Brick by Brick (Bxb)

Chapter 29: A Disastrous Date of Three

A Happy Lunar New Year for all you readers out there who celebrate it! I'll be taking a break from writing for about a week due to the festivities. In the meantime, please enjoy this chapter!

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In all his life, Ming Kai had never encountered hickeys as tenacious as these. Even after a full day, they remained there like irremovable stains, an unwanted reminder of the time spent with Chen Tian Lin inside the locked cubicle.

While he was mulling over when they would disappear, a familiar polychromic tune resounded twice in succession. Ming Kai quickly dried his hands with a paper towel and reached for his pocket. There were two messages, the first one was from Terry.

Terry: "Done with work? I'm waiting for you downstairs! ('｡• ω •｡')"

Ming Kai chuckled at the retarded emoticon and realised that Terry must be really free to get off work at such an early time. However, that smile soon faded away when he saw the next message.

Chen Yu Lin: "Let's go for dinner tonight! I'm reaching the lobby soon."

A sensation of deadly crisis suddenly came over him. Ming Kai promptly sped back to his cubicle and after making some hasty goodbyes, grabbed his belongings and ran straight to the elevator, repeatedly punching the buttons like it owed him money.

Ming Kai was in cold sweat. His hands clammy from all nervousness. Within the time it took for the elevator to reach the ground floor, his brain cells were strained to their limits as they imagined all sorts of worst-case scenarios, and none of them looked like there was a convenient way out of this mess.

His best option was to intercept one of them first and arrange for another time to meet.

The instant the doors opened, Ming Kai rushed out to the entrance and found both Terry and Chen Yu Lin staring at each other.

The trio stood awkwardly at that position for an uncomfortably long time.

"Good evening. It's been a while..." The first to break the silence was Chen Yu Lin. She gave an amiable smile so filled with blinding radiance that it made it difficult for anyone to look at her directly.

"...indeed it has. What brings you here?" Terry reciprocated with a smile, his eyes occasionally flickered sideways to glance at Ming Kai.

"I'm here to have dinner with Ming Kai." She replied.

This was exactly the kind of worst-case scenario that Ming Kai had hoped to avoid!

"Oh? That's a surprise. He didn't mention that you were joining us." Terry tried his hardest to mask the tone of displeasure.

Dinner alone with a girl, huh. He didn't quite like the sound of that.

Chen Yu Lin didn't seem thrown off by it, she simply made a delighted expression, as though being able to meet someone she hadn't seen in a long time lifted her spirit.

"Yeah, it was quite a sudden impulse on my part. Will you be joining us? The more the merrier." Even as she said that, Chen Yu Lin naturally walked up to Ming Kai and linked arms with him.

Terry couldn't help but twitch in annoyance when he heard 'us' coming from her. But he knew one thing; he couldn't allow Ming Kai to be alone with her. 

Besides, Ming Kai had much to answer for.

Ming Kai saw the cold look in Terry's eyes and shivered. He wondered how much of the truth he can reveal to both of them. Perhaps now would be a good time to pray for a miracle.