“Wait for me. I have someone I need to talk to.” He wanted to give that neglectful woman a piece of his mind and remind her of the dangers of letting a child roam free in this country. He couldn’t leave it alone when twice now he had been the one who had found her. So many kids went missing daily and endured unthinkable horrors for most humans. She shouldn’t be so careless; maybe a stranger chastising her thoughtless actions would make her think in the future.
Kai slid out of his side on the opposite curb of where they were and paused when a second woman caught up to them. Calling out to wait for her. She was immediately familiar, and he hesitated before crossing because he clicked who she was by her outfit and tall, curvy figure alone. Thinking he was imagining it at first, he waited until she tilted her head enough that her hair slid out of her face and showed it fully.
They were not looking his way due to the distance between them and were more focused on one another as the first woman turned her head back to say something. The little girl was ahead, already opening the apartment’s main door.
Kai crossed over quickly and followed them, trying to close the distance quickly, knowing that he wasn’t leaving until he had words with them. Incompetent people were a pet hate, and incapable parents were a diabolical type of human to him. This gave him another reason to rethink Manager Huo’s future with OTS. She was not proving to be someone responsible.
He walked through the glass doors, eyes towards the elevators on the far wall, expecting to see them, but no one was there, and the echoing voice from the side stairwell pulled his attention instead. The door had not yet swung shut, and the sounds pulled him after them. Catching it before it did.
“I want to see if mommy’s home.”
Kai would recognize that little voice anywhere and quickly scaled the stairs to avoid losing them. He assumed they must live on a lower floor if they didn’t bother waiting on an elevator and took two steps at a time.
“Mommy, you’re home. MOMMEEEEE!!!” A squeal of sheer delight overtook the space as the kid was first let into the apartment before them. Kai opened his mouth to call on Huo, moving to push the door further ajar to show himself. He was surprised that she followed her in and then stalled as what he heard made him stop in shock.
“Hurry up and move. I need the bathroom. Meilei, Yue brought you home a present.” She shoved Huo out of the way, opening the doorway as she stumbled left. From his concealed position, the door opened enough to look into their hallway. An unadulterated view into their further sitting room. He spotted Meilei holding the little girl in her arms, cradling her, swaying in the way only someone close to a child would, and for the first time, seeing their faces side by side hit him hard in the gut. He was frozen to the spot, like a sucker punch or taking a full-force slap of ice-cold water in the face.
Kai swallowed hard. Reaching for the door and then hesitated. His feet felt glued to the floor, and his heart was racing so heavily it was almost pounding through his rib cage. Instinct had him backing off as he tried to come to grips with what he just saw, so sure he couldn’t be wrong, he walked backward right into the cold tiled wall behind him. The sudden stop jerked as hard as his heart did, and it started to palpitate.
He didn’t want to do the math and jump to the conclusion he knew was possible. Yet he couldn’t deny where his brain went, and the disbelief overwhelmed him.
Kai thought about walking right out there and knocking their door down, but common sense caught hold of him, and the numbing effect of severe shock had his feet turning towards the stairs. For the second time in his life, his emotions and actions were chaotic, and he didn’t know how to react or what to do. It was like his brain was stuttering, and he couldn’t formulate a plan or a decision. His mind was blank, and the panic rising in his chest was strangling him.
He needed to process this and determine if this was some overwork-related daymare or hallucination. Because right now, he couldn’t be sure he was seeing what he just saw right now.
Meilei yawned, carrying the cardboard holder in one hand and the paper bag of fresh croissants in the other, and shouldered her way into his office. She had come prepared today, so she didn’t have to endure messing with the coffee grinder or getting sent out to fetch food in these ridiculous shoes he made her wear. Her feet were already a bloodied, blistered mess and being held together with band-aids and gel pads. He always insisted she go to some random bakery across town and never ate what she brought back. Just another petty task that was designed to make her day harder.
Meilei faltered when she came eye-to-eye with Kai before he was normally here. As soon as she looked up across his office, she saw him seated at his desk. It was unexpected and caught her off guard. Taking up his space like a king, giving off that feeling of command with just his presence.
She was early today so she could get in here and ready before his onslaught of unreasonable behavior began, and yet he, for once, was earlier. She couldn’t win with him.
Kai looked thunderous and sat in his chair, stiff and straight, with a couple of files in front of him. Nothing else had been put there yet; she could tell from this distance that he was prickly today. There was a deathly aura around him and a cold atmosphere here that she assumed was coming from him too.
He seemed unusually wound up. She could see the slight heave of his shoulders, indicating a faster breath, and his eyes were so dark he made her wary. His features set in sharp angles like he clenched his jaw with no hint of warmth. She nodded and then quickly passed by in a diagonal direction towards the kitchen area to plate up his breakfast and decant his coffee into a proper mug.
She had hoped to minimize his constant scolding today by taking some initiative, but judging by how he watched her every move like an angry predator waiting to pounce, she doubted it. Her heart sank, and she fumbled to put the croissants on a plate. She could tell today was going to be bad.
It was unnerving to her that he had not said a single word since she walked in and silently followed her with a laser-pointed glare. By now, he would have barked at least three orders and already almost reduced her to tears.
She leaned to slide them closer to him, realizing she had placed them too far, so she bent over further with a push nearer and paused when he picked up a paper on his desk and held it right under her nose. It was close enough almost to slap it on her face, and she had to jerk her neck back slightly to focus on it. Startled by the aggressive forcing of a document this way.
Meilei’s blood drained from her face. Her body ran cold, a tingle ran up her spine, and every single nerve ending in her body zapped in shock. Her eyes darted over the words as panic mounted in her chest, and her stomach twisted in the most awful way.
It was a copy of Yue’s birth certificate, right there two inches from her face, and she stumbled mentally, unable to formulate a word. She opened her mouth to try, and only a stifled gasp sob filtered out.
Kai didn’t need the response verbally.