章 5: Childhood Promise

"Hold on, wait a sec!" Fang Huailang raised his hand chuckling nervously. "What made you all assume that???"

"What promise?" Mo Shizi frowned. "I do remember playing with this flamboyant peacock when I was young, but that was it. I don't care whatever he does. I get girlfriends because I want to."

"You two really don't remember the wedding vows you shared when you were young?" Mr. Mo said.

They both blinked and said at the same time: "Wedding vows???"

"Yes. You even asked the mayor of X province to officiate your wedding." Mr. Fang said, taking out his phone to show an old picture. "See?"

"It was when we were celebrating after we assassinated the former mayor and brought out dirt on him about his drug deal." Mr. Mo elaborated. "He was very drunk at that time, plus he can't say no to cute children, haha! Ah, that dumb pig-nosed bastard."

In the picture, there were indeed two boys wearing flower and grass crowns holding hands with a greasy old man smiling over them. Fang Huailang and Mo Shizi both looked in terror at this pic.

Mo Shizi was the first to deny it. "That was a joke! Just like kids playing house, nothing else!"

He turned at Fang Huailang to also deny this picture, and the actor did. "He just dragged me into it, and I just played along!"

Mo Shizi made a face. "Oh yeah? Because from what I recall, it went more like this:"

-------------------

" Leon." Wolfe suddenly called out.

Leon can remember clearly how soft his voice was whenever he called out to him. It was so terribly soft like cotton that it just makes his heart feel like it was being squeezed every time he says it.

"Yeah?" He asked, trying not to sound affected by his tender voice at all.

"I watched a movie." Wolfe was making a flower crown on Leon's head. Leon already did one on him, he learned it from one of his older cousins.

"What kind of movie?" He asked patiently as Wolfie was fixing the variety of flowers in his hair.

They just picked it from wherever in the park, good thing none of them has thorns or were poisonous.

"The girl and the boy got married and promised to be together until death. They wore rings and then kissed each other. And then they grew old and were walking on a beach... They look happy."

Wolfe finished the flower crown and turned Leon's face from side to side, observing it.

He then stopped and stared directly at Leon, his hands on either side of his face. "I want... To be like that too. I want to be happy."

Wolfe's expression seems normal, but Leon felt he look a little... sad, again.

It must be in his eyes. Even if he smiles, the loneliness can't be hidden in the depths of his iris.

Somehow Leon felt this sorrow of his pulling him in too. It looked like an abyss that he can get lost in.

When it's filled with joy, he will feel it too. When it's filled with pain...

"Let's get married." He slammed both of his hands on the side of Wolfe's face, as if waking him up.

Wolfe jolted as if he did fell asleep and daydreaming while staring at Leon's face, and went, "Huh?"

"Let's get married and grow old together at a house by the beach. Then you'll be happy!" He said.

Wolfe was dumbfounded, but his lips raised on a wide grin. "Okay!"

Leon grabbed a handful of grass again and tied them in knots, this time the size of their ring fingers.

He put one on Wolfe and one on himself. "What do we say?"

Wolfe closed his eyes and tried to remember the vows.

Because this movie made a strong impression on him, he memorized them. " The priest will say: Do you promise to stay together in sickness and in health, till death do you part?"

"Then we say, I do, and the priest says you may now kiss the bride...Wait, who's the priest?'

By a stroke of luck, they saw a drunk man walking around. It was one of their dad's friends, a very jolly, big-bellied man.

Their dads said this person is very important...

Because he's the mayor!

"Uncle! Uncle! We need your help!" Leon tugged at the drunk mayor's sleeve.

"Oh hello there, kids! Such pretty flowers you're wearing, hic!" This mayor is wasted, he lost a bet and had to drink in exchange.

But he's the type who cannot stop once he drinks, so he had drunk 5 bottles and excused himself in the bathroom, then met the two kids in the middle of marrying one another.

"Uncle, we need you to be the priest for our wedding." Wolfe explained.

