The Rose that Cannot be Loved

Time went back to the day before I returned to the country.

The moment I got off the plane, I felt so hungry, and countless dishes flashed through my mind.

"Look up and watch out."

Staring at my phone, I was obsessed with ordering takeout when suddenly startled by an unfamiliar voice above my head.

The person in front of me turned out to be Murray, who my friends had been gossiping about for a while yesterday and who was in the headlines of entertainment news these days.

Wearing a slim grey windbreaker, he looked like a male model from a distance. No wonder so many girls had been chasing after him since he was a kid.

Then I was confused.

How come he came to pick me up?

"Why are you the one picking me up? Where's Kim?" My mother clearly told me that she would send Kim to pick me up.

"When I was chatting with your mother yesterday, she happened to mention it and asked me for help. I had nothing to do today so I agreed. You just got off the plane. What do you want to eat?"

He changed the topic to food so quickly that I didn't react for a moment.

"Oh, I see. Thank you for your help then."

It seemed that Murray hadn't been doing very well in recent years.

He was all free enough to pick up an insignificant role like me.

"I want to eat everything!"

"Be serious!"

"Of course, I'm serious! You know what? The food abroad is very terrible! I even suspect that no normal people would eat those dishes..."

I trailed off, afraid that Murray would just abandon me on the roadside and leave me alone with my luggage.

We hadn't seen each other for a long time, but he was still as cold and expressionless as before. He didn't respond no matter what I said.

"I thought you were going to stay abroad for the rest of your life."

He said in a sarcastic tone, so I didn't want to answer.

"What did it mean to stay abroad for a lifetime?

I clearly told him about it when I was going abroad, but he didn't even want to see me off, so what right does he have to criticize me?" I thought to myself.

Finally, Murray took me to a restaurant near our junior high school for dinner.

The place had changed so much that I could hardly remember what it was like before.

"Why did you bring me here? Mr. Owen, your worth should have risen sharply now, why did you still bring me to this place?"

"Didn't you like it before?"

He was confused.

I wondered how he knew this was my favorite restaurant. After all, I had never eaten here with him before.

As I was about to ask the reason, he interrupted me by handing me the menu.

Although the restaurant looked small, it was very clean inside, with a rich variety of dishes, all of which were sweet and spicy.

Yet, I remembered that Murray couldn't eat spicy food. He actually chose to bring me here to eat food like that.

"I want this, that, and..." I ordered most of the dishes on the menu like crazy. When I looked up, I found that Murray and the waiter were staring at me in amazement.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" I asked, thinking it was weird because I ordered normal portions.

As a person just returning from a country without much delicious food, I dreamed of eating food in my country, such as pasta with cheese and fish dishes.

In my view, the two people shouldn't be as surprised as if they had never seen it before.

"If I remember correctly, there were only two of us for dinner." What he meant was that I ordered too much and two people couldn't finish it.

"Mr. Owen, are you poor lately? You invited me to dinner and didn't even let me order the dishes."

He was speechless for a while.

Murray looked at me for a few seconds, then compromised and returned the menu to the waiter.

"Just do what she ordered."

When the dishes came, I ate them like crazy. Murray didn't eat anything but looked at me silently, just as he had been silent before.

Having finished eating, I looked up at him.

"Well, my dad is going to hold a welcoming party for me in a few days. Do you want to come? I heard that you recently dated a woman who looks very much like me. You can also bring her along."

If my friends saw the two, then it could dispel the rumors.

In the past few years, Murray and I contacted each other not exceeding five times. I had no idea why they thought that we would date.

Some bored people even wrote fan fiction for us.

"What woman?"

"They all sent me the news. Don't keep it a secret. I know she looks like me. Don't worry, I won't overthink. It's normal for many people to look like me, given my average face."

I wouldn't flatter myself to think Murray found that woman because he liked me.

Murray frowned. "Stop reading those meaningless passages. I don't know that person."

"Well."

I wouldn't believe that.

It had been on the gossip headlines for a few days.

"I'll let my assistant handle this."

After he finished speaking, we looked at each other in silence. He was still as unsociable as before.

"Are you full?

"People who don't know the fact would think you haven't eaten for many years."

I forced a smile and replied through gritted teeth.

"Well, you are quite humorous."

In fact, what he said was annoying.

If he went abroad for three to five years, he might come back and eat more than me.

As expected, I had indigestion after the meal, and at the same time, I received a sullen look from him.

"I told you not to eat so much, and I said you couldn't finish it."

During these years abroad when I worried about the language barrier, I was used to this kind of teasing, so his words wouldn't hurt me at all.

"Can't you just pack it up? I want to continue eating when I get home."

Murray took one look at my belly and decisively rejected my proposal.

"Sometimes, you have to do things within your means."

I was disappointed.

He had completely lost the favor of me.