Arrogant Man VS Unyielding Woman

"No, I..." Closing his mouth, Zed frowned in frustration, realizing that Jean still didn't understand his own intentions and why he behaved that way, or worse, she wasn't accepting any of it. When he was just about to open his mouth and continue to argue about the issue with Jean, Jean spoke up and interrupted him in a threatening tone, "Well, if you still want to keep quibbling over this small matter with me, then I'd like to go back home now." "Why not? Let's go back. I don't want to stay here, either!" Zed said while nodding his head approvingly.

"No, you don't understand. I'd like to go home alone. If you follow me, then I'd rather not go home tonight!" With a glare, Jean refused him in a hurry. "Oh, come on! Jean!" Zed couldn't hold back his anger anymore after grasping her desire to go alone and looked at her with burning fire in his eyes.

Jean looked back at him, blinking slowly as if trying to decide what to do. She then realized that Zed wasn't going to back down anytime soon just by how piled up his irritation was. She stared at him for a few more seconds and realized that she couldn't really resist her husband any longer. After heaving a deep sigh, she went over him and took his hand on hers, rubbing her thumb on the top of his palm before saying gently, "Honey, can we please stop arguing? What's done is done, and everything is resolved already. Besides, what's important is that Calvin is now finally awake, and so, we should just focus our attention and energy on being happy for him, shouldn't we? This was what we came for, wasn't it, baby?"

As Zed's gaze focused on Jean's eyes, the burning fire inside of him started to get extinguished. He started to relax and nodded slowly at Jean's words. He then embraced Jean into a hug, feeling the exhaustion inside him fade away as if Jean was his stress reliever. Just not far from them, Calvin, who watched them with worry and hesitated whether or not to intervene, now looked relieved.

The doctor finally came, making both Jean and Zed pull away from each other and sat on the sofa to observe. Alina sat beside Jean and reached out for her hand. After the thorough examination, the doctor looked at them all with a smile and announced, "Calvin has completely recovered. As soon as the forms and payment have been processed, he can be discharged today and go home. Just remember, no triggering and no depressing words for the meantime. Congratulations."

"Oh, that won't be a problem. Thank you very much, doctor!" Alina was so happy to hear that Calvin had fully recovered that she stood up and took the doctor's hand excitedly to express her gratitude for him. The doctor congratulated them once more before he turned to leave..

As soon as the doctor left, Calvin turned to Alina with a huge smile as well.. "In that case, Mom, help me pack up my belongings. I've been in the hospital for as long as I can remember, and I'm extremely tired of it. I want to leave here as soon as possible."

"All right, son. I'll pack it up as soon as possible. I don't want to stay here any longer as well. Negative energy just floats around."

Without another word, Alina hurriedly walked over to Calvin's closet and began to pack up their belongings..

"As for me, I'm going to go through the discharge formalities and procedure now," Calvin said before turning his back at them and walked towards the door..

Jean immediately turned to Zed and winked broadly at him, hinting that they should take this opportunity to go with Calvin.

Although Jean had already forgiven Alina, she could still recall how Alina slandered her just moments ago despite what she said to Calvin about forgetting what his mother said.

She was still, in fact, a human being and was extremely hurt, so she was reluctant and unwilling to stay with Alina in the same room for now..

Plus, she was afraid that Zed's anger might return at Alina's presence, and that if they stayed, he might explode again and say something awful to hurt her. In order to stop all these from happening and worsening, she finally decided that it's best for them to go along with Calvin..

When she saw that Zed was not against it, Jean hurriedly stopped Calvin by calling out his name, "Calvin, we'd like to go with you."

Calvin was slightly surprised by Jean's proposition at first, but within a few seconds, he seemed to understand the reason why they wanted to go with him. With a smile, he looked at Jean and Zed, who were already walking towards him, and waited for them by the door. When they had caught up with him, the three of them went out together.

As they walked in silence towards the nurses' station, Calvin spoke, "Actually, you don't have to wait for me. I'll just call a taxi to drive my mom and I back home." Several days ago, Zed sent Calvin to this hospital, so the only way Calvin could go home was to take a taxi or go with them..

