Zaki had just arrived in Country J, heavily guarded. His first day as the president of Red Empire was challenging, as expected, but his busy schedule didn"t take Hinari off his mind. He had planned to finally meet Hinari"s parents and tell them that he will be marrying her but because of the news about old man Zuzuki"s sudden critical condition, it wouldn"t be proper for him to go and ask her for her hand right now. Zaki"s plan, therefore, was put on hold for now until the old man was better.
But in the end, Zaki still decided to go. He told Sei that he would go, along with their parents, to visit the sick, old man. Their purpose won"t be to talk about the wedding yet but Zaki and his parents" presence would be enough to show them how serious Zaki was towards Hinari. But that actually wasn"t the only reason why Zaki insisted on going.
Zaki felt uneasy. He had ordered someone to look out for her but that wasn"t enough to ease his mind at all. No matter how much he convinced himself that she"d be fine, he just couldn"t help but worry since he knew just how evil Hinari"s so-called family were, with the exemption of the old man. He still couldn"t forget what they did to her on her birthday so how could he even stay calm when she was within those people"s reach?
…
Meanwhile, Hinari and her stepmother were staring at each other inside old man Zuzuki"s room. The others already left, leaving her and the woman alone inside while the old man lay on the bed resting, asleep.
"What"s this? When did my dearest step daughter became such a coward? I am just inviting you out to have a talk and you"re chickening out?" the woman"s voice was soft but her sarcasm was loud enough to pierce the ears.
"Dear step mother, you think I"m still that same foolish, little child? Why would I voluntarily put myself into the pit of a certain crocodile? And you call this being a coward? Dear step mother, haven"t you heard of the saying, "the prudent sees danger and takes precaution but the naïve goes blindly on and suffers the consequences"?" Hinari retorted with a smile on her face, causing the woman"s face to turn ugly, seemingly restraining herself to attack her.
However, after a moment, the woman smiled again.
"Well, I can"t blame you for being like this towards me but you don"t have to worry, okay? We"re just going to the rooftop to have a private talk. Crocodiles won"t be showing up in places like this either. Besides, what do you have to worry about when there are many people around. CCTV"s are everywhere, my dear, so there"s no need to be wary like that. I"ll wait for you up there, okay?" Just after she said those words, the woman turned her back and left the room while Hinari just smirked before letting go of a sigh.
"No need to be wary? Crocodiles aren"t here? Who are you fooling?" Hinari uttered and walked towards the chair beside the old man before picking her phone. She wanted to release the toxic emotions she got from evil woman by looking at her beauty"s heart melting pictures and it miraculously worked.
"Don"t stress yourself with such unnecessary characters, Hinari, and just focus on this breathtaking beauty." As Hinari slowly immersed herself in watching Zaki"s pictures and videos, she ended up smiling by herself. She had hundreds, maybe even thousands, of stolen photos of him which she gathered from the last five years. She even found a really cute photo of Zaki babysitting a one year old little s.h.i.+n and it cracked her up as she remembered those moments. There were times when little s.h.i.+n was more attached to Zaki than his own father that the little guy wouldn"t stop crying if it wasn"t Zaki who held him. The babysitters couldn"t make the little guy stop so that night, Zaki didn"t sleep. He was carrying little s.h.i.+n in his arms while Sei became his a.s.sistant in feeding him and Hinari was the a.s.sistant in changing him. The day after that, Zaki looked like he just survived a zombie apocalypse. The beautiful guy"s hair was messy, his pyjamas were crumpled, and he had big, dark circles around his eyes.
Remembering it, Hinari couldn"t help but chuckle. She even found previous photos and videos of the two men babysitting little s.h.i.+n and there were actually lots of videos of Sei that she took because she thought about showing them to Davi when she came back.
"Wahh… why did I forget to show these things to Davi? d.a.m.n! Should I send this to her, now? Wait, I should send these to her as a gift and watch her reaction when she sees these. Hehehe and those brothers don"t even know about the existence of these things… pfft! I wonder how they"ll react when they see this. Wait… shall I send this to beauty? But… but I want to see his reaction upon watching this! Okay, lets send him a spoiler."
Hinari then snapped a scene of Zaki"s video and sent it to him. The photo was of a messy Zaki, dozing off as Little s.h.i.+n lay in his arms.