Dev fell silent upon hearing Bella's demand.
"You don't want to marry Kris?" Dev asked.
"Of course not! I don't like him! You are the only one I want to marry!" Bella stated firmly.
"Bel, marriage isn't a game. You don't even know who I am yet. I can't marry you, let alone meet your grandfather." Dev released his grip on Bella's hands.
Bella felt a sharp pang of ache in her heart.
"So you'd rather see me marry another guy? Why can't you just admit that you like me too?"
Dev looked at Bella, his eyes filled with guilt.
"I just want you to be realistic. Look at yourself right now, and look at me. We come from two different worlds; there's no way I can marry you."
"Why? Because you don't have a steady job? Do you mind because I come from high society? I'm willing to give it all up for you," Bella whispered softly.
Dev let out a long sigh.
"Bel, I'm not worth you giving up everything you have. You need to hold on to what is rightfully yours. You and I just can't be together."
"Are you still in love with that other girl?! That's why you're saying all this, isn't it?!" Bella screamed.
Rising to her feet, she snapped furiously, "I'm going to find that girl! Just you wait, you're going to regret rejecting me!"
Bella stormed out of Dev's room. She braved the heavy downpour and rushed down the stairs. Dev ran after her as she kept sprinting all the way out of the apartment complex gates.
"Bel! Where are you going? The rain is pouring heavily. You're going to get sick." Dev finally managed to catch her by the arm, but Bella quickly snapped her hand away from his grip.
"If you want to reject me, just do it! Stop pretending to be nice to me! You don't need to care about me anymore. I'm going home!" Bella turned around, getting ready to leave.
"You went to Satya High in Bandung for your tenth grade, didn't you?!" Dev shouted through the pouring rain.
Bella froze in her tracks.
"Back then, you saved a middle school kid who was being bullied. After school, he was cornered by some guys who extorted him and beat him up together. The kid was terrified, crying and screaming for help."
Bella turned back around. The story Dev was telling sounded incredibly familiar to her.
"Then you showed up and saved him. You beat them up one by one until they apologized to the kid. Then you told him: 'You're a guy! Why do you just stand there when people pick on you? Fight back! A man has to be strong! How can you protect the people you love if you're weak like this? You know soldiers, right? They're cool guys with good hearts who are physically and mentally strong. You have to be like them!'"
Bella instantly recalled the thick prescription glasses she had seen in Dev's room earlier. She stared at Dev, whose entire body was now completely drenched from the rain.
"You're that chubby kid who wore glasses?" Bella's memories began to piece together.
Dev nodded his head.
Bella still could not believe it. The chubby boy who was shorter than her back then, wore thick glasses, and looked completely nerdy had transformed into the muscular, handsome, and absolutely captivating Dev standing before her.
"I kept your words in mind every single day. I started changing since meeting you that day. I learned martial arts and fought back against everyone who bullied me until no one dared to pick on me again."
Dev took a step closer to Bella, who was listening intently.
"Ever since we met back then, I've never stopped thinking about you. I often wondered when I would ever see you again. But that chance never came because it turned out you had moved to Jakarta. I could only keep tabs on you through your Instagram. Until you suddenly showed up right in front of me at the Logan Ritz Hotel. I honestly never expected to cross paths with you again after all this time."
Dev reached out and took Bella's hand.
"Bel, you are that girl. The girl I've admired since the seventh grade up until now. You're the girl who made me decide to enter the Military Academy."
The rain was still pouring heavily outside. Bella was now sitting on the sofa in Dev's room, having changed out of her wet clothes into a T-shirt and boxer shorts belonging to Dev. Dev walked out of the bathroom, heading toward his wardrobe while vigorously rubbing a towel against his hair.
Bella stood up from the sofa and wrapped her arms around Dev just as he finished putting on his shirt.
"Bel!" Dev gasped, once again startled by her sudden hug from behind.
"I'm cold," Bella whined playfully.
"Do you even realize how dangerous the things you say are?"
"I'm totally down to do dangerous things with you. You like me anyway. Let's do it right now, I'm ready!" Bella stated bluntly.
