Office Diaries - Chapter 183

Tohru reached out to take Yanee’s hand from under the table and gave her a gentle squeeze. He knew she had been very uncomfortable during her parents’ interview earlier. But there was no way getting out of that one nor did he intend to get out of that situation as well. For him, it was totally a good thing that her parents took the initiative to corner him and ask their questions like that. Compared to shying away from him and observing him at a distance, their open inquiries made him acquire their approval in advance. At least now, even if they approved of him as an individual before, they also approved of him as the man their daughter chose to be with.

With the meal over, Peter and Anjee said their goodbyes. Chummy too had left as her boyfriend already finished his shift, and they were planning to catch the last full show of an action movie. Tohru and Yanee then drove the elderly couple to their hotel as they were adamant on not staying at Ami’s place.

“Your sister is already so busy she has to have a quiet environment to sleep in when she can find time to rest tomorrow. The expo is the day after so for sure, she hasn’t been sleeping well lately until today,” Mrs. Lee said, and Yanee had to agree.  .

Ami usually worked and checked everything was ready until two days before the event where her trusted ȧssistants would take over the supervision so she could take a rest. As a celebrity events planner, her sister had to be present at all the events which most of the time had media publicity, so she had to look good and well rested. In fact, she and Ami had pampering at the salon scheduled tomorrow, and for sure, beyond the time they were at the salon, her older sister would be napping.

“You have to rest a lot too since you will be modeling for your sister,” Mr. Lee reminded her, but Yanee shook her head.

“That’s on the second day, not the first,” Yanee said. Different companies were scheduled to perform daily as per the lots drawn by the company representatives to keep the fairness of the event. Even if Ami’s entitled to be the main company featured, she declined the offer of the organizers and drew lots with the others. Ami drew the slot for the second day so Yanee was not needed until then. Ami still had to be there tomorrow, though, as she  had a booth at the expo, and her presence would give it a nice boost to possible clients.

“But you still have work tomorrow, right? Even if you don’t need to go to the expo yet, you’re still someone who has to work on your job seriously even with a big backer behind you.”

Yanee grimaced at her father’s words, while Tohru couldn’t help but chuckle as he found her reaction cute. It was clear that Mr. Lee was insinuating that having her boss as her boyfriend was not an excuse to slack off.

“Of course, I’m taking my project seriously. I even had to stay up late at night to work on it,” she defended herself, only to realize her words sounded wrong right after. Sure enough, Mr. Lee turned his attention to Tohru with a glare, although the twinkle in his eyes made it obvious that he was joking.

“And you, even if you’re her boss it’s not good to overwork your employees,” he said, which made Tohru deny it, of course.

“Dad, stop bullying us, okay,” Yanee complained and the elderly chuckled.

“Anyway, Tohru…” Mrs. Lee leaned over from the backseat and reached out to touch Tohru’s shoulder and gave him a gentle pat as he drove. “I knew we made you uncomfortable at the restaurant with our questions earlier. Believe me when I say that it was not our intention.”

Tohru shook his head and gave them a reassuring smile. “I honestly didn’t mind. In fact, I think it’s only normal since you were blindsided with the news like that. Unlike my family who had known about Yanee before I took her to meet them, you did not have time to prepare yourselves mentally. For the shock, I apologize again.”

They were originally planning to come out to her parents differently, but the earlier scenario didn’t give them a choice. It would be awful not to reveal their relationship since they were already asking.

Yanee smiled now, her heart already relaxed having moved on from the previous embarrassment at the restaurant. “I’m sure they’re really happy,” she said with a naughty smile at her parents. “What shocked them is the fact I got to have a boyfriend first compared to the romantic Ami.”

She was the one who was pessimistic about love. Ami was the hopeless romantic one. However, she was expecting for her parents to agree but they didn’t. Instead, they looked at her as if she was crazy.

“What? Isn’t that… true?” Her parents’ expression made her doubt her judgement of her sister’s character for the first time.

Tohru chuckled at her expression too, but he couldn’t really focus long on her as he was driving. But it definitely told Yanee that he agreed with his parents to whatever their opinion was about her elder sister.

“Your sister is an alien. She likes romance, the ones you buy to read or watch on TV, but has nothing to do with real life romantic relationships.” Mrs. Lee pursed her lips after complaining, and Mr. Lee quickly took her arm to calm her down.

“Leave your eldest daughter alone. It’s not like she doesn’t have a valid reason why she’s disinterested in settling down,” he said.

“I don’t get what you mean?” Yanee was dumbfounded.

Tohru sighed. “Occupational hazard,” he told Yanee.

“What occupational hazard? She’s an events planner, no? She even coordinates for weddings.” Weddings were the most romantic things in Yanee’s opinion, and Ami loved wedding events the most.