I Can Live A Difficult Life

Ludwina still couldn't believe that she would marry Andrea. They had known each other for almost a year but had only become close during the last few months, especially after they traveled together in Europe.

She took a photo of her ring finger adorned with a cute diamond ring from Andrea and thought for a long time about whether she should update her status on social media or not. Andrea, who had seen her watching her fingers all this time, finally shook his head.

"What's wrong, Honey?"

My... Ludwina's ears immediately turned red. Since this afternoon, Andrea hardly ever called her name, always replace it with the pet name "Honey".

It was amusing how Ludwina wasn't used to it. Even with her older brother Johann, who was six years older, they still called each other by their first names*.

"Uhm... I'm considering whether I should update my status on social media or not..." Ludwina replied, flustered. "What do you think?"

"It's up to you if you want to update your social media status. But you shouldn't write my name on any posts," replied Andrea. "Privacy is a very valuable thing in my field of work. I don't want bad people to find out that you're my wife and use you to blackmail me into committing crimes."

Hmm... Ludwina had never thought of that before.

All this time, she only thought that her life was precious as an heiress of a wealthy family and that criminals could kidnap her for ransom.

She just found out that as the wife of a digital security expert, she was also vulnerable to being kidnapped by criminals to control Andrea and his skills in the field of internet security.

She immediately remembered movies in which a hacker's wife was arrested and her husband was blackmailed into breaking into the CIA or bank security system.

In the end, Ludwina only posted a photo of her ring and wrote a caption:

"I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.

I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;

so I love you because I know no other way,

than this: where I do not exist, nor you,

so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,

so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep."

- Pablo Neruda

When he saw it, Andrea smiled and hugged Ludwina tightly.

"If I had an Instagram account, I'd like this photo a hundred times," he said softly. "I love you, Wina."

"I love you, Andrea." Ludwina closed her eyes and whispered the paragraph from Pablo Neruda earlier to Andrea. "It was a love poem that I really liked, but I never understood how it feels until I finally met you. Now, every love poem seems to be written to represent my feelings for you."

Andrea smiled and nodded. He was also feeling the same thing.

***

That day, Andrea worked at home and Ludwina decided to continue resting because her head was still dizzy from the hangover. When the evening came and she felt better, Ludwina left the bedroom to find Andrea, who was still busy with his work.

"It's late, should I check in to the hotel now or should I stay here?" asked Ludwina, sitting next to Andrea on the sofa.

"Just stay here, I can cook dinner, and you can taste your future husband's cooking," replied Andrea as he closed his laptop. "Unless you prefer to stay in the hotel?"

"No, I'll just stay here..." answered Ludwina with a happy face.

She was just testing the water, of course. She preferred to stay in Andrea's apartment and spend the night with him. They could watch movies and chat late into the night while drinking wine.

"Okay. Do you want to accompany me shopping for groceries?" asked Andrea then. "There's a Fair Price supermarket nearby."

"Okay."

Ludwina excitedly followed Andrea shopping for groceries at the supermarket. They came home with ingredients to make a steak and Caprese salad and two kinds of ice cream.

"Can you help chop the tomatoes and mozzarella cheese?" asked Andrea as they prepared their dinner. Ludwina nodded.

The food Andrea prepared was simple but fresh and delicious. For the Caprese salad, he just put mozzarella cheese slices on top of round tomato slices and covered them with two basil leaves, then sprinkled black pepper and salt.

"Uhmm... this is really delicious," expressed Ludwina, gobbling down three Caprese salads while waiting for Andrea to prepare their steaks. "Where did you learn to cook?"

"Have you never watched the Asian Food Channel or MasterChef?" Andrea asked back.

He put two pieces of steak in a non-stick pan that had been given a little butter and he sprinkled a little pepper and salt and covered it for 2 minutes before turning the steak pieces over.

"Umm... I don't like watching cooking shows, they don't have a story..."

