Send a symbol for Cường's reaction to...: (Still accepting.)
❃: Dancing with him.
He’s too serious, everyone says, and all irony aside -- tongue-in-cheek, boasting that foul flavor of macabre -- perhaps even grave. And how interesting, the death-seer, the sleepy-eyed ghost dreamer, thinks to himself. Yes, how ridiculous. And more, how funny. Tiff watches as he chops away, banana flowers perfuming, and he’d argue there’s no one, not now or ever, as alive as he is. He grows roses and thyme! He makes ointments and creams. He wretches people from the cusp of deadlier ills -- fevers, he’d clarify, but what’s a little bit of drama, right? Point is, he doesn’t really get it when Tiff comes behind him. He’s unabashed, he’d argue! She finds his waist, and he thinks he hears, “Live a little.”
She turns him. His apron clings. Cường drops his knife where it clatters on the cutting board, and still, the world crows aloud: laugh then. Joke. She twines their fingers, and far enough so that he can’t hear: or smile. Do you remember when you last did that?
Well... Not really. She’s petite, black hair prettily bouncing about, and he blinks as she steps, grooves, pivots them. He allows it, clumsier perhaps, but she guides them well beneath the alluring, mouth-watering scent of dinner.
“You’re just manhandling me,” he drawls, two steps left when he should’ve gone right. She could laugh, smooth like pouring wines red as cherry, and he’d gawp. Still, he believes it bubbles in her eyes, and softer for it, brighter, he folds their hands. Hm. “Well, then, that means I’m light, aren’t I? In the clouds, even. Over the moon, even.” He stops, raises his arm, and after a ballerina-twirl, leans in. She’s bent. He looks down, dark eyes and all, and cocks his head. ‘Live a little.’ “I’m shameless, you should know. Set the plates.”
