In the kitchen, Fang Junjie was cooking the dish while Duan Wei cut the vegetables. Tang Rong had gone to open the door. The new guest seemed to talk to Fang Bai when Duan Wei clutched his stomach.
"Big bro, I have to go urgently", his expression looked painful.
Fang Junjie was shocked by this and before he could say anything, Duan Wei had vanished. Worriedly, we went to the cabinet to get the stomach medicine. As he was busy looking at the medicines, he sensed a sudden presence behind him. Shocked, he reached out to the knife in front of him and turned around to attack. When he turned around and stabbed with the strongest force he could muster, he came face to face with a familiar handsome face. He came to a realization but it was too late to get hold of his force as he could only feel horror when he saw the knife approaching Long You's shoulder.
Long You who was shocked at first seemed to understand something as he quickly caught hold of Junjie's arm with a tight grip and jerked it. As a result, Fang Junjie was unprepared as we fell forward on Long You's chest.
"We've not even started and you already want to murder your husband?" Long You had already thrown away the knife and now taking advantage of their posture, he held his boyfriend in his arms and whispered slowly and sensually in his ears. He could feel Fang Junjie stiffen when he blew in his ears and laughed out in amusement. 'Junjie was really cute. How fortunate I am to have such a cute mate.'
Fang Junjie's ears were red as he felt the chest he was connected to rumble. Their chests were connected and he was enclosed in two strong arms; his head was tilted away on Long You's neck instinctively to avoid the itchy feeling. He hadn't expected that they could get this intimate when their relationship had just started. All his plans to slowly get to know each other's feelings had again been blown away. But, apart from the shyness he was feeling another emotion- competitiveness, that emotion was beyond his words but was real. So, while Long You was grinning, he tilted his face towards the other's neck and brought his face near. Next, he sniffed the place very exaggeratingly, hmm… as expected, the smell always gave him a familiar feeling.
Long You who was laughing froze.
He forgot to react in shock and realization; this was Junjie's first intimate contact with him. But before he could come to his senses and ask anything, the person in his arms very nimbly got out of his grip and said, "Mr. Long, please go out and wait. I am cooking right now."
"You-..."
"Please don't disturb me, I have so much work to do. It would be better if you go out and talk with Xiao-Bai and others for a while."
"..."
As Long You walked out of the kitchen, almost dragging his steps, he heard Fang Junjie's little giggle and a distant muttering. "I don't know what happened to Ah-Wei suddenly. I hope he is fine, or maybe I should cook some lighter food for him."
The culprit quietly walked away innocently with a wolfish twinkle in his eyes.
*
*
'PREPARING FOR LAUNCH…'
'10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1!'
A rocket flew off into the sky leaving behind a huge trail of fire. 'Human ability could never be underestimated'; everyone understood this in the last few days. When everyone work hard to save their life, they were able to perfectly complete the hardest task of a launch in the last three days. The engineers, technicians, workers, scientists, none of them had slept.
This space station was the only place on Earth where everyone knew about the incoming danger on the existence of earth. Many things happened in these few days.
"Sir, there is still no response from the ministry. No-one is responding at all."
"What?! It's been 2 days since their last vague response. What about other countries?"
"Sir… They also never responded. It seemed as if all the super-powerful people in the world who can help us have vanished from the face of Earth."
Listening to his secretary's words, the director of the Space Station seemed to have gotten some realization.
"Call the Mars Space Development Center. F-f…fast!!" His hands were trembling.
Soon, two to three scientists and secretaries tried calling all the helplines of the Organization.
"S-sir… There are no replies."
"How can it be? Try contacting your friends or old co-workers."
"No response."
"Hasn't the media shown any reaction? What is going on?! How can all the higher ups vanish from the face of Earth? Unless… unless… "
Another secretary spoke up, "Sir, your friend Dr. Brie called you yesterday asking about you. You were very busy testing the system so she couldn't contact you at all. At last she gave a voicemail. We all were very busy so I scheduled it for your tasks after the launch. She also worked in the Mars SDC. Maybe… you should check it."
"Y-yes. B-bring it to me."
"Sir, do you want to play it in the office?"
"No. We all have worked together to try our best to save Earth. We all will now live together and die together. There is nothing to hide."
Soon, a recording was played.
"Tim! I tried to contact you so many times! I-i-i- wanted… to tell you that I'm sorry we are leaving. All the higher-ups now know that the asteroid is approaching. S-so, we decided to leave the habitat we created a few years ago on Mars. The living conditions are harsh but going there at least means life can go on. T-the President said that he was dissatisfied with your hopeless decision of making a rocket which has very high chances of not working at all.
So, you were not taken. The base has a total capacity of 1 million people. A co-operation was made between various powerful countries all over the world. They will supply the best of resources to space and in return, will get a ticket to the Mars base. About 100 countries were involved. Today… we are taking off. The plan seemed to be made for a long time. Maybe the top scientists had already predicted this event before us and sent this news to the center. I-I wanted to tell this to you because I and my family of four are also the ones to get shortlisted for the base. The higher-ups don't care about the response of the media since the asteroid is expected to hit in 2-3 days. Y-you at least deserved to know this truth. Right now we are under heavy monitoring but my husband was friends with a security officer. We both love you. Little Cam loves you too. I hope God does some miracle. Good bye!"
Pin drop silence.
This was the atmosphere in the launch hall right now. The tension was thick as hell. One secretary who had gone out to investigate came back and noticed the strange atmosphere.
Hesitatingly, she spoke, "Sir, there is a huge scarcity of food and other resources in the market. The diesel prices have increased a lot because of the sudden decrease in the resources. Everyone is worried about it. Such things seem to be happening all over the world. As if overnight they seemed to realize how less the things in the market are when there are scarce supplies. Some blame it on the pollution and many environmentalists and chemical activists have come forward to educate everyone. Everyone says the higher ups have vanished because they are ashamed and want to hide their face. I was shocked to see that there were no new supplies in the grocery and cosmetics store. They say that the supplies will be normal in 2-3 months or so. Not a big deal. But till then, we will have to persevere"
Finally, some people in the room could not handle this anymore and broke down. One after another everyone had tears in their faces and hugged each other. Their cries screamed extreme hopelessness and anger. The secretary, Amanda, was bewildered while looking at her colleagues. They all had stayed strong and persevered in the last few days and never once did anyone cry like this. Just what was happening?!
"You know, Amanda…" she was shocked by the nasal voice of their Director. She heard him continue, "This is what happens when millions of people stack all the resources they can get their hands on for the next 20-30 years, leaving behind the helpless with nothing, not even food so that they can have their fill before they die. Oh dear lord! Why is this happening?!"
While Amanda was still shocked and doubtful, the other secretary showed her the voicemail. Soon, the room was again filled with desperate cries of people who were filled with fear and could only see nothing, but darkness in the future.