Apartment 4F

Epilogue: How to say goodbye to an apartment

Caesar and Jia Qi were standing at the open space near the old apartment building. He held her hand, absentmindedly toying with the engagement ring on her slender finger.

"It's so heavy it keeps sliding to the underside of my finger," Jia Qi frowned, referring to the diamond solitaire.

"You and Yue can start a trend then - wearing the diamond on your palm instead of on top of your hand."

Yue had also complained that her diamond was too big. To make matters worse, Dylan had given her a matching diamond tiara when they had gotten engaged, insisting on keeping his promise from when they were younger - that he would buy it for her to atone for his drunken sins.

Jia Qi shook her head slowly. "It's too big..."

"You keep saying that about a lot of things," Caesar teased. "Haven't you heard that bigger is always better?"

"I didn't want you to spend so much money..."

"Woman. I gave up doing what I love to work for my dad, and my old man works me damn hard. The least you can do is let me spend my money on you."

As they continued to wait, he had a sudden flashback to that eventful night, when they had waited for his female roommate at the foot of their apartment building with his very drunk and pissed-off bestfriend. It seemed like a lifetime ago.

"Sorry we're late!"

As if on cue, a visibly pregnant Yue and a flustered Dylan came rushing towards them, with the latter admonishing the former every step of the way to stop walking so fast and jostling his baby.

Jia Qi enveloped Yue in a sideways hug, careful not to squash her gently protruding tummy. "How are you feeling, mummy!"

Yue was glowing, her cheeks a rosy pink and her bright eyes shining. "Good good - no morning sickness so far." She crossed her fingers.

Imitating his fiancé, Caesar opened his arms wide as his bestfriend approached. "How you feeling, daddy? Heard your team isn't playing too well..."

Dylan shot him a dark look. After an unparalleled winning streak, his basketball team was finally having a bad season.

Yue made a slicing-neck motion with her right hand. "Don't talk about it - he's already pissed."

"How's the ankle though?" Caesar asked, concerned. Dylan had hurt his ankle in his last game.

The basketballer winced. "Sometimes it's okay, sometimes it hurts like f- fish," he concluded, out of consideration for his unborn child.

Soon, Connor arrived. "Where's Yue?" Caesar asked him, after they exchanged bro handshakes.

Jia Qi pointed to Shen Yue. "Here??"

"Noo not this Yue - his Yue," Caesar clarified, jerking a thumb in Connor's direction.

In a stroke of coincidence, Connor was dating a pretty software engineer from his firm, who was also called Yue.

"Ugh so confusing," Jia Qi lamented. "Anyway, I already asked Kang's girlfriend at the last gathering and she said it's alright if we want to call her something else. I propose we call her Chao instead."

"Or you can just call me Shen," Yue suggested.

In the distance, a black SUV with tinted windows drove up, and the up-and-coming actor Darren Chen stepped out, along with his manager, and a familiar graceful silhouette.

"Hah," Dylan remarked loudly once they saw who was with him. "Why did Guan Hong bring her - wasn't she a cheerleader from our year?"

Caesar and Jia Qi both nodded. "Sun Yi Han?" Jia Qi supplied. "Heard she became a model..."