Abruptly, Noah's brain came up with an explanation, and he no longer felt ashamed to bring up the topic. He looked around at the faces around him knowingly and asked, "You guys… have you seen the wedding announcement already?"
Only then did those nonchalant facial expressions all around him morph into collective confusion, "What announcement?"
Noah's knowing smile cracked spectacularly.
Levi didn't have the heart to watch his baby struggling any longer, so he offered a timely rescue, "There should be an announcement up about the two of us getting married."
With that cue, everyone stopped what they were doing to open up the light screens of their communicators.
Noah's expression, which had been just a wee bit short of completely crumbling, finally fully fell apart. What's this?? No one saw the announcement, yet everyone acted as if Levi and him acting lovey-dovey was perfectly normal?? 'What the fuck?!? With your attention to detail, how did you end up hired to work on a crime investigation team!?'
Feeling indignant, Noah's lips involuntarily pressed into a pout, but he still nervously watched for changes in the crowd's facial expressions. Yet, a minute passed, his audience closed their light screens, but there were still no changes whatsoever in their expression!!!
Noah, 'This is unscientific!' (ノ꒪Д꒪)ノ︵ ┻━┻
No, wait! There were some changes after all!
Fynn's colleagues had the faces of sudden realization, and calls of "Congratulations, congratulations" followed soon after.
With the awkward silence broken, one of Levi's colleagues could hold his tongue no more. He resentfully jumped out to complain, "You should have said something, boss! I kept telling everyone that I'm sure that the Cordia sibling you'd be marrying was supposed to be the sister! But they all made fun of me, saying I shouldn't believe everything I read on the internet!"
Noah's head snapped towards the rest of Levi's colleagues, who all guiltily looked away, pretending that the 'all' mentioned had nothing to do with them.
'Oh, I see how it is!' Noah's eyes narrowed, and he turned to shoot Levi an accusing glare, 'You told them something, didn't you?! That's why they are not surprised!'
'How did this black pot fall onto my head??' Levi naturally felt aggrieved, 'I didn't! I didn't say anything! Baby, you can't wrong me like this!'
Noah felt even more aggrieved than him, 'I can't believe I was the last one to know!! Shame on you!'
Levi felt choked up. He wanted to plead his innocence but couldn't. In the end, though he really didn't say anything to his colleagues, he couldn't refute the fact that his baby was indeed the last to know! In fact, his baby still didn't know, ah!
The feeling of being wrongfully accused yet not being able to explain… stifling! So stifling! QAQ
Levi's ire was provoked, and when Levi was in a bad mood, others absolutely couldn't be better off than him!
"That's right," Levi's eyes narrowed dangerously, and he smiled a smile that was not a smile, "Let me hear, which one of you bastards dared to call for strippers?" (ꐦ ◠‿◠)
Seeing that familiar look in their boss' eyes, Levi's people collectively felt an onset of a crisis. They shrunk their neck, trembling like descaled fish on a chopping board.
Fynn's eyebrow jumped, "Strippers?"
Baby Noah was successfully distracted by the change in topic. He momentarily forgot his indignance and patiently explained, "Just before the attack, someone called strippers to the party."
Levi glowered at his men, carefully eyeing each and every one of them until their backs were covered in cold sweat.
"None of them called the strippers," Fynn abruptly interrupted the stare-down. As an Intenter, he could clearly feel that they were all trembling little lambs, yet there was no guilt, regret, nor deception coming off of them.
Noah's fluffy head tilted to the side in confusion, and he voiced the question that was on everyone's mind, "Then who called them?" ( •᷄⌓•᷅ )
Fynn and Levi jolted at that moment, and both of them went for their communicators. Levi didn't dare release the arm holding his baby in place, lest his baby took this opportunity to run away. Thus, after connecting his two hands in front of them to open up his light screen interface, he placed his chin on Noah's shoulder and used just one hand to type and scroll.
Noah, who was sitting on top of Levi, had a perfectly clear view of Levi's light screen. But at that moment, he wished he couldn't see it. Because the screen was swarmed with unsightly articles about how loose Levi's bachelor party was due to featuring a fair amount of both male and female strippers.
All kinds of media accounts jumped out of the woodworks to say nasty words about Levi and the upcoming marriage. Saying that it was doomed to fail, that Levi was unbridled and did whatever he wanted regardless of morals or consequences.
They even somehow managed to drag Noah and Maery through the mud, coming up with all kinds of outrageous conjectures. Such as saying that it was Noah who convinced Levi to hold the party and called the strippers. That he wasn't a decent and pure young man that everyone thought he was.
Such as saying that Maery had no control over her fiancé and was just a trophy wife. Saying that the rumors about their harmonious relationship are all bogus and that they actually didn't get along at all.
Noah wanted to read further, but Levi shut off the feed on his light screen and switched to calling the hotel manager, "You have 10 minutes to find out who called the strippers."
Hearing the suppressed fury in Levi's voice, Noah's previous dissatisfaction with him was swept away with the wind, replaced with worry. He tried to half turn his body to face Levi properly, but the other hugged him tighter to his chest as if worried Noah wanted to throw him away and run off by himself.
Noah's heart tightened, and a tumultuous loathing for those people bubbled up within his chest. How could they irresponsibly say such ugly things about someone else just for the sake of their own profit?! Hurting others with no remorse and even feeding on their misery!!
Noah let out a bitter sigh and leaned back against Levi, trying to signal the other that he had no intention of moving away. 'Don't hang on to me as if you are hanging for dear life. I'm not a block of wood getting carried away by the rapidly flowing water! I…
'I am a person. Even if you let go… as long as my arms and legs don't let go, neither waves nor torrents can carry me away!'
Noah couldn't say out the words within his heart, so he could only pat the back of Levi's hand comfortingly and move his head towards Levi's, which was resting on his shoulder, to rub their cheeks together. "They are just spewing nonsense again. Don't let them get to you. We can–we can just sue them for defamation?"
Levi, behind him, stiffened momentarily, then hugged him even tighter and buried his face in the crook of Noah's neck. He hungrily breathed in his baby's wonderful scent and felt the fury within him slowly ease.
When had Levi ever cared about what nonsense the media said about him? No, what he cared about was his baby! He couldn't stand the idea of his baby seeing these ugly things! What if his baby saw all these people calling Levi loose and unprincipled and started to think that there might be some truth to it?!
And what Levi couldn't stand even more was them talking bad about his baby!
His baby was the most wonderful! And no one was allowed to say otherwise!