Paula Rouco, unable to sleep, lies in bed, curled up under the covers, glancing around from time to time, sometimes at Severo Laris, who has his eyes closed, not knowing if he is asleep, sometimes at the night outside the window.
He moves around too much.
Severo Laris frowned slightly and opened his eyes to look at her, drawing her into his arms and pressing the back of her neck against his chest with his large hands.
The man’s chin pressed against the top of her head as he spoke softly, “If you don’t sleep, we’ll all stay awake.”
A certain little woman who didn’t know it yet tilted her little face up and said with a smile, “Let’s have a chat then.”
Severo Laris: …
“Chat about what?”
She rolled her dark eyes and stared at him, “When I was eating meatballs, I saw all your awards on display in your living room and all the trophies from competitions at your house. severeo, were you always this good at school growing up?”
Severo Laris emitted a faint “hmm.”
Paula Rouco added with a smile, “So you must have been a good student in the eyes of your teachers and parents since you were little? Severo, why do you like studying so much, I don’t. School is very hard and tiring for me. School is very hard and tiring for me”.
Severus Laris couldn’t help but laugh at the little complaint in his childish voice, “You are so uneducated and you got into Imperial University, are you bragging to me that you have a high IQ?”
“… It’s not that I’m as smart as you.” He’s just smart in general.
However, Severo Laris suddenly said earnestly, “I was never the smartest, I just had to work harder than the average person. Because I know that people in my position have nothing if they don’t work hard.”
Paula Rouco’s heart ached a little to hear him say this, and wrapping her two little arms around his waist, she lifted her little face to look at him with a pure and determined gaze and said, “You will have nothing, you have me. And in my heart, you are the best”.
In Severo Laris’ heart, a soft tremor ran through his gaze as he gazed at her, “lita, I am not as good as you think I am, nor as good as you think I am, and with me, you might be tired and suffer.”
“But I fear neither fatigue nor hardship, I will do anything to be with you. And as my father used to say, there are birds that do not fly for three years, but fly once. severe Laris, you must not presume.”
Severo Laris reached out and touched her little face, hugging her tighter.
Paula Rouco leaned into the crook of his neck and blinked, unable to resist asking, “Severo, why is it just you and your mother at your house, where is your father?”
At the mention of it, Severo Laris’ eyes turned a little colder, “We have cut ties with him.”
A kidnapper, who would want to have anything to do with him.
Eight years ago, because of Leopoldo, he and his mother were despised and belittled by everyone, he was ridiculed and teased by his classmates, and the kind of incomprehension and intolerance from everyone even made him feel like committing suicide.
He and his mother had no choice but to move and come to this Cordoba City where, eight years ago, people were not well connected, nobody knew them, and it was absurd that this event was their greatest joy.
Paula Rouco was slightly stunned: “Why?”.
Severo Laris was silent for a long time.
“It’s okay if you don’t want to talk about it, you can tell me later when you want to.”
When Paula Rouco thought Severo Laris would say no more, she suddenly took the floor and said, “He is a kidnapper and a scoundrel.”
This sentence alone is indifferent in the extreme.
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked …”
The coldness that had been under her eyes when Severo Laris looked at her was again faint and warm, “You don’t mind?”
Paula Rouco wrinkled her small, white brows, “Why would I be resentful?”
He’s very good.
“Because I’m the son of a kidnapper.”
“It’s your father who kidnaps people, not you.”
Severo Laris smiled slightly, “My high school classmate said the beam above is not right and the beam below is wrong, the dragon gives birth to the dragon, the son of a mouse will make a hole. The blood that runs through my body is that of the kidnapper, and so are my genes, and aren’t you afraid I’ll do you some mischief if you go out with me?”
Paula Rouco gave me a dirty look and said, “If you had any bad intentions towards me, you would have been nice to me the first time you met me, I was Miss La familia Rouco, but the first time you saw me, what an attitude, you turned your head and walked away. If I hadn’t been bothering you, you wouldn’t have even bothered with me, and if you really wanted to kidnap me as a form of blackmail to La familia Rouco, then you must be out of your kidnapper’s mind.”
As Severo Laris listened to her soft little voice, countless warm currents flowed through his heart, enveloping the coldness and melting away.
Paula Rouco leaned into his arms, remembering the high school classmates who had humiliated him, and blurted out, “What kind of people are your classmates? You can’t hang out with them anymore, you’ll die of depression if you do.”
Severo Laris kept a slight smile on his lips as he looked at her pretty angry face.
“Well, I stopped hanging out with them a long time ago.”
“And yeah, what’s with the beam up and beam down, you’re related to your father by blood but you’re not him, so why should you be responsible for the wrongs he did. Do your high school classmates know that you’re now a qualified lawyer and stick up for the underprivileged to rid yourself of evil, so who are they to say that about you?”
Severo Laris did not say a word, but merely bowed his head and kissed with compassion the forehead of the girl in his arms.
Paula Rouco put her two small arms around his neck, her watery eyes fixed on him, and said, word for word, “Severo Laris, listen, I like you, I like you as a person, no matter what kind of parents you have, whether they are rich or poor, whether they are saints or kidnappers, that doesn’t affect my liking for you. ”
Severo Laris buried his head in the warm, soft nape of her neck and let out a deep sigh, his voice low and husky, “lita, what is it that you really like about me.”
There was nothing about him that she liked.
“I like that you seriously tell me you don’t like to be teased.”
“I love the way you take on the courts without being condescending and dispensing justice with gusto.”
“I love your self-discipline to the point of perversion in planning study and work.”
“I love you all.”
“Severo, no matter how others see you, you are the best and the finest in my eyes.”
He said these words without blushing and with a bright river of stars hidden under his eyes.
Severo Laris’ dark eyes widened and his long, slender hands sank into her long, thick, soft hair. “Lita, do you know what the consequences of saying this are?”
“Hmm?”
Before Paula Rouco could react, her lips were already locked by him in an uncontrollable kiss.
His girl says she likes it all.
Many years later, when Severo Laris recalls these sweet memories, the corners of his lips still turn upward, sweet to bitterness and anguish.