~Chapter 27 – Revealing the Past~

            Sehun laid in bed facing Luhan who seemed to be sleeping fitfully, there was a slight frown on Luhan’s lips as his eyebrows slightly scrunched together making his eyes crinkle a bit and his forehead wrinkled.

            ‘The unexpected visit seems to really be bothering him it’s even affecting Luhan’s sleep…’ it was bothering Sehun how he couldn’t really do anything to ease the troubled look Luhan had on his face so the only thing Sehun could think of was to reach out a bit and move Luhan’s bangs away from his crinkled eyes. The simple touch seemed to have made Luhan relax a little as his wrinkled forehead smoothed back down and his eyes relaxed leaving only the slight frown on the other’s face. ‘…Luhan’s still frowning,’ thought Sehun as he retracted his hand.

            Sehun sighed ‘Why am I caring so much about Luhan?’ Sehun looked at Luhan’s face and sighed again ‘I can’t sleep…’ getting up from the bed quietly in order not to wake Luhan, Sehun walked out the door and headed down the stairs ‘Maybe if I can find the library Granny said she has in the house then I can read something until I get sleepy because all I keep thinking about is if Luhan is okay.’

            As Sehun walked through the living room, he noticed that a light was still on in Meili’s office room as light leaked out of the slightly open door ‘I thought Granny went to bed… Maybe she forgot to turn the light off when she went upstairs?’ Sehun approached the door and knocked softly just to make sure that there wasn’t anyone inside but to his surprise he got a response, “Come in.”

            A bit shocked that he got an answer, Sehun pushed the door open to reveal Meili sitting at a desk with multiple papers laid about on top; Meili looked up and gave a smile towards Sehun “You couldn’t sleep Hunnie? Did you need something?”

            Sehun shook his head “I thought the light was left on by accident since you went up to bed the same time as the rest of us.”

            “Oh, I was planning on going to bed but then I remembered a few of the papers that I need to do for tomorrow so I thought it would have been best to come down and finish them now while I still remembered about them,” said Meili as she shuffled around some more papers.

            “Oh,” was Sehun’s reply as he continued to awkwardly stand in the doorway.

            Meili waved her hand towards the seat beside her desk “Come in and have a seat if you want Hunnie, I don’t mind besides it’ll be nice to have someone to talk to while I get through this boring paperwork.”

            Sehun hesitated at first but decided to just go along with whatever Meili suggested and went to take a seat at where she had gestured. Upon sitting down Sehun took notice of all the pictures that Meili had kept on her desk, many of them were of Luhan and herself but the one picture that caught his attention the most was what he assumed was a family photo.

            The picture had Luhan, who appeared to be around maybe fifteen when the picture was taken, standing between a pair of grown ups with only a small smile as if he put it there for the sake of the camera. The man, possibly in his mid thirties, stood on the left with a serious expression on his face but despite the seriousness of it, the man still looked quite handsome with the business suit that he had on. As for the woman, who appeared to be about a year or two younger than the man, she wore a lovely red dress with her long hair curled elegantly as she smiled brightly for the camera making her look quite charming.

            “That’s Xiao Lu’s parents… They took this photo a few years ago actually,” said Meili suddenly as she took notice of Sehun’s interest on the picture.

            “Oh,” responded Sehun not really knowing what else he could say to the elderly woman.

            Meili picked up the picture and brought it closer to Sehun so he could see it better “…My son was a very determined sort of person, he wanted success in what he did and he wanted to be able to run the Deer’s Bakery company with ease and precision. He’s always looking towards the future and if he sees anything that is to hinder it, he will take action to ensure it’ll be rectified. As for my daughter-in-law, she is a very cheerful person but she is also very decisive when she has something that she wants she’s willing to do whatever she can to get it, she can be very stubborn, I’m quite surprised she’s not actually related to me by blood since we both share that similar type of stubbornness,” Meili gave a small laugh as she finished her explanation almost as if she was remembering old memories that could prove her point. “They’re truly wonderful people; their only flaw is that they are a bit overbearing when forcing their wishes on others, specifically Xiao Lu.”

            Sehun’s interest was definitely peaked when he heard Luhan’s nickname mentioned “What do you mean by that?”

            Meili sighed as she placed the picture back on to her desk and sat back in her seat, “If you want to hear the story I’ll have to start from the beginning, do you want to listen to all of it?”

            Sehun nodded ‘If that’s what it takes to understand the entire situation with Luhan then I’ll definitely listen, I want to know what’s making him upset... Besides this seems almost relatable to my own problem… ’

            Meili saw Sehun’s response and began “Okay, the story actually begins with me… My old man was a very strict person and was only focused on two things, Deer’s Bakery and getting his two children a good education so that in the end he could hand his business to me because I was the oldest between just me and my sister. Of course I was a behaved child back then with all the responsibilities and expectations that were put on me, but I was also a bit of a brat,” Meili laughed at this part as she stared off and began reminiscing.

            “There was a bakery that was quite famous in its franchise, and I was in my late college years already, meaning I had all the necessary information to run a business successfully, I was at the top of my class. This famous bakery was always just a block away from the university I attended and I never really got the chance to walk into it because I was so haughty about everything during that time, I looked at the bakery as if it was nothing because I thought Deer’s Bakery was so much better and so much more grand than that small franchise. But how wrong I was about this, when I first stepped foot in there it was because my friend had begged me to go with her because she needed a quick present to give to her boyfriend on their anniversary and she didn’t want to make the trip by herself. Of course I tried my best to resist but she dragged me along anyways, the bakery was average in my mind the typical sweets and treats that lined the glass cases, nothing really caught my attention though as to why this bakery had gained so much attention,” Meili paused in her story for a moment before opening one of the drawers on her desk and pulling out another picture.