Since Jean and Zed wanted to send him home, they weren't taking no for an answer, and besides, this was also the reason why they stayed in the hospital this long..

Naturally, Jean frowned at Calvin and said, "Nonsense! We'll drive you home!" When Calvin was about to refuse, she scoffed and added, "Calvin, I think we have agreed not to look into the past anymore and focus on the present and the future ahead of us. Let the bygones, be bygones. Now, we're still friends, aren't we? So, stop being so shy and formal about it. Like I said, we'll still welcome you with open arms. What are friends for? Plus, you and Zed are good buddies ever since you were both kids, and that both of you grew up in the same big yard. I don't see any reason why you should refuse us from driving you home."

Calvin stopped making both of them stop as well. He looked at Jean for a while and then turned to look at Zed with a complex expression, as if trying to gauge whether or not Zed was also in to it or just tagging along with Jean's ideas.

Jean noticed this gesture and complained, crossing her arms on her chest, "I'm the one talking to you, Calvin. Why are you looking at Zed? For confirmation?" She complained and stomped her foot before walking ahead of them, not even noticing that they weren't following behind.

"You haven't told her about your identity yet?" Calvin asked in bewilderment as soon as he made sure that they were out of Jean's earshot.

Zed looked at Calvin. He knew that his words were more of a statement than a question. Growing up together gave them the perks of being too familiar with each other. Even then, he still shook his head and responded, "No." He could not help sighing and clearly looked upset with the problem that weighed heavily on his mind. "I couldn't find the right time to tell her, and I'm afraid that it will be too sudden and burdensome if I tell her the truth now."

"That's reasonable." Calvin understood what Zed was worrying about, so he nodded his head approvingly and looked at Zed sympathetically. "I hope that you understand that this is by no means a trifle thing. Zed, you'd better find an opportunity to tell her the truth as soon as possible. Otherwise, the aftermath will be very serious," he warned. He wanted to help Zed, but he couldn't seem to figure out a way for it was only Zed who could help himself for this matter..

Zed let out another sigh before replying. "I know." Meanwhile, both of them were too engrossed with their conversation that weren't aware that Jean noticed them talking in hushed tones a little bit earlier. She had walked back towards them, and by the time Zed responded to Calvin's warning, Jean had already stood beside them. As soon as Zed noticed Jean's presence beside them once more, he turned to her without thinking if Jean heard them or not and reached out his hand to rub her hair gently, sighing heavily once more.

Jean looked at them in confusion, wondering why they were talking in hushed tones just now, and why Zed was acting this way. "What's wrong, Zed? What were you two talking about?" She gently shook his hand away from her hair, her eyebrows furrowing as she waited for an answer.

"Nothing serious, Jean," Calvin replied and winked at her mischievously. "It's a topic between men, so you'd better not get involved, unless you want to hear it..."

Jean frowned at him. Calvin's smile dropped. He expected her to blush instead of looking daggers at him. "Do you think I'm deaf? Even though both of you talked in hushed tones, I heard enough. Tell me frankly now, what were you talking about? And what are you trying to hide from me?" Jean asked, anger evident in her tone.

"Nothing, Jean. We're not hiding anything from you. You must have misunderstood us!" Calvin shook his head firmly and added, "Jean, you are always suspicious about everything. It's not healthy, you know. You should stop that habit of yours."

Jean's fists clenched at her sides and glared at him. "Oh, come on, Calvin! Why would you defend Zed like this? If I remember correctly, you always wanted to play all kinds of tricks to take revenge on him, so why are you behaving differently now? And, really? You as well? How could you hide anything from me, too? It's so silly of me to come to see you today. If I had known that you would treat me like this, then I wouldn't have come. I'll just let you abandon yourself and continue to live a bad life." Jean looked at Calvin and gnashed her teeth in anger.

Calvin's face dropped this time. Embarrassment and hurt flashed on his face. Jean had crossed the line, making him speechless and stunned. He had no idea what to say after that, so he just turned around and walked a few steps away from them..

Zed's eyes widened at Jean's comment. He couldn't bear listening to her anymore, so he couldn't help but blame her, "Jean, we've agreed not to talk about the things in the past, so why do you have to mention it again? You're trying to plant another bomb, aren't you aware of that?"

