You Are The Apple of My Eyes
Chapter 800 Her Life Abroad

Michelle shook her head. "Leon, you shouldn't stay the night. The sofa isn't big enough for you."

Leon was totally dumbfounded.

'The sofa?

She's actually considered letting me sleep on the sofa?'

It was winter now.

Rather than spend the night on the sofa and risk taking a cold shower on such a cold day, he might as well go home and have a good, proper sleep.

Leon smiled wryly. "Never mind. I'll sit here and carry on with my work, but you can't get too close to me, okay?"

"Okay!" Michelle's eyes brightened with joy. "I promise I won't disturb you."

"Okay then." Leon stood up to get the laptop, dragged his chair over, and stuck it on the bedside.

This arrangement was very much to Michelle's liking. Although Leon didn't sit on the bed, they were practically sitting side by side. As long as she looked up, his face would come into view.

A peaceful silence sank into the room as the both of them proceeded to do their own things.

Nevertheless, Michelle couldn't help but peep at Leon from time to time. For the first couple of times, Leon could still force himself to remain unaffected by her gaze. The next couple of times were getting harder and harder. In the end, under a particularly long, burning gaze, he finally threw in the towel.

He closed this laptop resignedly.

"Leon, have you finished your work?" Michelle's eyes lit up. "It's only been ten minutes, though."

'So you know it's only been ten minutes?' Leon thought helplessly.

In the end, he didn't have the heart to blame her. It was his own lack of concentration that made him unable to last more than ten minutes under her gaze.

"I've finished the urgent ones. As for the rest, I'll finish them tomorrow." Leon, who was lying through his teeth, put his laptop aside. "Is there anything you want to tell me?"

Michelle smiled. "Not really. I just want to look at you."

"Just look at me?" Leon raised his eyebrows. "Don't you want to do something else?"

"Something else? Should I tell you a story then?" In fact, aside from looking at Leon, Michelle didn't have anything else she particularly wanted to do.

"You can do whatever you want." Leon suddenly thought of something and added, "You can also tell me about what you've experienced during the three years you lived abroad."

"You want to know?" Michelle asked in a rather hesitant tone.

Leon got even more curious. "Yes, I do."

"Alright." Michelle couldn't think of any other stories, so she had to tell him about her life abroad.

When she left, she cried on the plane for a really long time that her eyes ended up extremely swollen. She probably looked really miserable because right after she got off the plane, a staff member of the airline approached her and asked if she needed help.

That was the first form of warmth she felt in a foreign country. It also kind of gave her some courage to face the strange place, which would soon be her home.

That was her first time going abroad alone. When she arrived at her supposed residence, she finally broke down crying and slept for one full day and night.

She was starving once she woke up, but when she went out to get food, she found that she couldn't communicate well with the locals. The language barrier made it hard for her to even get food.

At that time, she once again regretted going abroad alone, scolding herself inwardly for her impulsiveness and irrationality.

But crying over spilled milk was useless. She was already in another country. Could it be that she wanted to go back after only a mere couple of days?

What was she going to say to her parents?

She was no longer a child, so she must be responsible for the choice she made.

Money wasn't a problem-she'd made a lot of money in her previous job and her parents had also given her some before she left. Her college lessons, on the other hand, were tricky to handle.

First of all, she had never learned and couldn't speak the official language of that country, so she had to work two or even three times harder to catch up on the lessons.

In her first year, she was really miserable. The things she had to learn were countless.

That period was even harder than the three months she spent studying for college's entrance examination.

Because she was busy with her study and rarely communicated with others, her classmates thought she was a taciturn girl. In the beginning, they still tried to strike up conversations with her, but because they hardly got any responses, they gradually ignored her.

That was why she didn't have any friends during her first year abroad.

She had to carry her heavy textbooks by herself, but because she was too weak, she had to take a rest once in a while and thus wasted her time. She even had to move her newly-bought sofa into her apartment on her own. At that time, she thought she'd be crushed to death under the sofa's weight.

She once fell sick and had to go to the hospital and wait in the corridor full of disinfectant smell all by herself. When she went to the bathroom, she found that she only had one hand available and couldn't take off her pants on her own.

Her physical pain and emotional grievance made her cry for a long time in the bathroom.

From then on, she started to wear dresses.

She used to wear dresses to look pretty. Now, she wore dresses for the sake of convenience.

Amidst all the hardship, she'd once wanted to give up.

But she eventually didn't. The reason was the countless "Leon" she wrote in her notebook. In just one year, she'd written in five thick notebooks.

She couldn't write any fine-sounding words, so she could only pour all her longing into the word "Leon."

All her notebooks were densely packed with neatly written "Leon."

The name was her daily longing and joy.

Sometimes, she also wrote his full name "Leon Lu" seriously. Writing his name always gave her a kind of illusion. It was as if she was holding a magic pen, from which Leon could materialize at any moment. Deep down, she knew it was impossible. It was just an unrealistic fantasy she came up with because she missed Leon too much.

"Leon, my handwriting is quite pretty now. I've been practicing." Michelle stared at him with her big, innocent eyes and smiled cheerfully.

It was like all the hardships she experienced abroad weren't a big deal.

And that what mattered was that she'd practiced her handwriting. "I'm not lying. It's really beautiful. I've practiced for three years. I can show you now."

Leon stared back at her in silence. There were guilt and indescribable pity in his eyes.

He reached out, held Michelle's nape, and pulled her close. His forehead was against hers, and the tip of his nose gently rubbed against hers. It was as if he was consoling her. "Michelle, can I have your notebooks?"

They gazed into each other's eyes, but Leon quickly looked down to hide the emotions in his eyes.

"Do you want to see the writing in my notebooks? In the beginning, they were all ugly-as ugly as the ones you saw before. I practiced for more than a year before they looked better."

"It doesn't matter. No matter how ugly they are, I still want to have them." Leon held her in his arms and looked out of the window. It was already late at night, but the lights on those skyscrapers were still on. There must be countless people working overtime.

Upon seeing such a scene, he couldn't help but wonder if Michelle did the same when she was abroad. Did she have her light on deep into the night because she pulled an all-nighter studying? Even if she did, there must be no one around her who cared about her.

Michelle was unwilling to show her ugly handwriting to him. "Can I refuse? They're really ugly."

"No, you can't." With a faint smile, Leon said, "When you get back home, take them out and give them to me. Just consider them a present for me. I remember that you promised me to give me a tie to apologize, but you ended up breaking your promise."

He pulled away and lightly tapped Michelle's forehead as a punishment.

"I bought the tie." Michelle pursed her lips. "But I saw that Valerie also gave you a tie, so I didn't give you mine. They told me that giving someone a tie meant I wanted to have a close relationship with him." Leon pinched the bridge of her nose. "I know what giving a tie to someone means. In fact, it was precisely because I knew that I asked you to give me one. And for your information, I rejected Valerie's." "Eh?" Michelle was surprised. "Did you do it on purpose?"

"Yes, I did," Leon frankly admitted.

"Why?"

"Because I already liked you back then. Why can't you believe that I like you?" Leon asked.

Joy surged in Michelle's heart. She smiled and nodded excitedly. "I believe you! I like you, too! I really, really like you!"☐☐☐☐☐