It was 8 pm, right after dinner...

VIII

By the time their dinner appointment rolled around, Brett's headache was back at full force. He hoped his stomach doing weird summersaults was just due to them not having eaten lunch except for some fruits. But duty called and as much as he wanted to cancel, this meeting was about planning bigger scale videos with more people, which needed more time to prepare and set up. Cancelling would mean delaying everything and he was so not up for that. So he manned up, took abother Aspirin and headed out with Eddy on his heels.

They made it to the hotpot place on time, all the smells of the spicy and light soups enveloping them as soon as they stepped into the restaurant. Part of their team was already waiting by a table next to the window and waved at them. They sat down, ordered some drinks and the first batch of ingredients to throw into the hotpot for good measure. While they were waiting, they discussed and planned out a video with Uncle Roger, which would be filmed in the next few days, one where they'd be learning the pipa, a Chinese lute, and a big project, where they would be choosing non-instrumentalists out of a line-up.
"We certainly need new mics for the line-up one!", Eddy said and took notes on his laptop, which he akwardly had to pinch between his upper body and the table for not getting any soup/sauce/drinks spilled on it. Maybe a hotpot place wasn't that fitting for a business meeting after all. "Last time when we did the choosing instruments one, the audio was shit." Everyone agreed and someone suggested rhode mics, which were quite cheap and of good quality. "And everything should be fine with Nigel, he knows the date and the details", a girl from their team said. "Good, thanks!", Eddy replied. "What do you reckon, Brett? Should we rent the same place we had for the line-up last time?"
"Yeah, was a fitting room with enough space. Should be good", Brett replied, trying his hardest to keep his face deadpan and be a decent, productive part of the meeting. By now, his head was doing a good job at driving him insane and he really hoped eating something would settle his very upset stomach.

The whole team discussed their matters deeply until food arrived. Everyone happily joined in the hotpot feast, cooking vegetables, lots of meat, noodles, seafood, mushrooms (not Eddy) and tofu in the boiling soups in front of them.
Brett had to take deep breaths and really concentrate on cooking his noodles to perfection to keep his spinning head busy. No one noticed anything and that counted as a win in his books. Noodles should do the trick, carbs normally did when he felt a bit sick, so he carefully took a few bites and choked it down. While waiting on how his stomach would react, he tried to laugh at the jokes and join in the conversation, so Eddy wouldn't get suspicious. Some more of super-caring-Eddy and he'd never have a life for his own for the foreseeable future. Brett did appreciate Eddy worrying about him, but going to bed at 9 pm and having to eat salad when there was pizza? No thank you!

The noodles did help and Brett thanked God and LingLing with all his heart! So he ate some more and even threw in a bunch of meat and fish after he made sure he could keep the food down. He did keep his distance from the rice wine and beer though, which the waiter brought half way through their meal.

After two and a half hours, their time for the all you can eat hot pot ran out and the whole group proceeded to fill the not available space in their bellys with free Mövenpick ice cream.
The pain med Brett took back in their flat must have lost it's effect though, because the headache, of which he thought was on it's peak already, got even stronger during dessert and paired some white noise next to his dizzy brain. Ice cream was out of the question and if Eddy didn't pick up any signs yet, that his friend wasn't in his best condition, he certainly noticed it now. Brett always ate dessert, no matter how much food he had before. 

"Brett, you sure you don't want any ice cream? They have your favourite, tripple chocolate flavour", someone of their team asked. Brett just shook his head.
"How do you know his favourite ice cream flavour?", Eddy asked, baffled, clearly thinking he was the only one being aware of what Brett liked or not for whatever reason. Brett didn't care, at least he could pretend everything was fine and dandy when in reality, he was slowly dying a painful death (maybe he was being dramatic, but hey, he had his reasons!) and all he wanted to do is to go home. Their team member was telling the story of how Brett had eaten three bowls of the same flavour the last time they'd been here and eveyone listened and laughed, except for a certain someone who finally saw the subtle hints of Brett's real physical state.
"Hey", Eddy whispered and softly nudged Brett's left arm, "you ok?"
Brett did his best to hide it, but he felt his control slipping. Suddenly all the oxygen in the restaurant seemed to have been sucked out. "I... I'm fine", he managed, "just too full for ice cream." He felt like speaking these seven words had been the hardest thing he ever had to do (again, dramatizing) and Eddy must have heard his struggle, because his demeanour changed very quickly from upbeat and funny to concerned.
"Brett! You sure you ok?"
Brett nodded, not trusting his voice to work anymore. By now, he had to choose between keeping his labored breathing as unsuspicious as possible or preventing a very unappatizing catastrophe from happening right in front of eveyone's ice cream bowls. Of course, Eddy saw Brett's face colour gradually change from very pale to light green and noticed the beads of sweat forming on his forehead. Matched with his slightly bent posture and his shallow breathing, Eddy put two and two together and made a quick decision.
"Listen, Brett! Just take deep breaths and come with me!", he whispered, so only Brett would hear him, before he announced to their team they'd head outside quickly. He grabbed Brett's arm and dragged him under some protest of one of their team members, who said Eddy's ice would melt, out of the restaurant as fast as he could. Brett just staggered next to Eddy, barely able to keep himself upright.