Friendly Chat

“Myself?” Fuyuki said grinning but upon seeing his shocked expression, he lifted his hand with his palm facing Feng Liwei. “Just kidding. But you have to admit that was a rather open-ended question. You have to be more specific when asking such things, otherwise you’ll only get a ridiculous answer.”

“I meant as a company.”

“Well, I can talk a lot. So you definitely won’t be bored until I’m here. And I won’t mention how you mistook me for a kidnapper earlier and shoved me down on the floor either.”

“You just did.”

“My mistake,” Fuyuki said with a sneer and tapped on the touch screen at the middle of the table to request a waiter. And soon after, a tall, young man stood at their table waiting for his order.

“How can I help you, sir?” he asked politely, turning towards the newly arrived Fuyuki.

“I want an Orgasm,” he replied smiling while looking at the waiter when he heard Feng Liwei spit out his drink and start to cough violently the moment he heard what he just said. “On the rocks. With extra cherry. Thank you.”

“Understood, sir,” the waiter said and went to have the ordered cocktail made.

“Are you all right?” Fuyuki asked, seeing the person before him wiping his mouth with a towel. He had an urge to make a joke about what happened but decided not to. He thought it best not to humiliate someone, who one day would not only be his superior but so high above that no one will be able to reach him.

“I’m fine,” said Feng Liwei grimly.

“It”s good if you’re fine. Let’s see... You’re a soldier born into a prominent family. You not only have high status in society but you got your military rank through your hard work and not connections. You don’t seem dumb and also have the looks. There must be plenty of people throwing themselves at you. So, where’s the catch?” Fuyuki grinned at him while leaning forward.

“I cannot just marry anybody off the road,” came the reply with a blank expression.

“That figures. But what I meant is... Do you have a weakness? Something that makes you less desirable, more human for the lack of a better word,” he explained.

“I don’t see why is that any of your business but of course, no one is perfect,” Feng Liwei’s expression turned dark as he said this and his eyes narrowed as he looked at him.

“Oh, I know now,” Fuyuki explained as realization dawned on him. “You’re paranoid. That explains why you just jumped at me out of nowhere as if I was a threat to your daughter. If you’re that afraid of her getting harmed, you shouldn’t have brought her with you in the first place.”

“She is not my daughter. She is my niece. And she just wanted to come along because she likes traveling. She went back home right after we arrived.”

“I see...,” Fuyuki said and he was just about to ask him more about his fear when the waiter arrived with his drink.

A glass was put down before him containing a snow white drink worthy of its name with a few cherries on top.

“Another whisky, please,” said Liwei looking at the cocktail as if he needed something strong to get through what is ahead of him.

“Just a moment, sir,” the waiter said ever so politely and went on his way.

“You don’t know what you miss out on not trying this.”

“It’s too sweet.”

“Oh, so you’ve drank it before?”

Fuyuki was extremely surprised to hear this. Feng Liwei absolutely didn’t look like the type to drink fancy cocktails with little umbrellas. Even picturing a scene like that was like a strange fantasy.

“No. But cocktails like that usually taste sweet,” he said pointing at Fuyuki’s drink. Fuyuki just ate a cherry from the fancy pick they served it with and after a second’s thought, he dipped the remaining cherries in the white liquid and stretched out his arm to offer him a bite. He was even careful enough to place his other hand under it so that the cocktail wouldn’t drip down on the table.

He acted on impulse and after he did so, he felt embarrassed when he realized what he had just done. And with whom. He quickly tried to pull back his hand as if he changed his mind when Feng Liwei suddenly grabbed his wrist and took a bite.

Now, it was Fuyuki’s turn to be too stunned to speak. With minus one cherry, he finally pulled back his hand after his wrist was let go of and looked at the remaining cherry in stunned silence.

“Not bad,” came the comment after a few seconds of silence which felt like an eternity. “But it’s still too sweet,” he said and drank some whiskey that the waiter had put down before him at just the right time.

“Are you drunk?” asked Fuyuki suddenly, out of nowhere which made Liwei stop moving with the glass lingering a few millimeters from his lips as if frozen mid-motion.

“Why?” he asked in a low voice before drinking finally.

“Your behaviour is too OOC.”

“As if you know me that well,” snorted Liwei and sit back on his chair looking at him.

“I can still get to know you.”

“What’s the point?”

Hearing this, Fuyuki looked down at his glass, watching the remaining cocktail in it thinking of what to say, how to reply to his question.

“Sorry. I might be just boring you after all.”

“I wouldn’t say that. But I did have some reservations when you suddenly sat down here.”

“Why?” asked Fuyuki curiously and looked up at him.

“Do you know anyone else from your circle who would dare to do so?”

“I also only dared to do it because no one was looking,” Fuyuki said by which he meant that no one they knew was here to witness him brazenly approaching such a high-profile person.

“Oh...,” Feng Liwei sneered at him, his intonation at the end of the word going up tauntingly, then leaned over as if he was about to tell a secret. “You seem to forget that you’re in Hualong now. So you must be in transparency mode while here at all times,” he told him in a low voice which would’ve turned him on in a vastly different situation. “And I’m sure you know what that means. Anyone who wants to know can see that you’re in a club in a  close proximity of me.

“Don’t you regret it?”

“Regret what?” asked Liwei, emptying his glass.

“Enabling to introduce a system that imprisons you.”

“Hmpf,” he snorted. “I’m already living in a cage. Another one being put around me doesn’t mean a thing,” he replied and stood up to leave.

“Maybe because you’re alone is why you think this way,” Fuyuki said bitterly. “If you had someone, whom you truly fear to lose, you wouldn’t talk like that.”

“It’s good to have opinions. But I advise you to think twice what you say here as it might come back to bite you,” he said in a low voice then left him with his thoughts.

The more Fuyuki thought about it, the more he believed that Feng Liwei was a strange person and vastly different from how he imagined him. He was cold and distant but also caring and too hot for words.

But the more important thing is... What should he say to Winter Breeze now? Should he draw his conclusions from what he just heard and tell him that? Or wait a bit more until he can find more useful info? Now that he thought about it, Feng Liwei was careful enough not to say anything decisive that could be used against him. So, he was only left with assumptions and no concrete evidence.

He knows what he is doing, that’s for sure, he thought.

After a few minutes of thinking, Fuyuki tapped on the screen on the table to pay for his drink but to his surprise, it said that it had already been paid for.

Now that was unexpected. But it isn’t necessarily a bad thing. At least now I owe him a drink and have a pretext to talk to him again. Still, why do I feel so awkward because of this?