"Oh, wedding? I know weddings, I officiate weddings!" He nodded back and forth. "Do you, er... What're your names?"

"I'm Wolfe Fang."

"I'm Leon Mo."

"Oh, such weird names. Do you Wolfe Fang, take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband?"

"I do." Wolfe replied.

"And do you, Leon Mo, take this man to be your... Lawfully wedded husband again?" The drunk man was a little confused, then shrugged. "Eh, same-sex marriage will be legal soon eventually. Anyways, do you?"

"I do." Leon replied solemnly.

"Then do you promise to be together in sickness and in health, till death do you part?"

Both replied "I do" at the same time.

The drunk man was just grinning stupidly. "Then you may now kiss the br— er groom. Wait..."

He seems to have a sudden stroke of sobriety. "Wait a minute, you're both kids—"

Before he can say anything else, the two's lips had already pressed together.

Mayor: .... ..... ...

When the two parted, they were smiling from ear to ear yelling "We're married!" And skipped about while holding hands, their arms swinging up and down.

The Mayor returned to the clubhouse table full of cold sweat. "Mr. Mo... Mr. Fang... I have something to tell you..."

Mr. Mo laughed. "Oh, Mayor, did the spicy buffalo wings gave you a hard time on the toilet?"

Mr. Fang also joined in to make fun of the poor mayor. "You look like you've run a marathon. Come on, don't keep us in suspense. What is it?"

"I just... officiated the marriage of your sons."

The two who had just sipped some beer at the same time also spewed them out at the same time.

"Yeah, just look at them. I even saw them kiss!" He pointed at the two boys with grass rings skipping happily and dancing with each other.

Mr. Mo and Mr. Fang took a while to get over their shock, and then.....

They just laughed it off.

"Hey, hey, so does that mean the Mo and Fang clan are officially merged now?" Mr. Mo joked, elbowing his friend.

Mr. Fang also just found this cute and strangely amusing. "We work in tandem a lot of times anyway, why haven't we thought of marrying off our heirs anyway?"

The nervous mayor looked at the two laughing idiots, confused.

"You two.... are not mad at your sons?"

"Why should we??? Now I have two sons!" Mr. Mo exclaimed.

"Me too!" Mr. Fang laughed hysterically while holding his stomach. "And two is always better than one! I won't have awkward problems of how to deal when a daughter-in-law comes over, coz I'll have a son-in-law!"

They were both even more drunk than the mayor, it was pretty easy to tell.

"Call them out! We need a wedding souvenir!" Mr. Mo said, holding out his phone.

And so that was how the picture of the 'marriage' came to be, according to Mo Shizi's memory.

-----------------------------

"I did not say those things!" Fang Huailang flat out denied.

"You did. I remember perfectly well how much you clung to me now." Mo Shizi made a mocking expression of the young Fang Huailang. "Oh Leon~ Leon~ Let's play together, Leon~ I love you, Leon~"

Fang Huailang smacked his shoulder. "Shut up, man. You're gonna make me puke!"

"I'm the one who's going to puke the more I remembered how down bad you were for me."

"You're still the one who proposed that we got married though! Now, who's down bad?"

"You're the one who brought the topic! Face it, you're a cut-sleeve for the dashing Leon Mo!"

"You still kissed me, you damn cut-sleeve Leon Mo----"

Mrs. Fang finally intervened in their quarrel. "Boys, boys. As amusing as it is, don't you two ever get tired of yelling back and forth? The more arguments you bring up, the more it just proves how much you loved each other---"

"We were kids back then!" They both said at the same time.

"We didn't know what we're thinking! There's nothing between us!" Leon Mo exclaimed.

"It's all over. We're done! We're through!" Wolfe Fang added.

Mr. Mo tapped his cane to gain their attention, saying in a serious tone:

"So you boys don't want to receive the 69 billion yuan inheritance we would have given you if you married each other?"

They blinked and said at the same time. "69 billion???"