Li Hao rushed toward the door, a kidnapping in progress that was only stopped when Lee threw his arm in front of the man.
Lee looked at the group with a knowing gaze but reminded them. “He needs to stay to give a police statement.”
“…”
Li Hao turned with Xiao Yi in his arms, walked over to the couch, and sat himself in the middle without letting the other go. Then he stared at Mu Yichen and Chen Qiang, who swiftly followed, blocking them in from two sides.
Tang An leaned against the wall closest to the door, with his arms crossed.
Xiao Yi was amused.
‘Do they think I’ll escape?’
The short answer was yes, of course, they thought he’d run at the first chance he got!
Xiao Yi stretched himself out so his head was on the armrest beside Chen Qiang, and his feet were in Mu Yichen’s lap.
“What’s with the bat?” Mu Yichen rolled the bat beneath his foot.
Xiao Qiu stared at the group, then at his brother who was obviously about to pass out on top of his old friends, and gave up. He could only cross his arms and say. “Someone broke in.”
“Broke in?” As soon as the words left his mouth, he answered himself. “The guys we passed on the way up?”
Lee nodded. “That would be them.”
Thirty minutes later, Xiao Yi finished giving his statement to the police who were all too happy to have something to pin on the Xiao couple. Normally they’d be scared, but with all the attention on the Xiao family… Wasn’t this going to benefit the police?
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He walked back into the apartment after sending the police off and leaned against the door.
Xiao Qiu had taken the middle spot on the couch and was in the midst of threatening them. “ - I will ruin you.”
He, too, knew that his brother needed closure, however, did it mean he couldn’t be angry? He had beef with them too!
Xiao Yi didn’t hear the first part of the conversation but he assumed that they’d been threatened to bring him back in one piece. Once Xiao Qiu finished staring them down individually, he turned to his brother with a slightly looser expression. “Beat them up if they do anything.”
The men got up and walked toward the door. Xiao Yi had half-expected to be picked up again, but his hopes of having a free ride down the stairs were dashed when Li Hao walked past him.
He sighed and followed the group downstairs.
The drive to their destination - an apartment complex a few blocks away from his own - was awkward, to say the least. It was obvious that the men didn’t want to have the conversation in the car, yet they also didn’t start any conversation and Xiao Yi was never the one who guided the conversations.
Hence, he silently sat between Tang An and Chen Qiang and wished for the drive to be over as soon as possible.
By the time they made it to the apartment, he felt like he’d gone through 3 lifetimes.
“Take a seat.” Chen Qiang pointed to the living room where there were three mid-sized couches in a semi-circle that looked toward a TV.
Xiao Yi hummed and sat on the smaller couch, in the corner of the U formation.
Since he picked that couch, the other men seemed to avoid it and sat on the other two couches, with Chen Qiang and Mu Yichen directly across from each other closest to him and Tang An and Li Hao beside them.
After a moment, Chen Qiang spoke up first. “Why didn’t you tell us what was going on?”
Xiao Yi thought for a moment before replying honestly. “I didn’t want you to feel guilty.”
Li Hao asked next. “Even if we already screwed shit up, how could you just let us believe you were a villain all these years? Did our friendship mean that little?”
“…”
Did their friendship mean that little? Of course not. He did everything for them, he lied for their sake…
Mu Yichen seemed to see where his thoughts were going, he leaned back and laughed. “You think you did it for us? Do you even know how we felt back then? Chen Qiang had to run away from the country to recover, we threw ourselves into work, we second guessed everything we did - hell, I thought I was fucking worthless.”
Tang An nodded. “You destroyed us.”