girl, the confident genius and the popular singer. 

Of course, she didn't have to ask him twice to share a bath with her. He grabbed his wife, her legs tied around his hips, his arms placed under her butt. And they ended up in the bathroom, half of their clothes quickly falling on the floor. 

For the past weeks, he hadn't allowed himself to think about her this way. He wanted to respect her privacy, he knew that she was not feeling well, and that most of all, she didn't want him to see her scratched bruised body. From the moment he found her in the storage room, he knew she had been scared of his reaction. He knew that she saw how dark his eyes turned when he saw that blood on her face, and how his fists were ready to fight one morning after he saw a large bruise turning yellow on her shoulder. She knew how hurt he was, how guilty he felt and more than anything else, she was self-confident, scared that he would run away. She knew it didn't make sense, that he would never do this, but she couldn't stop that feeling. So she decided to hide her body, locking up the bathroom door while taking her shower, wearing covering clothes until her body recovers. 

But tonight was almost feeling like nothing had happened, she was letting go of her first fear. The fear of showing him her physical injuries. And Han Shangyan was here to help her. He knew that her second fear, the fear of showing him her emotional bruises, would come next, one way or another. So at this exact moment, he decided to follow her lead, letting her decide what she was ready to show and do. His only concern, after he found her injured, was to respect her healing process. He never asked any question when she started locking up the bathroom door and when she decided to wear large clothes. The only thing he could do was to support her and be patient.

And it felt like he didn't need to say and do more, because she was the one who gave him, that night, a real passionate kiss. The first one in weeks. "Tong Nian", he whispered, relieved to finally feel his wife again on his skin. With her now shared permission to go further, it didn't take long for the soft kisses he gave her lately to become hungry ones. His hands were all over her hair, his tongue was dancing his her mouth. "How much I missed this", she told him between two steamy kisses. Her hands were going up and down from his back to his neck, the sounds of their breath and saliva were resonating in the bathroom. He pushed her to the wall, her legs wrapped around him, with a manly attitude. When she was not kissing his lips, she was marking his neck with her mouth and tracing his muscles with her fingers. The noises they were both doing were accentuating their desire. The vision of her husband only wearing his black pants was enough to make her heart explode. And one look at his wife in her underwear could make him lose control. But he knew that maybe, now was not the right time to go further. That maybe, it was the best occasion for him to do something for her. 

When they finally let go of each other, out of breath, they shared a silent look, full of emotions. All the hidden emotions from the past three weeks. The hot makeout session transformed into a moment of shared vulnerability. Without saying any word, he grabbed her face, slowly touching her now almost recovered temple, and gave her a soft kiss. Then, he grabbed her hands, one by one, and marked her two wrists with his fingers. Not leaving her gaze, he raised her right arm to his lips, kissing her right wrist, then did the same with her left arm, and her left wrist. He gave her a new kiss on her shoulder, one on her hip, another one her stomach. After this, he asked her to sit on the edge of the bathtub. He kneeled down in front of her, and delicately grabbed her recovering foot in his two hands, blowing on it before he kissed it like he did previously with the rest of her body. 

The intimacy of the moment was so pure, so soft but also so powerful. Without saying one word, Han Shangyan's action spoke louder to both of them than anything he could have told her. When he finally stood up, he wiped the few tears she had on her face and hugged her, his strong arms circled around her tiny body. He could feel that she was still holding a lot of things, but tonight was a first step. By his actions, he wanted to show her that she didn't have to hide anything to him, that he was there to share her pain, that her bruises were his. 

"I love you", he finally said, breaking the comfortable silence they were in. 

"I love you too", she answered moved by what just happened between them. 

After their deserved bath together, they spent the rest of the night kissing each other, that time with tenderness and softness. Time to time, Han Shangyan kissed her bruised again, making her body shiver, like a reminder that there was nothing she should be scared of, that he would never run away, and that he would always find a way to unlock her insecure heart.