They walked in silence along the same riverbank where they'd had their first date. The streetlamp was as dim as before. Bella stopped beneath a pool of light.
"Since you want to see so badly..." She looked at A. "Prepare yourself."
A nodded.
"You truly accept me even if I'm not beautiful?" Bella prolonged the moment like a game show host refusing to reveal the answer.
"Yep." A stared at her curiously. "What I like is the feeling of being with you." The way he added this felt like pressing her to surrender.
Bella finally reached behind her ear, tucked her hair aside, and removed the mask.
In the lamplight, A squinted, studying Bella's face. It was covered in acne, and her lips were thicker and drier than the expression on her mask.
A pressed his lips together.
Before he could look any longer, Bella swiftly put the mask back on. "Scared?"
"No." He pressed his lips together again.
"Really?" Bella held his gaze with unexpected force.
He stared at her for two seconds, then looked away.
"Really. I do like the feeling of being with you." He said it vaguely.
They continued to the subway station as usual and parted ways.
Bella smiled brilliantly and waved at A. He turned and waved back.
"Goodbye!" Bella suddenly called out to him, because she knew they would never meet again.
In the moment she'd removed her mask, she'd seen A's shock. After that, he'd maintained his politeness and said all the right things, but Bella could hear his retreat.
Sure enough, in subsequent conversations, A remained courteous but never again discussed literature with her. Whatever modest literary refinement she possessed apparently counted for nothing against an unattractive face.
Just another man who judges by appearances. Bella was disappointed, then felt it was only to be expected. She couldn't possibly be lucky enough to find someone who cared only for her inner self.
She deleted A without hesitation.
After that, Bella chatted with and went out with several other men.
Some took her to movies, some to ball games, some to amusement parks—but none took her to a bookstore like A had.
She sometimes thought of A. After surveying the options, she had to admit he was the most handsome. She regretted not holding on to him.
But he was just as superficial as every other man she'd met.
They were all decent-looking enough, each eagerly removing his own mask to show his real face. But the moment Bella took off hers, the reactions ranged from shock to revulsion.
Some, like A, were gentlemen about it—saying kind things to her face, then messaging afterward with excuses about incompatibility, proffering every absurd reason in the book. Others were less courteous, cursing her and storming off.
Bella concluded, heartbroken, that no man on earth would love her for anything other than her looks.
4
Bella went on another date. His name was Quentin.
Quentin was tall and burly, with a buzz cut and a tattoo on his neck—masculine in a way that immediately evoked the phrase "raw desire."
Bella skipped the dating rituals and went straight to bed with him.
Lately, she'd grown weary of dating. It felt like wasting precious rest time—tangling with these men for hours, only for everything to crumble the instant she unveiled her face. Over and over again. She was exhausted.
After several demoralizing blows, she found herself thinking, How ridiculous to keep hoping for a love that cherishes inner beauty above all else. Everyone else lives so practically—can't she just grow up?
Then she met Quentin.
This man awakened her desire. For someone like Bella, that was hard to admit. But she was genuinely attracted to his body.
She told him upfront that she wouldn't remove her mask—she only wanted the physical pleasure. The excuse was that she wanted to protect her privacy.
Quentin agreed, but he had no qualms about showing his own face. The first time they met in a hotel room, he took his mask off right away.
He held her, kissed her shoulders, her neck, her jaw—then felt the cold texture of her mask.
More than once, he pressed his lips to hers, wanting a real kiss. Bella refused.
Though slightly disappointed, he ultimately didn't push the issue. Bella thought that at least made him something of a gentleman.
But she was wrong. Quentin was no gentleman. He simply understood patience and trade-offs. Putting up with her refusal to kiss was the price of securing physical pleasure, time and time again.
That didn't mean he didn't want her mask off. Her rsynced lips looked sexy enough when parted in gasps, but knowing they were just a sticker marred the experience, just a little.
Besides, nobody could resist uncovering the truth about the person they were intimate with—especially someone they shared a bed with.
His patience gave way to testing, and testing met with rejection after rejection. Bella gradually sensed Quentin's frustration.
"But don't you think we're already happy? Isn't this arrangement good enough?" She deployed the same line she'd used on A. "What you look like doesn't matter, right?"
Quentin knew she was deflecting again. He nodded and held her bare body close.
But one day, Quentin ultimately couldn't hold back. "It's because I love you that I want to understand you." They were still in the foreplay stage. He leaned over and kissed Bella—through the mask, of course.
After the kiss, he said, "No matter what you look like, I'll still love you."
These men—utterly unbothered by conscience when it came to making promises they never intended to keep. Bella had heard this sort of sweet nothing too many times. She was disappointed; she'd hoped Quentin might be different.
She was tired. Rejecting Quentin again and again felt like wounding his heart over and over. And each rejection was also the moment Bella's own insecurity peaked. Every time, she felt ashamed. She didn't dare show him her real face because she feared being rejected for it once more.
She thought about her hairdresser ex, and that seductive woman who had sneered at her.
"Ugly." The word, thrown with such venom, still echoed in her head.
She didn't want to reject Quentin anymore. She believed that if she kept turning him down, he would eventually leave. And since he was going to leave anyway, she might as well make a clean break. No need to drag things out and keep battering her own self-esteem.
The day she decided to remove her mask, Bella accepted that this would be her last date with Quentin. But she still couldn't bring herself to take the initiative until Quentin pinned her down again and said, "Let me see you. Just for a second."
"Then prepare yourself." She looked at him with her lightly made-up eyes.
He paused, surprised by her agreement.
"No matter what you look like, I'll love you." He repeated the line to help her decide.
No, you won't. Bella thought as she removed the mask.
In the dim, intimate lighting of the room, Bella's acne-covered face and somewhat thick lips were exposed to Quentin's gaze.
A second later, Bella put the mask back on. Under his stunned gaze, she began to get dressed.
Then Quentin grabbed her and ripped open her clothes.
Bella was powerless to resist. She was utterly bewildered.
She'd assumed that only an intellectual like A might care about someone's inner self, and that a rough, brash man like Quentin would certainly be a member of the looks-obsessed club. But she'd been wrong? The man who wouldn't despise her appearance turned out to be this muscular, uncouth brute?
For a long while, Bella lost her capacity for thought. She held him, feeling the pleasure he gave her.
A hazy tenderness nearly brought tears to her eyes.
"Do you really love me?" she asked passionately.
"I love you. Of course I love you." He was breathing hard, his body trembling like a beast.
Afterward, Quentin lay on the bed, curling up like a child and falling asleep on his own. Early in their relationship, Bella had worried he might try to remove her mask while she slept, but he always slept soundly through the night, apparently without such schemes.
Bella stared at his sleeping face, warmth flowing through her. Could this man truly love her?
Late into the night, she couldn't sleep, so she reached out and touched his face.
He's a good person, she thought.
"Let's have breakfast together tomorrow morning," Bella murmured.