Youth and love - A love020 fanfic

Chapter 17 - Ground rules

After Yu Banshan headed home, he wasted no time telling Hao Mei and Yugong about Wei Wei's surprise arrival. They had been working non stop for months and decided a little prank on their brother and sister in law was in order.

Yugong :"Where did Nai take her?"

Yu Banshan: " Apparently she is staying at her dorm sister's house. Xiaoling's apartment is empty and Sansao is staying in one of the rooms. One of her other sisters who is also interning this summer, is coming next week to occupy the other room"

Yugong: "Let's prank them. I bet we'll catch them fooling around. It will be fun to embarrass them. Do you know the address?"

Yu Banshan: "No. But she asked us to meet them for dinner at the roasted duck restaurant near colony X"

Hao Mei was conflicted about intruding on them: "Should we really do that? Nai will be angry if we disturb their quality time "

Yugong: "Come on, they have all summer. We need some fun. Can't you hack her phone or something Mei-ren and find out where she is?"

Hao Mei : "I don't need to hack anything. She filled out the address in our personnel file."

After some more arguing, the four boys showed up outside Wei Wei's door two hours later. Hao Mei had suggested they pick up some essentials-like snacks, juice etc for their sister so that it wouldn't just look like a prank.

They stood outside the door arguing softly about whether or not to ring the bell. They heard snippets of a conversation ( they didn't hear the words in the brackets, making it sound like something else *ahem ahem* was going on)

Nai's voice "Lift (with) your knees or you will throw your back out "

"I am lifting (it properly his table is) just so heavy"

"You have no strength (you need to eat more)"

"I have plenty (left) you need (to use yours) more"

Yugong twisted the door handle and it opened to his surprise. They had hoped to catch their friends in an awkward situation, instead they found them bickering with each other at opposite ends of a table, obviously trying to move it. It was a very hot day and both of them were quite irritable.

Dropping the table suddenly, Wei Wei exclaimed "What are you doing here?"

Nai yelled "Oww, gently Wei Wei" ,also set it down and saw his friends "Why are you guys here?" and collapsed on the couch.

The two of them had obviously been cleaning and apparently moving. Wei Wei's hair was in a bun and Nai's shirt was all wrinkled( it had been very wrinkled because of other fun activities earlier, but his friends didn't need to know that)

Hao Mei "We wanted to help and brought some essentials for you, Sansao"

Wei Wei took the plastic bag from his hands and noticed the ice cold juice "You are the best Mei-ge. Thank you for the cold juice." She tossed one of the bottles at Nai ,unscrewed the other and sat down on the couch next to Nai, arms touching.

"Come sit down", she ushered the others.

Hao Mei realized that Nai looked relaxed for the first time in a month, despite being in a hot apartment helping his girlfriend clean. They were also at ease with each other .

Yu Banshan noticed they had none of the tension he had felt between them in the office earlier. Trying to tease them he said "So what have the two of you been up to all afternoon?".

Not noticing the innuendo, Wei Wei replied "Aiyah, cleaning! What else. This place was so dusty. I must have sneezed a 100 times. We still need to clean the two rooms and the kitchen. We were trying to move this desk into the room when you guys came" running through a laundry list of chores.

Nai mentally congratulated his furen for sidestepping. If they had known what had almost happened on the couch, he would never hear the end of it.

"How did you know where she lived?", he asked instead.

The three brothers looked guilty and mumbled that they wanted to welcome Sansao and found her address in the personnel file. Nai didn't believe them for one second. " Since you are here, you can make yourselves useful to your sanso", he said sarcastically.

They groaned in protest but helped anyway. Soon everything was set up. 

Wei Wei went to the room to clean up and noticed one of Nai's shirt buttons on the floor. She hoped the others wouldn't notice and blushed thinking about their afternoon. Keeping the button as souvenir, she dressed in a loose summer dress and declared she was ready for dinner.

Nai had also managed to clean up. "Let's go", he said.

They sat down at the roasted duck restaurant and started eating. Mid way through the dinner, Wei Wei said, "I wanted to talk to you guys about some ground rules"

"Nai, remember your wager when you lost to me the other day?"

"I didn't lose, but go on"

"Loss is a loss. Unless you want to explain how you didn't lose", she raised one of her eyebrows

"Fine", he conceded.

"Here's what I want, You have to promise me that you won't interfere in my work problems. Church and state- we need a separation. That goes for all of you as well. I don't want anyone to think that I'm at the company because I'm Nai's girlfriend. In fact, it's better if we can keep that fact between us"

Nai was slightly hurt that she wanted to hide again , but he realized where she was coming from. She wanted to show her own skills and earn her own respect. 

Hao Mei started protesting "So, we can't call you sansao at work? What do we call you?"

Yu Banshan :" Why do you want to hide? Are you dumping our Nai already?"

Yugong: "Do you want to keep things secret because it makes life exciting?" wriggling his eyebrows.

They teased mercilessly.

Nai finally said "I understand. We know that you earned your title at the company. I think your peers will realize the same. I promise to keep my distance"

The boys stared at Nai, thinking he was crazy. One look at Wei Wei's face told him that he had made the right decision.

"Oh, and just call me Shi-mei wei wei, Mei-ge, Yugong-ge and Banshan-ge", she said.

"What will you call me then, Miss Wei Wei", teased Nai.

"Why, your given name of course Xiao Nai", no way I am calling you Lao san or worse Xiao-ge. Especially not when I defeated you in battle", she said sticking her tongue out teasing him.

They all laughed at her cheek . Rest of the dinner was spent bantering, laughing, eating and drinking.