"Ahahaha, yeah. But I learned how to cook from those shows. Italian cooking happens to be the easiest type of cooking to make. You'll like it."

Ludwina smelled the fragrance of Andrea's cooking in the air with a very hungry face. She just remembered that she only ate hangover soup this afternoon.

Fortunately, Andrea knew that Ludwina was starving and opted for the type of dish that can be quickly prepared. Within five minutes, the medium steak was served on the dining table and the two of them immediately enjoyed dinner.

"This is really good," said Ludwina. "I'm happy because I'll never starve as long as I have you beside me."

"Thank you. The secret to good cooking is fresh ingredients," Andrea smiled simply as he added his last sentence, "and of course, love."

Ludwina blushed, hearing that. She did not expect that Andrea, who was usually serious and quiet, was now saying words of love so easily after she officially accepted his love and agreed to marry him.

Previously, she thought that Andrea was a cold guy, but she was wrong. When she was near Andrea, Ludwina always felt surrounded by the warmth of his love. This made Ludwina feel touched.

"Tomorrow is Friday. I can go straight to the airport after I finish work at the office," said Andrea as they cleared their dinner plates. He took two boxes of ice cream from the refrigerator and put them on the table. "What flavor do you want? Vanilla or chocolate?"

"Both," answered Ludwina greedily. Andrea scooped each of the ice creams into two small bowls for Ludwina and himself and put the ice cream box back into the refrigerator.

"Do you want to go together or should we just meet at the airport?" asked Andrea.

"Let's just meet at the airport, so you don't have to go back and forth."

"Okay then."

Andrea took his phone and opened the ticket booking application. "If it's just a flight to Jakarta, I can buy us business class tickets..."

"What? No...!" Ludwina hurriedly stopped him. She sat on Andrea's lap and took over his phone. "We're only flying to Jakarta, that means we can get just fly coach. It's only for two hours. You don't have to waste your money to buy business class tickets for my sake..."

"Are you serious?" asked Andrea. He scooped a spoonful of ice cream and fed it to Ludwina.

"I'm serious. I'll book the tickets... Flying economy with Garuda or SQ is also good." Ludwina ate the ice cream Andrea gave her and fiddled with the tickets on the man's phone. "I still remember your passport number. I'm booking them for tomorrow at 8 PM, two tickets, under the name Andrea Baskara and Ludwina Kurniawan."

"All right." Andrea fed Ludwina more ice cream.

"Date of birth... email address... blablabla..." Ludwina ate the ice cream from Andrea's spoon and confirmed the tickets. "Great, already booked. They just need to be paid for. What's your credit card number?"

Andrea took his wallet from the table and pulled out a Mastercard credit card and read out the number.

"Great, the tickets are already booked." Ludwina kissed Andrea and returned his phone. "Thank you!"

Andrea smiled broadly when he saw their flight ticket booking confirmation for tomorrow night.

"When was the last time you flew economy?" he asked.

Ludwina frowned, trying to remember. "Hmm... I think it was when I was still in uni... At that time, I was traveling with my friends to Paris, and everyone flew economy. I didn't want to fly business class alone. That's why I bought an economy ticket so I could go together. I'm not always the spoiled princess, you know. I can live a difficult life too."

Andrea smiled at the thought that Ludwina could live a difficult life. Of course, the standard of difficulty for the girl was very different from the standard difficult life for the average person.

Andrea knew that Ludwina was born in a very wealthy family and she had never experienced hardships in her life as she was used to luxury and priority treatment.

However, he was grateful that Ludwina wasn't spoiled and had a good heart. Her family didn't care about wealth and status, as evidenced by the way they received and treated Andrea since they first met.

Andrea felt that he was the luckiest man in the world because he could win Ludwina's heart.

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1] In Asia, it's common for younger siblings to call their older brother/sister with "Brother" or "Sister". Calling an older person by their first name is considered rude.