Dwarf
86. Bahri

"I'm just kidding and anyway I want to be right next to you" he whispered.

"Not to overdo it. Aren't you ashamed of saying that?"

"No, why should I be ashamed? The one who listened to him was no one else."

"Ah, stop! I want to go to the market," said Saoda who took off a hug from Tuo.

Saoda stepped up and grabbed the clothes and put them on while Tuo now turned his head and leaned against the surface of the room window.

"Markets? What to market?" ask Tuo.

"I want to buy some kitchen spices."

"I'm coming along."

"Ah, no need. Let me be alone anyway I don't buy much. I'll just buy one or two and then I'll go home" he explained.

Tuo now sighed. He stared at every single thing his wife did. Saoda who was in front of the mirror while combing her hair was now glancing at Tuo.

"What's wrong?"

"I want to come."

Saoda laughing.

"Tuo, come! You're not a little boy anymore who whines that brought to the market. You just stay here and wait for me to come home."

Tuo now sighed and after that he immediately nodded his head in agreement.

The prepared Saoda now stepped closer to the visible Tuo. Saoda touched both cheeks of Tuo who appeared to be pouted by the one who had.

"Hey! Whatisthis? Are you sad just because I let you go to the market?"

Tuo clicked his lips.

"Go!" his orders while pushing Saoda's hand and he stepped away from Saoda who was now smiling to see Tuo's departure.

Very humorous. For some reason after marrying Tuo instead became spoiled like this. This still laughing Saoda now immediately followed in which direction Tuo was stepping.

"Are you angry?" asked Saoda who was now standing at the kitchen door.

"Don't go!" replied Tuo who looked back at Saoda.

"really? You seem so mad that you don't want to see me."

Tuo who sedan poured water into his glass now turned his head.

"I'm not angry."

"How can I trust him?"

Tuo smiled. He immediately put the glass on the table and stepped closer to Saoda.

Tuo pulled his wife's waist and looked at her lovingly.

"Go! Actually I wanted to come because I knew maybe the village bachelors would be mad because you'd married me."

Saoda frowned confusedly.

"What do you mean?"

Tuo let out a long breath. He moved his hand to rub his wife's earlobe that felt chewy.

"You know how many men you and my father have rejected. I'm just afraid that if they all hurt you and they could be rude to you."

"Tuo," said Saoda who now wrapped her hand on Tuo's shoulder.

"You don't have to worry. I can take care of myself anyway they can't possibly do anything evil to me."

"In this village, not only am I the one who used to have the title of a village girl, but now I have legitimately become your wife. Tuo's wife."

Tuo nodded then removed his embrace from Saoda's waist and let his wife leave the house for the market.

I don't know what feeling he got, but he felt unsettled with his heart. He felt that something bad would happen to his wife.

But Tuo desperately hoped that nothing bad would happen to Saoda.

...****************...

Saoda now steps her feet with a sense of happiness through rows of trees and houses that are not too many in number.

Saoda looked down at his basket which was now filled with kitchen spices that he had bought in the market.

I can't wait to get home and meet Tuo. Maybe this is what the newlyweds feel, he does not even want to part even if only for a moment.

Saoda has also bought some cakes for Tuo and also dodi pours. Saoda was sure Tuo would be pleased with his return.

Saoda who had been smiling since then was now looking at some men who were standing in the middle of the road along with some butut bikes that were barely fit to use.

Saoda remembers the man especially with the plontos-headed man with a whisker that looks agal and looks a little scary to Saoda.

He was Bahri, the man he had rejected his proposal many times because the man was famous as a naughty bachelor in this village.

Saoda looked at his three friends. Saoda had no idea what their obvious name was they were always beside Bahri wherever Bahri was then there they were.

Saoda doesn't understand why they're here and seems to be blocking his way.

Bahri smiled cunningly and then immediately got off the blind bike. He stood up and stared from the top to Saoda's feet.

Saoda gulped his salivary. He was not comfortable being looked at like that by all of them.

"Where are you going, Saoda?"

"I-I want to go home," replied Saoda who was so scared.

Saoda glanced at some of Bahri's friends and now seemed to smile meaningfully at him. The gaze was very disturbing to make Saoda pull down the skirt limited to her calf so as not to show too much the calf.

Bahri stepped up to scare Saoda. Saoda stepped back trying to keep the distance between him and Bahri who was still staring and stepped closer to him.

"Why are you stepping back?"

Saoda. Until he stopped his steps when Bahri had stopped his steps.

"I hear you've married Tuo? Really it?"

Saoda nodded making Bahri nod along.

"So that's why you didn't accept my proposal? I've even proposed to you seven times but you won't accept."

"Is Tuo so good that you prefer her proposal?"

One puff of cigarette smoke blows upwards and disappears after being blown by the wind.

"Me and Tuo have been betrothed since childhood and the one who set me up with Tuo is Puang Dodi and also my late Father, so I just obeyed their request," Saoda explained.

Bahri smiled.

"What that means is that you don't love Tuo and you marry him just out of a sense of coercion. Like that?"

Saoda smiled and shook his head.

"I have also loved Tuo. There is no man but him I love. He has now officially become my husband and I have also officially become his wife."

"Oh, so it's like that" Bahri said as he nodded and threw the still burning cigarette on the ground and stepped on it.

"Now I just want to give you a question and I want you to answer it!"

"What do you want to ask?"