Chapter 7

Seven days before the wedding.

I went to a tattoo parlor in the suburbs.

The owner was a woman in her thirties, well-maintained but with world-weary eyes.

She glanced at me,

"What do you want tattooed?"

I rolled up my sleeve, pointing to the "ES" on my wrist bone, then exposed the gardenia below my collarbone.

"Remove them both."

The owner looked, "Removing them will be painful, and it'll leave scars."

I smiled, "I'm not afraid."

Pain is the least of my worries now.

As for scars—

I have so many scars all over my body, what's two more?

Besides, in half a year, this body might just be ashes.

The owner chatted with me, "Broke up?"

I smiled, "Yeah, soon."

"Seven days left."

The owner clicked her tongue, "So ceremonial, even a countdown for the breakup?"

Perhaps because the shop was so quiet, or maybe because I felt a connection with the owner, somehow, I felt like we were kindred spirits from the first glance.

I told her about my past.

Back when Emma was pursuing me, I gave her a deadline.

Three hundred days.

If she could persist, I'd be with her.

So, every morning when Emma appeared before me, she'd count the days.

"Countdown: one hundred and seventy-nine days."

"James, ninety-six days left, and you'll be my boyfriend."

"One day left, almost-boyfriend."

...

The girl who persisted through rain or shine for three hundred days to win me over.

Yet in the ten years that followed.

She gradually grew tired.

I got along well with the owner, Lily. As she removed my tattoos, I told her the meaning behind them.

The "ES" on my wrist bone was tattooed a year after Emma and I got together.

I had been kidnapped by her enemies, used to threaten her.

Emma came alone to save me.

Knowing it was a deadly trap, she went without hesitation.

That time, she nearly died.

When she was discharged from the hospital, I went to a tattoo parlor and had her initials tattooed on my wrist bone.

I naively thought then.

I'd dedicate my life to Emma.

But that night, when I proudly showed my still-red wrist to Emma, she was stunned.

There was no emotion I had imagined.

She frowned, first asking why, then if it hurt.

Finally, she hugged me, "Don't do this again, I don't like it."

"I don't like you hurting yourself."

"You're perfect as you are, you don't need to change. I love the clean, flawless James."

I was young then, thought she was just concerned for me.

Little did I know, Emma had already spoken her true feelings.

The gardenia on my chest was tattooed when Emma swore she'd marry me when she turned twenty-eight.

Emma loved gardenias, loved their pure white petals.

So I tattooed it on my chest.

Waiting for Emma to marry me.

Now, Emma has finally set the wedding date in my twenty-eighth year, she's planning our wedding seven days from now.

While I'm planning how to leave her.

Though this body is already in ruins, I still don't want to leave with any marks related to her.

I pointed to the other side below my collarbone, telling Lily.

"Tattoo a trumpet creeper flower here."

Emma loves gardenias.

But I prefer trumpet creepers.

She wants me naive and ignorant.

But in the little time I have left, I want to be like the trumpet creeper, proud and climbing high walls.