            “Nothing caught my attention until he walked out of the back door,” Meili showed the picture to Sehun.

            Sehun’s eyes widened a bit in surprise as he took in the picture of a barely young adult Meili with a handsome and very young good looking man standing beside her, both were covered in flour and seemed to be having the time of their lives as they laughed merrily in their own world, completely unaware of the person who was taking the picture. “Is this the patissier of the bakery?”

            Meili smiled as she looked at the picture, “No, at the time he was just the apprentice patissier, he was actually about two years older than me, his name was Seon Shin but he caught my attention nonetheless. Although our first meeting wasn’t exactly peaceful…”

            Sehun looked at Meili curiously “What do you mean? You didn’t start a food fight in the bakery did you?”

            Meili laughed “Oh no, let’s just say I really had no filter on my mouth back then, but back to the story my friend and I walked straight up to the counter and she asked if the bakery sold any heart shaped cookies. Seon had told us that the bakery does but it comes in a variety of flavors and we just need to pick one and he’ll bring it out. My friend told him she wanted the sugar cookies because those were her boyfriend’s favorite and like he told us he brought it out and packaged them in a white decorated bag, but before giving the bag to my friend he also brought out two more individual cookies and gave it to each of us saying ‘Here these are on the house, thanks for coming in so early’ and then gave my friend the bag. We thanked him and ate the cookie at one of the open tables in the bakery so we wouldn’t make a mess. When I took my first bite of that sugar cookie I thought it would have a mediocre taste, but it tasted incredible it was light and fluffy and sweet to the point where it was practically melting in my mouth, it was amazing.”

            “The sugar cookie was that great?” asked Sehun.

            Meili nodded “One of the best I’ve had, my friend agreed too apparently because she started squealing about how it was so good and if she wasn’t going to give the bag of cookies to her boyfriend she’d have eaten the entire bag herself. Since there wasn’t anyone in the store at the time Seon heard my friend’s compliments and I just happened to catch him smirking, and being the ridiculously stubborn brat I was I said in a really loud voice to make sure he heard ‘This cookie is just average even I can make something better after all I’m going to be head of Deer’s Bakery soon enough, my company can beat out this little franchise without any effort, our cookies are even more amazing than this.’ This comment seemed to really make Seon unhappy as he looked up from where he was standing at the counter and frowned. Unfortunately at that moment my friend’s phone rang and she picked it up, apparently it was her boyfriend so she had to rush off, leaving only me and Seon alone in the bakery.”

            Sehun was actually becoming more interested in the story as he asked “Did Seon get mad at you for saying what you said out loud?”

            Meili gave a snort “No, that idiot just smirked at me as I got up from the table and said ‘Deer’s Bakery? I heard about you before, you must be Meili Xi the soon to be CEO of the company correct?’ I nodded at him and said ‘Yeah, so what?’ Seon scoffed ‘You’re nothing big, it’s just your company name that makes the sweets you produce any good, It’s all machine made isn’t it? That stuff will never be as good as a patissier’s real work.’ I actually stood in shock at that comment, in all my short years of life I had not been talked to in that provoking way so I did the only thing that popped to mind I yelled out ‘My company is the best at what we do, don’t be jealous simply because what you produce won’t reach our standards!’ At this point Seon laughed ‘Wanna bet? Come back here tomorrow and I can show you an amazing dessert that will just blow your company out of the water.’ I was obviously furious at the time that someone as insolent as a guy I barely met had the audacity to even suggest that he could truly make a dessert better than Deer’s Bakery so I replied back ‘Fine! Just don’t cry when I spit the dessert back out!’ And from that point on it was where everything began…”

            “Began?” questioned Sehun.

            Meili nodded “Yup, that stupid fool of an apprentice patissier eventually had me falling for him, the moron, although I was probably twice as stupid for being the one to fall in love with him first despite how angry he made me but I did. After our initial disagreements I eventually began learning a lot from him, he taught me a lot about baking and making desserts, about how to make them taste amazing and how they could bring almost anyone a bit of happiness no matter what.”

            ‘That definitely sounded like something Luhan once told me too…’ thought Sehun.

             “I loved that aspect of being a patissier, being able to create something so tasty with my own hands and to be able to enjoy it or have someone enjoy it with me. I enjoyed it so much I actually wanted to become one myself, as I sat in my business majored classes all I really kept thinking about was what I could make next. However, eventually my old man found out about a year later and I got restricted from ever doing any type of baking again, he told me my focus should only be on taking over the business not on making sweets despite our company being all about sweets. He even told me that I was forbidden to go to the bakery near my school because it just showed me to be a traitor to my own company, it was utterly ridiculous but I held my tongue I had no choice, I was the only one left to take over the company and I knew my sister wouldn’t be able to handle it so I simply obeyed my old man’s orders,” Meili sighed as she thought back to the conversation.

            “It must have been really difficult during that time you were away from the bakery and from Seon,” said Sehun quietly.

            “It was, it hurt but I kept moving forward there was nothing I could do about it until Seon confronted me. That weirdo, he told me that he could solve all my problems for me, if I had just told him sooner so he went to my father and