Dev used all his strength to pry Bella's locked arms away from his body.
"I'm not doing that with you," Dev said firmly.
"Why not? I'm mentally and physically prepared, you know!"
"Who exactly are you to me that we should be doing that?" Dev asked as he pulled an extra blanket out of the wardrobe.
"I'm your girlfriend. You basically just confessed your feelings earlier," Bella said, flashing a sweet smile.
Dev blushed at her words, but he quickly composed himself.
"I only said that you're the girl I've admired all this time. I didn't confess to anything. Now go to sleep; I'll take you home tomorrow morning."
"You're still playing hard to get, pretending you don't like me," Bella said, smiling with fondness.
Dev chose not to keep the banter going. He grabbed a pillow from his bed, tossed it onto the sofa, and then lay down, pulling the blanket he brought from the wardrobe over his body.
"Why are you sleeping on the sofa? Your bed is huge. We can just sleep together on the bed. Literally just sleeping, nothing else. Your body is going to ache sleeping on a sofa like that."
Dev looked up at Bella. "I'm not taking that risk."
"You're just afraid you won't be able to resist my charms," Bella teased confidently.
"So you do know," Dev muttered, closing his eyes.
Bella smiled, walked over to Dev, and whispered, "Marry me, Dev."
Dev opened one eye and said, "Go to sleep, Bel." He then closed his eyes again.
Bella pouted, annoyed that Dev was ignoring her.
"It's only seven in the evening. How can you be going to bed already?" Bella grumbled.
Dev didn't answer, keeping his eyes shut.
"Dev, I'm hungry. Aren't you going to have dinner? You haven't eaten either, right?" Bella gave Dev's shoulder a rough shake.
"You are such a high-maintenance girl." Dev got up with a sigh of irritation. But then he asked, "What do you want to eat?"
"What do you have? It's raining outside, so we can't go out to look for food. And I'm bored of ordering online. I don't mind eating whatever you have on hand."
"I only have instant noodles."
"I'll take it!" Bella said brightly.
Dev walked over to his small kitchen area and began cooking instant noodles for her. Bella stood nearby, watching him prepare the meal.
"Why do you look like you're starving? Just go wait on the sofa." Dev tore open the seasoning packets and poured them into a bowl.
"I'm never allowed to eat this at home. Mmm... it smells amazing! Hurry up, Dev, I'm starving!" Bella urged impatiently.
"Why aren't you allowed? Who forbade you?" Dev asked.
"My bodyguards, my maids. They always check everything I eat. Instant noodles aren't healthy, so they never let me have them."
"Over the top," Dev commented as he poured the cooked noodles into the bowl.
"Tell me about it. It sucks being me, right?" Bella chimed in with a pout.
Dev carried the steaming bowl of noodles over to the coffee table in front of the sofa. Bella sat down and immediately dug into the hot noodles. She managed to take a large first bite.
"This is delicious! It's been ages since I last had noodles!" Bella cheered happily. Dev just smiled, watching her look so incredibly joyful over a simple bowl of instant noodles.
Bella looked up at him. "Aren't you eating?"
"No. You go ahead," Dev said. Just watching her eat with such a hearty appetite already made him feel full.
"Are you really not hungry?" Bella asked before lifting the bowl and drinking the savory broth until not a single drop was left.
"Nope. I'm not hungry."
Suddenly, Dev's stomach let out a loud, rumbling growl.
"Liar," Bella smirked. "I'll make you a bowl!" She cheerfully skipped over to the kitchen.
"Don't worry about it, Bel," Dev called out.
Bella ignored him and reached for a packet of instant noodles stored in the small kitchen cabinet.
Dev waited for Bella to cook the noodles while sitting on the sofa, scrolling through his phone.
CRASH!
Suddenly, the sharp sound of something shattering echoed from the kitchen. Dev rushed over to Bella immediately.
"Sorry, I wasn't being careful," Bella said regretfully. The bowl she was about to use to mix the seasoning had slipped, shattering into several pieces across the floor.
"Your foot is bleeding." Dev noticed that the top of Bella's foot had been lightly scraped by a glass shard, oozing a small amount of blood.