After settling Mo Fang down at the table, Li Ming heaved a sigh of relief. Within the minute, the glass of water had been refilled and a box with bread was standing in front of them. With this, he was a bit more convinced that Mo Fang would sober up at least a bit.
He pushed the glass closer to him and gave him an encouraging smile. Unfortunately, it didn’t help much.
Mo Fang sidled up closer to him again, taking his arm. "Bro Li … You’re so nice, looking out for my health."
Li Ming gave an awkward nod. "That’s what friends are for, right?"
Mo Fang nodded with the same bright smile and starry eyes as if he actually agreed with that statement. Li Ming couldn’t help but feel more and more that Rui Lan might have been right.
Obviously, even if Mo Fang wasn’t in love with him right now, it might actually end up like that if he didn’t keep his distance in the future. Maybe it was good that he had come to realize this so early on. Otherwise, he might’ve just caused Mo Fang heartbreak again. After all, there was no way that this could work out. While he did think that Mo Fang was really cute and while they did get along, he was still hung up on Su Yan.
As long as that was the case, he really wasn’t ready for a new relationship. It just didn’t work like that. Hooking up with somebody else if your heart was still completely with another person was unfair to everybody involved. It wouldn’t give you the time to heal and it would make your new partner lose out on the relationship and love they deserved while it was more than just disrespectful to the person you claimed to love.
He just couldn’t do that. Distancing himself from Mo Fang might be difficult though. But … Thankfully, Boss Mo knew what had happened with Su Yan. Maybe he would be able to ask him if this could be considered for how their shifts were decided. He probably also wouldn’t want for his son to get caught up in something like this. After all, despite how Mo Fang had complained about him before, he still thought that Boss Mo was very concerned about his son. It was just that there seemed to be some things in Mo Fang’s past that had given Boss Mo quite a bit of trouble.
With Li Ming’s constant encouragement, Mo Fang drank the water and ate the bread. While it naturally couldn’t magically heal him from being tipsy, it at least seemed to get a little less bad with time passing. When the others started to arrive half an hour later, Mo Fang was at least not clinging to Li Ming’s arm anymore even though he still gave him quite a few looks that didn’t have much to do with the relationship between coworkers.
Li Ming just smiled embarrassedly when the others gave him a questioning look, before pushing the water closer to Mo Fang once again. Needless to say, the others had no problem at all to get the whole story out of Zhi Bao Yu. As for how much she might embellish it … Li Ming didn’t even dare to think about it.
When Mo Fang had finally cleared his head enough to realize what had happened, he was mortified. How could he have drunk so much?! Why hadn’t Yao Chen warned him when he noticed that he was starting to ramble?! He might have ruined his chances with Li Ming!
Never mind the fact that he had admitted that Si Tao hadn’t been the boyfriend he had talked about before but that those two had actually been two different people, he had even told him about his first one! Now, he definitely was getting into the range of people that might not be acceptable even to somebody like Li Ming. What was he supposed to do now?!
He looked into his glass of water sadly, feeling that everything was going against him. Why had he had that shitty idea of coming here with his coworkers? Even though he had been able to spend time with Li Ming, it had gone completely wrong.
Seeing that Mo Fang was shrouded in a cloud of depression, Li Ming felt worried. He leaned over, lightly touching his shoulder. "Are you alright? Do you feel sick?" After all, it seemed that he had drunk quite a bit on an empty stomach. Who knew if other than getting tipsy this might have any other effects as well?
Mo Fang closed his eyes for a moment and then slowly raised his head, turning to Li Ming. His eyes seemed a bit teary, making Li Ming feel even more worried.
"Should I call somebody to take you home?"
Mo Fang shook his head and then gingerly reached out, tugging at Li Ming’s sleeve. "Bro Li, I’m so sorry. I also don’t know why I did that before. I hope you won’t think badly about me now."
Li Ming had trouble keeping his expression in check. "Ah … That’s … Don’t think too much." While he definitely wouldn’t think badly of Mo Fang, he could not deny that he was worried. Unfortunately, that seemed to show on his face.
"I’m really sorry! I’m not normally like this. It’s … It must be because of everything with Lan Heng. I just felt that everything was a bit too much and then I probably wanted to drown my worries. Anyway, I’m sorry I told you all that stuff. You must think I’m a horrible person.
"Actually, it’s not that bad! Just that … I might have been a bit wild when I was young. I’m not like that anymore though. I’m really responsible. That’s also why I was hit so hard by what Lan Heng did."
Li Ming nodded and sighed, feeling torn. He did want to comfort Mo Fang when he looked at him like this but, on the other hand, he also felt that not doing it might be better in the long run. But if he didn’t do it now and stopped so suddenly after Mo Fang had poured out his worries to him … Would Mo Fang think that everything was because of what he had said? That kind of rejection might hurt even more.
For a moment, he really didn’t know how to react. In the end, he just motioned at the others around them that were happily chatting and drinking. "Anyway, let’s not talk about that further. What’s in the past, is in the past. No need to dwell on it. Since you’ve invited everybody here, you should take the time to get to know them a bit."
Mo Fang nodded but he still couldn’t help but feel worried. It seemed that he really might have sabotaged himself today. He had to make sure that he came up with some plan to make up for that later on. For now, he could only go along with what Li Ming had suggested though.
