My 419 Nightmare

45. Opening the Pandora's Box

The office went still with the sudden bomb from the innocent quip of a certain young man.

Phana give out a small shake of head, trying to signal the oblivious starstruck boyfriend of his that was by now, visibly fanboying their pregnant friend with his partner.

Beam widens his eyes, 50% in shock and the other half is in amusement over what have occurs. He had tried to persuade Kit to tell the truth and now, with the sudden push from their Nong, the grumpy kitten might just will.

"What father?"

The devil asked, slightly confuse with what he's seeing right now. In front of him were the beaming petite man, eyes shining toward him and his angel, the petite man's boyfriend, who was trying to subtly shake his head but fail in gaining his lover's attention. Then the doctor, his angel's friend that he have met once, with eyes wide open, clearly carries a sense of mischief and the other boyfriend, who let out a small amused smile on his stoic face.

"Nothing! He's just..."

The angel rambles in panic before he stops himself and sends signals to both of his best friends to help him out. Both Phana and Beam catch that gaze of help and share a stare on their own as well. They held their gaze for a few second before nodding in agreement.

"We better leave. Let's go, Yo."

"But, they..."

"Nong, let them have a talk first, na. Come, Forth."

"Hmm..."

In a minute, the office was emptied out, apart from the devil and his angel. The devil brings his angel to sit on the couch and embrace him close. The angel, return the gesture with much gusto, inhaling his devil scent, calming himself down.

This went on for a couple of minutes until a sudden knock on the door startled them. With the permission of the angel, the door slowly open, revealing the head of the restaurant's manager, shyly peeks her head in.

"Boss, I'm sorry to disturb you, but Mew needs you in the kitchen."

"Yeah, sure. I'll be there in a minute."

The door promptly close as the oblivious manager silently fangirling from behind the door, shrieking soundlessly and making a timid dance, before she calm down and step back into the dining area.

Inside the office, the angel turns to face his devil, letting out a small smile, seemingly hesitant to leave.

"Go. I'll be waiting here, angel."

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Ming's POV

"I'll be in the kitchen. Please wait na, Ming. I love you."

My angel drops a peck on my lips before heading out. I give him a smile but as soon as he close the door, it drop.

I pull out my phone, dialling up someone.

"Increase the security around the perimeter. You have the permission to eliminate all of them. I need you to secure an escape route for me and my partner."

I need to plan. My father just makes his move. It seems like he already got in contact with my angel's grandfather. How dare he use what I've done for my angel like this? And who the hell is Moowan?

My angel's twin? Why isn't there any report on this before? Did they hide her? Why? And why take her out now?

I browse my phone, opening my internet, trying to find some picture of this so call fiancée of mine. Sure enough, there are multiple tabloids and articles fill up my search.

I open up her image. Yes, I do see some resemblance on her face with my angel. But, this is wrong. So, wrong.

The old man says I met her a month ago? But a month ago... is when I met with my angel.

Did he...

Shit, just how much did he knows about me? I thought he doesn't care at all. Which means, he starts to care after knowing my contact with my angel. Just what have they planned for us?

I'm sorry father. I've never submitted myself to you and I wouldn't start now.

----------

After the angel step out from his office, he directly goes to the kitchen, and tries to solve whatever that had happen there. It's seems like one of their regular customer is asking for their chef's special and without any notice beforehand saying that the chef is unavailable, the angel have to accept the task.

The angel starts to work, without changing to his uniform; he put on his apron and starts to cook his special menu, Palace Tom Yum Goong and Pla Jean. Unfortunately, both dishes contain seafood.

The angel tries his best to breath with his mouth, to minimize his nauseousness, as he work, after reminding his manager to inform the next customer that he is unavailable. The angel can barely survive as he prepares the shrimp Tom Yum and the salmon dish.

Thankfully, he has his own work station, making him able to hide his gagging features from his crew. Making the Tom Yum isn't as disastrous as the salmon, as many other ingredients in it help mask the smell of the shrimp. With Pla Jean however, he have to marinate and seared the fish on his own. Even the black bean chilli sauce can't mask the fishy smell of the salmon.

While our pregnant chef is getting tortured at the kitchen, our devil is waiting, patiently inside the restaurant's office. After making some call to his man and make some plans towards his future with his angel, he starts to get a bit restless.

He got up from the couch and starts to look around the office. His first stop is at the far corner of the room, where the wall is lined with his angel's pictures and certificate of accomplishment. A proud smile hung on his lips as he realizes how much his angel has achieved on his own without the help of his family.

The devil starts to look back on his life, feeling a tad of embarrassment. Yes, he too has achieved a lot in his life, but, most of them are directly tied with his family, more importantly, his family's name. He starts to wonder, if he too lives on his own, can he achieved what he had right now? If he just throw away his family's name, not acknowledging his background, can he get to where he is today?

Such thoughts only make him admire and adore his angel much, much more.

He turns his attention toward the next wall, line with a single book shelf. He discovered almost all of the books there are cooking related. Make sense, he thought, as his angel is a chef. He stroll forward as he chuckle, observing and picking up some knick knacks that was put there as a display.

Nothing coherent, just some small keychains and a few souvenirs, maybe from his angel's travel of perhaps they were gift. The devil make another vow, he would take his angel on a trip around the world, soon. After all this bolusk ended.

He walks further, and finally reaches his angel's work table. He doesn't want to dwell further, after all, being a person in business as well, he know there are certain trade secret that must not be let known to others. Even if his angel is his, he respects that as one businessman to another.

He want to walk back to the couch, planning to watch something on the television while waiting for his angel to come back, when some tingling sensation catch the corner of his eyes.

Something hidden underneath a pale yellow file, on his angel's table.

Even when he thought it is highly inappropriate to scrounge around on others table, he has a slight tingling feeling that tells him to do so.

It's nothing much, really. Just a small corner of a white... something.

After hesitate for a bit, he step forward and slowly pull out the item that makes him curious.

It's a wallet sized Polaroid photo of... something... in black and white. He can't really make sense of what he is looking at. There are some numbers on top and bottom of the photo. He can make up some sense of some of the number, dates. Yesterday's date.

Unable to comprehend further he blindly turns the photo around. Lines of sentence at left corner of that photo make his blood flow backwards.

'My baby. I love you.'
-K. I.