Like a Couple
Like a Couple
“A little less than half an hour…” he replied before pressing his chin on the top of my head.
“Umm…are we going to…stay like this until then?” I asked hesitantly.
“You were the one who turned down my invitation for a meal…so…” he replied with a hint of teasing in
his tone.
His arms around my waist tightened a little more than slightly and I had a pretty good idea of what he
had in mind for the remaining time until our commercial would start playing. I wondered if we looked
strange standing there like that. Before I could come up with the words to get Ace to let go of me so
that we could stand normally, my stomach let out an embarrassingly loud growl. Heat immediately
rushed to my face as I blushed wildly.
Ace started laughing softly from behind me and that was enough confirmation for me to know that he
had heard my stomach growling loud and clear. I didn’t even feel that hungry so why did my stomach
have to make a noise like that now of all times. Embarrassment flooded every cell of my body as Ace
continued to hold me close to him without letting me go.
“Umm…” I murmured as I tried my best to come up with something to say to him.
“Your little tummy is hungry. Let’s go buy something to eat…” Ace suggested close to my ear.
“We might miss the commercial…” I mumbled in protest.
His arms loosened from around my body and then he spun me around to face him. The way his hazel
eyes stared down at me made me feel a little confused inside. He was clearly concerned that I seemed
to be hungry, but he also had a glint of clear amusement in his eyes.
“Let’s buy something quick. We can bring it back here and stand here to eat if it you’re that concerned
about missing the commercial,” Ace suggested before grinning at me.
“Do we have enough time for that?” I asked while still hesitating.
“Of course, we do. The commercial isn’t going to start a second earlier than scheduled. You know that,
right?” he asked.
His hand grabbed my wrist and pulled me after him as he walked away from the large screen in search
for some food. I knew that he was right, the commercial was scheduled to start automatically at the
scheduled time by the system so there was no way that it would start even a second earlier than
scheduled. I sighed before willingly letting him pull me after him on our little quest for food.
…
“Did we make it?” I asked in slight panic when we finally made it back to the same spot that we were.
Unfortunately, there was a long line at the fast food counter that took more time than we had
anticipated. Ace walked after me while typing something on his phone until we arrived back at the exact
same spot that we were before. By that time, there were so many people walking around at the
shopping district that it was surprising for a weekday. Then again, I haven’t been to the shopping
district during the middle of the workday often before because I was supposed to be working at the
office.
“Yes, we did. Stop panicking…” Ace replied with his eyes glued to his phone screen.
“What are you looking at? Did something come in?” I asked, sensing that he must be reading
something related to Project Alpha.
“Just reading some summary reports on the press coverage and opinions from this morning’s press
conference that we hosted,” he replied casually as he came to stand right at my side.
“How is it? Are the reviews good?” I asked excitedly.
“You can see for yourself,” Ace replied while handing me his phone.
“Thanks,” I replied softly before taking his phone from his hand.
Someone from Julianna’s team had sent a summary report of the reactions of the press from this
morning’s press conference. There was various snipping of the various press coverage content on our
new commercial. I scrolled through to quickly read the comments to get an overall view of the reactions Content bel0ngs to Nôvel(D)r/a/ma.Org.
so far. Julianna did a great job again and there was a lot of social mentions regarding our commercial
and I had to say that the comments were much more positive than I could have hoped for.
“This is so great…” I murmured with relief to myself.
“You’re right. So far so good,” Ace readily agreed.
I spent some more time scrolling through the report before handing back Ace’s phone to him. I took out
my own phone and began stalking the various hashtags related to our commercial on social media to
get a glimpse of the public’s reaction so far.
“There’s so many mentions on social media already…” I said excitedly.
“Let me see,” Ace requested.
I turned to show him my phone screen and together we went through the main social media channels
to see the responses to our commercial so far.
“Things will get more real after the first round of release and then the official round this evening will
make everything so viral. Hopefully…” Ace said with a smile.
“Oh, I think it’s about to start…” I said as I pressed my hands together as if in prayer.
My eyes stared up at the screen while I counted down in my mind until the moment that our commercial
would finally come on. Of course, there was no one else stopping to stand in place to watch the
commercial like us.
If only our commercial could make someone, even if it was one person, stop in their tracks to watch it
until the end, I would feel like we have succeeded. That was really all that I had hoped for.
I found myself holding my breath as the screen turned dark and then a count down timer showed itself
on the screen. The count down started from 10 and then counted downwards…
Julianna surely knows how to make an impactful appearance for our commercial, I thought with a smile
on my lips.
--To be continued…