"Stop it, Zed! He was defending you. Oh, so now both of you are going to stand by each other's side to bully me, huh?"

Jean exclaimed, feeling a pang of hurt deep inside her..

She felt hurt by how they were going against her, and clearly, they were hiding something from her. But then, she was more hurt by knowing the fact that she had crossed the line, and that she shouldn't have said those words to hurt Calvin. Then again, she was still angry about their attitude, so she could not manage to admit her mistakes and apologize to Calvin. She was prideful that much.

Zed sighed helplessly and shaking his head, he replied, "No, Jean. Calvin was not defending me. He was just kindly reminding me of something important." He paused to wait for Jean's response, but she just stared back at Zed, trying to think about what to say next. Was she going to accept his answer and let it go, or was she going to continue to push and pry? Before she could decide what to do, Zed spoke, "Jean, you should apologize to Calvin." He nodded towards Calvin's direction.

"Well, I..." Jean started but couldn't seem to finish. She felt her cheeks warm and flushed red from embarrassment. She looked at Calvin with hesitation and did not know whether she should apologize to Calvin or not, afraid that he might not accept her apology, or worse, he would be back to his own shutout world again. Because of this fear, she sighed with resignation and walked up to Calvin. She gently tugged off the hem of his shirt shyly.

Calvin then turned, and when he found out it was Jean, his face darkened even more. Apparently, he was still affected by her words..

Seeing his expression, Jean opened her mouth in haste before Calvin would start to lose his patience for her and ignore her completely.. "Calvin, I'm sorry. Believe me, I didn't mean to say those words to hurt you just now. I was just irritated by your joke..."

Calvin looked at Jean. His face started to soften.. "I'm sorry, too, Jean. It was insensitive of me to say such inapproriate thing. I shouldn't have teased you like that, and I know that you were just concerned about us. I should have been more generous instead of a bully. Let's just forget it, okay?"

Jean smiled. "Forgive and forget." She finally felt relieved. As soon as they were back on Zed's side, Jean commented, "Both of you are too strange. It's hard for me to see through you now. Because of Christina, Calvin didn't even care to say a word to Zed and even made all those efforts to play tricks on Zed. Do you remember? However, today, you treat each other as if nothing serious happened. It seems like you two really have a great relationship, and that both of you know each other very well. It's just so strange."

"Of course, I know him well. How could I not? Zed and I lived together in the same big yard during our childhood years. When we grew up, there indeed happened something unpleasant between us, causing us to not live together anymore. Then, I thought that he had something to do with Christina's death at that time, so I surely had tried all means to know everything about him and investigated him. I can say that there are only a handful of people in this world who know him better than I do." Calvin bet with a bitter but playful smile on his face. Zed scoffed and said, "The thought that someone knows me too well doesn't make me feel at ease, at all. It's very taxing." He joked at Calvin before turning to Jean. "Honey, I'm not sure whether Calvin is our friend or our enemy. Should we be on guard against him?" Jean laughed, while Calvin refuted, "Oh, come on, Zed! Stop joking around, and be realistic. Even ten of me would be no match for a man like you with such power!"

Jean stopped laughing, her eyes widening in surprise after hearing Calvin's words, and asked, "Really? Is Zed that invincible?"

"It's such a pity, Jean. Zed is your husband, but you don't seem to know much about him. Maybe you should also investigate him," Calvin suggested, shaking his head to keep the playful act..

Zed's eyes widened, immediately stopping Calvin from saying anything by shouting his name. Even though Calvin meant it as a joke, he was still displeased with it. Jean might somehow guess, and he was not ready to tell the truth yet.

"Fine. Whatever. It's a problem between you two, and I should probably stop interfering." Calvin rolled his eyes at Zed before he turned to walk ahead and pay the pending bills. Zed and Jean just stood nearby, waiting for him. After a short while, Calvin was informed that the discharge procedure was complete, and that he was good to go. As he passed by them, he gave them a smile and walked towards the ward without waiting for them to follow him.

Zed was about to follow Calvin back to the ward, but when he turned to look at Jean, he found that Jean was still standing there with a puzzled look plastered on her face.