Ultimately, the final deal was Mark approving Arianne’s hotpot hangout with the compromise that he tagged along. He did not particularly like hotpots, but he joined in as Arianne’s companion anyway.
With a tack-on bodyguard she did not want, Arianne felt as though she was put on a leash, and her excitement naturally plummeted. But when she reached the destination and saw Tiffany mirroring her expression, she perked up — Tiffany was not exactly given the liberty to party hard either, for Jackson was with her.
Finally, Tanya brought Eric — who was probably looking for a place to spend his free time — along, and the ensemble was complete.
Since they disembarked, Mark’s hand had never once left its protective position on Arianne’s waist, making one wonder if he would gingerly place the girl right in the center of his palm if he could help it. That was not all; he punctuated between every few steps with a “The floor is slippery, please be careful.”
Arianne relied on his directions so much that she gradually bought into the illusion that she was so frail that she needed his intensive handling. By the time she took her seat and she went about the process at a snail-like pace, a startled Tiffany quipped, “Whoa, whoa, whoa. What’s inside your tummy, the Messiah?”
Her joke broke Arianne from the spell, who quickly let go of Mark’s hand and shot him a stern but meek glare. “Things are more festive than I’d expected! I’m so glad I managed to be let out; I hadn’t gotten the room to relax for too long.”
Tiffany grabbed a pair of chopsticks and knocked on the edge of her bowl slyly, her eyes trained onto Tanya and Eric. “We’re all coming in pairs, yes, but two annoyingly single people just decided to be non-conformist and ruin the theme, didn’t they? — God, why don’t you two just pair up?”
Eric had gotten used to Tiffany’s brand of jokes, so it incited no response from him. Tanya, however, smiled bashfully and murmured, “D-Don’t say that, Tiffany!”
Tiffany was already on a roll. “No, seriously, why don’t you two just pair up already?”
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