Muffins and Xiaolongbao

"Hey, speaking of dinner. Can I invite you to one?" he asked.

"But aren't you busy with training? I don't want to bother you," she said meekly.

"Well, we had a good game result from last time so the boss is giving us a longer holiday break this year."

"Uhm… I don't know my schedule for the holiday, yet," she said regretfully.

She would love to spend the holiday with Grand, but she hasn't talked to her aunt or her mother if they will require her to come home to celebrate Christmas.

Grand can clearly see her being conflicted, so he added, "Well it doesn't necessarily mean during the holiday, any time you could spare I'd be happy to spend with you." he said gently. It seems like Dana's family is the type to celebrate the holiday as a family, unlike his.

His grandmother will be the only one that would be glad to be with him, just like how he always remembers. But nowadays his grandmother has been spending holidays in her hometown. He doesn't want to go there because it would take five hours to drive by car.

"Have you eaten lunch?" he asked her because the conversation isn't going anywhere. Dana is just staring at her phone camera biting her fingers.

"Mn. You?"

"Not yet. We just finished the first part of the game, we'll continue after the lunch break."

"Go and eat your lunch then. You don't have enough time to eat," she said, looking at the time on her wrist.

"Muffins, you want me to go? You don't like talking with me," he said pretending to be hurt.

Dana wrinkles her nose and asks, "Why are you calling me Muffins?"

Grand grinned and answered, "Because you're darn cute!"

Dana feeling shy hides her face in her arms.

Watching how Dana reacts with his teasing, he feels an overwhelming desire to see her in person. "Muffins," he called her softly. But she just mumbles and won't look at the camera. He chuckled and tried again, "Dana what do you think of a quick meetup later around seven at that coffee shop?"

Dana suddenly perks up and looks at Grand to make sure he isn't joking. And he appeared pretty serious. She excitedly smiled with the invitation and was about to say yes, when suddenly Grand's face disappeared from the screen and was replaced by another face. If she isn't mistaken, he's one of his teammates.

"Bro, who are you talking to that you've forgotten to eat lunch," he said and got surprised when he saw her.

He must have remembered her. He quickly apologized when she said hi. She heard Grand's angry reprimanding voice, and then the phone became quiet for a long time. She tried calling Grand but got no reply, so she decided to just end the video call.

She stands up from her dresser chair and starts picking the clothes that are scattered on the floor. She removed all the tags and put them in a hamper for laundry. She was about to pick clothes to wear for later when her phone rings. Grand's name is on the screen, and it was another video call.

She feels like teasing him, rejecting the video call, and just answers it through voice call. Before she could speak, Grand was already apologizing.

"Muffins, I'm so sorry. Don't be mad,... Kay? Please?" he pleaded earnestly.

She couldn't speak because she knew she would burst out laughing. And her silence was taken as being angry by Grand.

"Muffins, I... Kai Hern was just playing around. Don't be angry and please say yes in meeting me later. .. hmm?"

Dana's heart turned into mush, how could she say no to his panicking face and begging voice. Good thing she didn't open her video, he can't see her ludicrous expression right now. To say that she's over the moon would be an understatement.

"See you later. I'm not mad." she finally was able to control herself to speak in a normal tone.

"Can you open your video, just for a sec?" he requested.

Dana was surprised to see this side of him being so clingy. She heard some yelling in the background and Grand answered it without moving his face from his phone's camera.

"We're about, to begin with, the second part of the team match for today," he explained what the noise was about.

Dana felt guilty and opened her video.

"Ganbatte! See you later," she said, smiling for him.

Grand face lit up on the screen and gave her his notorious goofy smile that could make any girl swoon. "Laters, Muffins." He hangs up.

She jumped on the bed and screamed like crazy!

---

"Yo! Where you going, big man?" he asked as he saw Bobby getting ready to leave the office.

"Xian, watch over the place. The mural artist will come around noon to do the second floor."

"I don't have a problem watching the place, but you haven't answered my question." he insisted.

Bobby clicked his tongue, "East City."

"Huh! You okay with your old man nowadays? You've been going home for a while now."

"Stop asking questions, and just do what you're told, he said, grabbing his car keys and going out of the room they are using as a temporary office.

Bobby smiled by himself thinking that this big project he is working on was because of Dana. He brought her once here in the abandoned parking building where he and his friends are using it as a skate park. And the first thing she said was the whole eight-level parking building is a sweet spot to use as an indoor skateboarding place.

He and his friends needed a private skatepark to practice since most of the public park or indoor skateboarding place is always swamped with girls that are running after him and his friends. Most private skateboarding places already closed their doors for them, for the reason that those girls are hard to control, other skateboarders are complaining.

But he never thought of converting the place as a proper recreational area for skateboarding. The parking lot is owned by his grandfather who has factories in the surrounding area, this particular parking building is one of the many parking lots for the employees. The reason why it was abandoned was that one of the employee's wife burned his husband's car there because of some fight over a mistress.

His grandfather is a very superstitious man, he believed the incident will bring a bad juju with the place.

He got in his car and called Dana but his call won't go through. She must be on the phone with someone. He decided to just send her a message on WeChat that he wants to see her and talk business.

---

After her nonsensical screaming, that resulted in a hoarse voice, Dana got ready to go out. She'll be meeting Grand around seven, but she has to play for Madame Bae's afternoon party with her friends.

She really doesn't understand the eccentricity of Madame Bae's lifestyle but after living under her roof for almost a month she stopped questioning things she saw and observed. She just does and enjoys what is asked of her. She loves playing piano with Madame Bae's group of friends.

Dana is wearing a soft pastel yellow dress paired with her white Converse. Madame Bae instructed her to wear a dress in pastel colors. She might say something about her shoes, but she can just remove them later if she complained. She has a thing about playing piano barefooted.

She grabbed her phone, slung her Fendi backpack, and went out of the door. She passed by Bobby's boards in the living room. She's drying the base coat of paint for the design that she will do later on.

Thinking of Bobby, she replied to his message to just drop by at Madame Bae's house if he wants to talk to her. She's unavailable at seven o'clock onwards. She doesn't know until what time she'll be with Grand since he said it's just a quick meetup, but just to be sure she's blocking her schedule.

She's sending a message to Madame Bae's driver that she's about to go down while walking to the elevator when she bumps into someone. She looked up to say sorry and found Bobby's grinning face.