Travelling With The Enemy | BL

Chapter Seventy Five

"You two go ahead, Nera and I need time to eat."

Unlike Wang Bao, Wang Lei needed time to eat and preferred savouring his food rather than scoffing it down in a hurry. While Wang Bao and Nakai made their way across the busy, people-filled street, Wang Lei and Nera walked over to a bench near the side of the street to eat and rest. As soon as Wang Bao heard his brother give him the okay to carry on eating without them, he started walking away from the group. Similar to Wang Lei, Nakai also had quick reflexes and was able to pull Wang Bao back to his side so that they could walk together. As they made their way across the road, Nakai made sure to say to Wang Bao.

"Don't walk away from me so easily, you need to stay close to me."

Wang Bao wasn't in the mood for sticking close to Nakai though, and he tried to shimmy his hand out of Nakai's tight grip that was stopping him from running across the crowded street. Once he realised there was no getting away and that he would need to stick to the slow walk, Wang Bao complained loudly.

"I'm hungry and you're moving so slow~ If they sell out of those stuffed fried breads, I won't be forgiving you, Nakai!"

While listening to Wang Bao's loud complaints, Nakai didn't know if he should laugh or cry but in the end, all he could do as a response was huckle under his breath while shaking his head. Back at the bench, Nera and Wang Lei had long finished their corn dogs but weren't in the mood to carry on eating yet. After chatting about the next few months, Wang Lei looked around the crowded street. He had been going between Man Country and the Big Island for years now, and had gotten to know a lot of the locals on a first name basis. However, when looking around the thick crowd of people walking the beautifully green lit street, he could see too many new faces to be considered normal. While continuing to watch the crowd of people walking past them, Wang Lei leaned close to Nera and asked.

"Has the market ever been this full before?"

Unlike Wang Lei, Nera wasn't as concerned but rather a little confused. He looked around the hoard of people walking up and down the road and footpath for a few seconds, then turned to Wang Lei to reply.

"Maybe there's an event going on we didn't hear about. It has been a while since we came to the night market though, so maybe this is a normal amount of people nowadays."

Wang Lei didn't buy this assumption though and he continued to glare at the many people passing them by, then looked behind them at the dark empty parks surrounding the street. Although it had been a while since they had last been to the night market, Wang Lei could remember there being string lights in the parks as well to help brighten the area, and make it feel safer for everyone. Now, these lights seemed to have disappeared and gave the brightly lit street an oddly cold feeling. After a few minutes of cold, persistent glaring, Wang Lei couldn't shake the uneasiness he was feeling in his chest and he grabbed Nera's arm while standing up. In the few minutes they had been watching the crowd, both Nera and Wang Lei could see the crowd had grown even denser, causing alarm bells to signal loudly in their minds. Keeping a tight grip on Nera's arm, Wang Lei stayed close to the edge of the footpath that connected the street to the surrounding parks. With Nera leaning close to his face in order to not draw too much attention with his height, Wang Lei was able to speak under his breath.

"Let's find Bao and Nakai then head to the security headquarters, I have a bad feeling about tonight."

Walking along the inner edge of the footpath allowed them to walk past the denser parts of the crowd while Nera kept an eye out for Nakai. However, after only walking for a couple minutes, they could both see and feel the crowd grow in size even more. With people surrounding them from all sides, Wang Lei could feel the crowd forcing closer to the road. With a stone cold expression, Wang Lei remained calm while moving with the crowd, but on the inside he was growing more stressed with every passing second. Beside Wang Lei, Nera was still searching the top of the crowd for Nakai's face but was yet to see anything. While moving his hand to hold onto Wang Lei's waist, Nera caught wind of a subtly sweet and floral scent he felt was oddly familiar, although the smell was something he had smelt before, Nera couldn't pinpoint where he had met the scent before. As quickly as the soft scent surrounded Nera, it disappeared and he didn't have the time to ask Wang Lei if he had noticed the smell as well. Now that the crowd was dense enough to bump shoulders every few seconds, Wang Lei asked Nera under his breath.