Chapter 11 - A Toast to the Greatest Project (1/2)
”Why isn't she a fan of office romance, by the way?”
Tohru James looked up from the sofa towards the speaker. He was a man in his late twenties with a playful demeanor. Alex Li, Hong Kong's business king grinned at him as he stood behind Kang Jinho with his cue stick, waiting for his turn.
”They're a natural phenomenon, aren't they?” he added with a wink.
”Well, not all are office playboys like you, you know?” their eldest, Park Yushin, a handsome man in his late thirties teased.
”That's right big bro Alex. An ultimate playboy like you can't understand,” Michael Chen, another hunk in his late twenties teased.
The others in their group, Liam Kang, Alvin So, Jason Tan, Peter Choi, Henry Song, and Jung Yunho, all dashing and successful young men joined in on the bullying. After all, among all of them, Alex was the Casanova with a reputation – but that was before he met and married his wife.
”Hey, stop ganging up on me and just answer the question,” Alex countered as he pointed at Tohru. ”We're trying to help you out here, Little Brother. But we can't do that if we don't know the history.”
With that kind of reasoning, of course, nobody would try and tease him anymore. Tohru James, on the other hand, sighed heavily, and so the others' interest in knowing the story became stronger. All eyes were on their youngest, waiting for him to speak. They all knew that after Yanee Lee did her interview, Tohru immediately had someone investigate her background to know more about her. Why?
The lovesick fool couldn't ask the girl about herself in the entire week they spent time together during the interview…
”Well?” Peter prompted, and Tohru sighed again.
They were right anyway. He couldn't keep things from them since they'd literally crossed continents to help him out. Most of these men were abroad on their business trips when their wives called and asked them to give their youngest the ”godly ȧssist”. Well, Tohru also knew they mostly got threatened by their wives too if they didn't cooperate, but nevertheless, he appreciated them.
All ten men were his big brothers – close friends he treated like family.
”Bad experience,” Tohru James answered blandly.
When they talked about relationships during the interview, Yanee had immediately unknowingly shot his plans of normal courtship. The moment she said she's not interested in romance – most especially the ones at the workplace, Tohru got curious as to why. To understand her better, he had resorted to a security agency to check her background.
Lo and behold, the girl he had taken an interest in was highly allergic to romantic relations due to a jerk at her former office. She had been green in the field of work and romance then. She had started working at a small publishing company in Nagoya and was ȧssigned to help out at an editor's office for her training.
”A former superior took advantage of her naivety in her former work. She fell in love but realized too late she was nothing but a game to him,”Tohru told his friends with a grim expression.
”What a jerk,” Henry commented with a scowl.
”The guy flirted shamelessly but he was already engaged to be married,” Tohru continued the story blandly.
”Death,” Peter announced. ”Do you want us to kill the jerk?”
”Why would you bother?” Jinho countered. ”If the guy wasn't a jerk then Yanee would have been with him and our Little Brother's love life would be nonexistent.”
Tohru sighed. He already thought about that. He initially wanted to hunt down the guy and punish him on Yanee's behalf, but didn't because if he was a nice guy then she wouldn't have transferred to Tokyo where they met.
And she would have been another man's girl right now.
Tohru read in the report that Yanee was obviously taken with the guy and worked really hard for his sake. He also read that she fell into depression when he got married.