Me After Meeting You

Her scalp prickled, and she distanced herself frostily. “Mr. Billy, you did pretty well just now by consciously distancing yourself from the patient when you started coughing.”

Billy laughed out loud, and even Ian’s eyes crinkled out of amusement.

Amber ignored them both and instead focused on performing her job. She walked over to check Ian’s daily medication, and Billy followed behind, asking, “So you can prescribe medicine for infections?”

“Not really.” Having finished reading though the drug records, she put them down as she continued, “But I can get a sense of how the illness is progressing from the change in drug dosage and administration.”

“Then … has Ian’s illness gotten any better?”

“No.”

“What a decisive response, Dr. Camille. Can I take this to be a sign that you want to keep Ian in the hospital so you can see him every day?”

One of Billy’s unique talents was to make Amber want to throw something at him every time he opened his mouth. How on earth had he come up with such a ludicrous conclusion?

She looked at Ian with an amused expression. “You really have unusual standards for your friends.”

Ian was sitting by the bed with a laptop in front of him. But when Amber had entered the room, he had stopped looking at the laptop.

Right now, he was looking straight at her, and his gaze deepened even further after hearing her words. He nonchalantly replied, “Yes.”

‘You too.’

Amber could read these two words in his gaze.

A small smile unconsciously crept into her face. When Billy noticed the two of them making eyes at each other, he grabbed at his own and exaggeratedly complained, “My eyes are going blind just from watching you two! Alright, I’m going to leave. You two have fun doing whatever you’re doing.”

And with that, he went out swiftly.

Luckily for the two people remaining in the room, they weren’t regular people who would feel awkward from what Billy had said.

Instead, Amber continued that train of thought and asked Ian, “Have you ever thought about what your girlfriend or wife would be like?”

When she didn’t get a response, she laughed a little and said, “Hmm, I can guess a part of your thoughts. From the nature of your friends, I think that you most likely prefer girls who are lively and open-minded, right?”

Billy, Ansell, and Simon: Ian considered all three of them to be his friends, but Ian was clearly closer to Billy than the other two. From a psychological perspective, this was most likely because they had complementary natures: people who were introverted and more serious preferred to spend time with easygoing and simple people.

Amber wasn’t planning on conducting any sort of therapy. Rather, she only wanted to find a topic to talk about that could further her understanding of him. Earlier, whenever she brought up kinship and friendship before, Ian had been uninterested without exception.

But it seemed like she had finally found a good topic this time because Ian’s gaze sharpened, as if he were seriously considering this question. After quite a while, he asked in response, “Are you lively and open-minded?”

Amber thought for a moment before replying, “No, not really.”

“Then no, I don’t.”

And then he gazed at her.

Amber briefly thought about the subtext of his response for a moment, and then stilled. “Are you saying that you like girls like me?”

Ian didn’t say anything, but Amber didn’t change topics. “That really surprises me. I still remember that when we first met, the first thing that you told me was that I was really ugly.”

“I have a peculiar sense of beauty.”

This was him using her words against her, and Amber was speechless at his brazenness. “If you always chat like this, then you’ll kill off any conversation you ever have.”

“You don’t like my responses?”

“I don’t think that anyone would, no.”

“Then what should I say? Something like, ‘I like people like you?'”This content © Nôv/elDr(a)m/a.Org.

“… That works.”

Ian sat upright and placed both of his hands on his knees, giving off a regal aura as he did so. From this position, he looked seriously at Amber and said, “Amber, I like girls like you.”

“….”

Her face heated up, and she was barely able to continue the conversation.

When Amber finally remembered her capacity and responsibility as a doctor, she mustered up all her will and put on a serious expression. “Can I ask what you feel when you like someone?”

Ian paused, thinking back to what his grandparents had said about how, when he liked someone, he had to be reserved and tactful, or else he would scare them away. At that time, he hadn’t thought much of this advice because he had already spoken unreservedly to Amber a few times before, and she hadn’t been scared away those times.

The reason why she was unable to accept his feelings was simply because she didn’t like him and because she persevered in maintaining a distance between them; it had nothing to do with directness.

After this random thought, Ian suddenly felt a bit uncomfortable. He frowned, before directly saying, “I want to have sex with you.” Afraid she would misunderstand, he even added, “Whenever I see you, it makes me want to know what making love feels like.”

“….”

At least he looked cold and aloof. Otherwise, Amber really would have wanted to drag him outside and give him a beating like he were a hoodlum.

Instead, she scratched her face awkwardly. “That’s just a physiological reaction. I don’t think that it truly counts when you think about a girlfriend or wife because, when you truly love someone, you’ll want to be close to her both physically and mentally. Many types of love have nothing to do with sex or desire, and instead focus on mutual understanding and cooperation.”

Hoo~~ She had finally dragged the topic back to the original one she had started with.

Ian actually understood her, and remarked in a deep voice, “A platonic relationship.”

Amber smiled. “That’s right.”

“You want a relationship like this?”

“Yes.”

He looked at her, his gaze as deep as ever. After a while, he calmly concluded, “That man can’t give you this.”

‘That man’ referred to Calvin, Ian didn’t remember his name.

Amber smiled bitterly. “Why are you so perceptive?”

“Because your eyes are melancholic.”

‘And you seem hurt’. Of course, her eyes were also brimming with tears, but Ian didn’t want to mention these things; why would he point out her grief for other men if he could help it?