A Long Dream.

"That is all for now. Try to arrange a meeting with the other company's representatives the week after this so that we can talk about their proposal" Allicia instructed her secretary.

"Yes, Leader. I will do that immediately" Annie voiced.

"Alright," Allicia said with a slight nod. "If there is nothing else, you can take your leave" she added and looked down at the documents before her.

As soon as she completed the investment proposal of Microm Tech corporation, her group already had another proposal to deal with the following week.

Although she was trying to work at a quick pace and complete the new proposal, the event that was coming up in the company was also taking up her time. The employees were all occupied with the preparations for the event the entire week. Everyone had their minds on the event. This made Allicia to be slightly irritated. Even her teammates were all distracted, the ladies would rather talk about the dress they would wear than come up with ideas for their next project.

Allicia could only let them be, she tried to sort out some things on her own and decided to leave the major work until after the dinner. She was not exactly a fan of social events and if the dinner was not a compulsory one for all the employees, she would not have made plans to be there. She snapped out of her thoughts and raised her head only to see that Annie was still in her office. She threw a glance at the lady and cocked a brow.

"Anything else?" She asked.

"Ahem–" Annie gazed down and quickly cleared her throat before opening her mouth to speak.

"Ehm… Leader, it is like this. Everyone wanted me to ask you what you think about our group picking a colour theme for our outfit for the annual dinner. I mean, other departments have decided to pick different colours that every person would wear. Other groups in our department are doing the same too. We all just think that we should not be so different so as a group, we should also pick a colour that everyone would wear." Annie carefully asked Allicia.

Colour theme, What's that? Allicia thought with her brows arched as she stared at the secretary. Feeling her senior's intense gaze, Annie coughed and hid her face behind the book in her hand.

"Leader, if you find the idea absurd, we can just leave it. It is a stupid idea after all" she said and waved her hand dismissively.

Allicia sighed and flicked her wrist. "You can do whatever you want. Tell me when you have decided, I will go with anything" she said.

Annie was instantly happy, she bowed and left the office. She immediately went to relay the message to the others. At the end of the day, they reported back to Allicia that the colour theme for their group was red. Allicia could only agree with them helplessly.

—-

The week swiftly came to an end and it was weekend already. Allicia woke up looking all refreshed and energetic. There was a day off for all employees at the company the day before so Allicia was able to rest properly. She climbed out of the bed and entered into the bathroom. She cleaned up quickly and changed into a casual outfit before stepping out of the room.

"Look who finally decided to get out of bed" Ava uttered as soon as she saw Allicia appear.

"Mummy!" Little Zia rushed and stood in front of her mother. The child spread out her hand and reached for a hug. Allicia chuckled, she bent down and scooped her daughter into her arms.

"Did I sleep that long?" Allicia could not help but ask as she walked to the dining table with Zia in her embrace. She stood beside Zayn who was sitting on a chair doing his best to appear invincible, she rubbed his hair and pinched his cheeks.

"Check the time yourself, it is way past breakfast time already! We all had to wait for you to wake up" Ava expressed.

Allicia smiled awkwardly before she pulled out a chair for Zia, she placed Zia in the seat and she also sat down in another chair.

"Sorry about that, I did not realise that I slept for that long" Allicia apologized.

"I understand that you must have been tired. It is okay" Ava muttered with a smile. "Let us eat before the food become cold, the kids helped me with the breakfast preparations this morning" she added.

"Aw… that's nice, my babies are growing up" Allicia could not help but say.

"I must say, Allicia, Zayn will be a good cook in future, you need to see his seriousness when he helped me cut the carrots. I only showed him once and he already knew how to handle the knife. I bet if he was as tall as the table, he would have done all the cooking by himself" Ava voiced.

"Is that so?" Allicia looked at her son and pinched his cheeks. "I have always known that my son is very hard-working!" She praised.

Although Zayn did not really like his face being pinched since it was his mother and she seemed to be enjoying her actions, he let her be.

The family ate in silence and after breakfast, Allicia helped to clear the table while the children played with Ava. Well, it was mostly Zia who played with her, Zayn just sat and watched them with his expressionless face. He had never been interested in playing, he was like an old monk rather than the cute little boy that he should be.

"That reminds me, today should be the dinner you talked about, right?" Ava voiced as soon as Allicia appeared in the living room again.

"Mm, yeah. Now that you mention it, I don't know if I have any dress that fits the colour theme for my group" she uttered and ran her fingers through her hair. "Even if there is any, it is so much work to start searching for the dress"

"You guys have a colour theme? What is the colour you picked?" Ava left Zia to play on her own and went up to Allicia's side.

"I guess it was red. I don't know what they were thinking to actually pick red. Why not black? They could have just picked a black theme, I have a lot of black suits that I haven't even worn" Allicia muttered with a soft sigh.

"Hey! Do you know what you are saying? You want to wear a black suit for a dinner where other ladies would be dolled up in classy dressy? Why do I think that because you have children, you think you are so old already? Come on, babe! You are only twenty-four! This is the time when you add some colours to your dull life!" Ava enunciated.

"My life is colourful as it is" Allicia mumbled and rolled her eyes.

"Don't be so boring, Allicia…" Ava grunted in exasperation. "If you think you can't get any dress at the moment, don't worry, just leave it to me! I will get you something really good!"

As soon as the words left Ava's mouth, she turned to the kids and uttered. "Zia, Zayn, do you want to go out with Auntie?"

"Yes!" Of course, only Zia answered with adequate enthusiasm. Zayn's face remained expressionless but he did not object either.

Allicia was not even able to stop her friend when the latter had gone to change clothes for the kids and brought them out of the house.

"You just stay home and rest properly, I will go play with the kids and also bring something special back for you" Ava uttered and winked.

"Hey, you–!" Allicia uttered, she watched as Ava and the kids got into a car and the car zoomed off. She shook her head and could only sigh softly before getting back into the house.

Sigh–

Since everyone wanted her to relax, she would do just that. She returned to her room and laid back on the bed. After looking up information here and there on the internet, she finally closed her eyes and fell asleep. That afternoon, she had a long dream.