Chapter 13 — Fake Kisses with My Ex's Best Friend

Hưng Thịnh Creative celebrated the half-way mark of the year on a Saturday night, renting the entire rooftop of a hotel in the city, splendidly decorated with warm yellow lights and a small stage for internal musical performances. This is the biggest event of the year that all employees of all departments attend, including the company's senior leadership.

Lâm Bích Thủy, as the host of the exchange program, introduced a game that many people responded to: inviting couples in the company to come on stage to participate in a small challenge called "memorable moment", where each couple had to perform a gesture of affection according to a randomly drawn request, in front of the cheers of all employees.

Khả Tâm and Bách Nhân, as one of the few public couples in the company, were pushed onto the stage by cheering colleagues almost from the beginning. Standing in front of hundreds of eyes watching, Khả Tâm felt her heart beat faster, not because she was worried about her plan being revealed, but because of another feeling of nervousness, a feeling that came from having to stand very close to Bách Nhân in front of everyone in an unpredictable situation.

Lâm Bích Thủy drew lots and read out the request, "Couple number three, your challenge is: kiss lightly on the forehead, or if you're more brave, you can choose to kiss on the lips," Cheers from the crowd rang out, some people even shouted "kiss on the lips, kiss on the lips" teasingly. Khả Tâm felt her face heat up and glanced at Bách Nhân, not knowing how to react properly in this situation.

Bách Nhân, although he still maintains his familiar calm appearance on the outside, is equally confused inside. He knew that, according to what the two of them had agreed on, they could completely choose the safer option, just kissing lightly on the forehead to both meet the game's requirements and not cross the initially set boundary. But when he looked at Khả Tâm's eyes right now, a look that was both confused and waiting for him to make a decision, he suddenly felt that the safe option was no longer the only thing he wanted to do.

"Are you okay?" He asked softly, just loud enough for her to hear over the music and cheers around.

"I'm fine," Khả Tâm replied, her voice shaking slightly, "Let's... just kiss the forehead?"

Bách Nhân nodded, but when he bent down to place a light kiss on her forehead as planned, a gust of wind from the air conditioning system on the rooftop suddenly blew, causing Khả Tâm to slightly lean away, and in that short moment of imbalance, the distance between their two faces suddenly narrowed closer, so close that they could both feel the other's breath.

Time seemed to freeze for a few seconds. Khả Tâm looked straight into Bách Nhân's eyes, no longer seeing the stage lights, no longer hearing the cheers of the crowd, only her own racing heartbeat and the opposite eyes looking at her with a sincerity that she had never seen so clearly before. Bách Nhân was the same, he felt the warmth from her face, and in an instant, he knew that if he let things continue instinctively, the remaining fragile gap between the two of them would disappear completely.

But at that moment, the voice of host Lâm Bích Thủy rang out through the speakers, "Oh, this couple is so affectionate, everyone clap and cheer!", pulling them both back to reality. Bách Nhân stepped back slightly, placing a light kiss on Khả Tâm's forehead as originally planned, but his hand on her shoulder was still a bit trembling, a small detail that only Khả Tâm, standing next to her, could feel.

Applause and whistles rang out from the audience. Both bowed and left the stage amid cheers, but all the way down, neither of them dared to look the other directly in the eyes. Both clearly felt that something had just happened that went beyond the scope of an arranged performance.

Nhật Hạ, standing under the stage, ran to pull Khả Tâm's hand to a corner, eyes wide open with excitement, "Oh my god, Tâm, just now when I saw the two of you almost kissing, I stood there and my heart was pounding."

"It's nothing, it's just the wind blowing and making me lose my balance," Khả Tâm quickly explained, his voice a bit more frantic than usual.

"Yes, I know it's 'wind'." Nhật Hạ squinted her eyes, her voice filled with meaning, "But Tâm, are you sure you still see this as just an act? Look at your face now, it's redder than when you stood on that stage."

Khả Tâm did not answer, just bowed her head, raised her hand to gently touch her forehead, where Bách Nhân had just placed a kiss, clearly feeling the warmth that still lingered like an indelible mark.

As for Bách Nhân, he found a hidden corner of the rooftop, stood alone, leaned on the railing and looked down at the city lights below, trying to regain his normal breathing. Gia Kỳ came over and gave him a glass of water, her eyes still filled with surprise.

"Mr. Nhân, I thought you and Ms. Tâm were actually kissing just now," Gia Kỳ said, half joking and half questioning.

"No, it was just an accident," Bách Nhân replied, trying to keep his voice calm, but he was not sure whether "accident" was the correct word to describe the feeling he had just experienced.

In the distance, standing in the crowd, Thành Kiệt witnessed the entire moment, clutching the wine glass in his hand so tightly that his knuckles turned white. He didn't say anything, just quietly turned away, found another corner of the event to stand alone, a feeling of loss arose in his heart more clearly than ever, a feeling that made him unable to continue deceiving himself that he had completely let go of Khả Tâm.

Bảo Ngân, standing next to him from the beginning of the party, also saw the entire moment on stage, and also saw Thành Kiệt's reaction right after. His face turned pale in an instant, his hand clenched his wine glass, an expression she had never seen him show before, even in the most stressful moments of work.

"Are you okay?" She asked, trying to keep her voice calm even though her heart was churning.

"I'm okay," Thành Kiệt replied, but his hasty answer and avoiding eyes only confirmed what Bảo Ngân had suspected for many weeks. She was silent, not saying anything more, but in her heart, the determination to clarify everything, one way or another, became stronger than ever after the moment of witnessing that honest reaction of the man she loved.

That night, after the event ended, Khả Tâm and Bách Nhân left together, but during the journey, the two hardly talked much, only exchanging a few short sentences about how the event went smoothly. When the car stopped in front of her apartment, Khả Tâm tried to open the door to get out, but Bách Nhân suddenly called back.

"Heart."

She turned to look at him, the pale yellow streetlight shining through the car window, illuminating his face with an unusually serious look.

"Earlier, on stage," he said, his voice slow as if he was considering each word, "I'm sorry if I made you feel uncomfortable."

"I have nothing to apologize for," Khả Tâm replied, her voice so soft it was almost a whisper, "It was just an accident, right?"

Bách Nhân looked at her for a long time, as if he wanted to say something more, but in the end he just nodded, "Yes, accident. Go home and rest, it's late."

She got out of the car, stood and watched until his car completely disappeared around the corner before turning back to the house, her heart still troubled with the question that neither of them dared to answer honestly: whether that moment of almost touching lips was really just an accident, or the clearest sign that the feelings between them had gone beyond what a revenge play could control.

When she got to her room, she lay down on the bed but couldn't sleep. She took out her phone, reopened the short video someone had recorded of the moment on stage and posted it to the company's general chat group, watching over and over the scene of Bách Nhân bending down, the sudden wind, the narrowing distance between the two faces. In the video, she could clearly see her own expression, an undisguised anticipation that she had never realized while it was happening.

She turned off the phone, face down on the pillow, feeling ashamed of her own feelings. If this really was just a plan, why did her heart react so violently to a moment that almost happened out of script? That question kept nagging her all night, not allowing her a full night's sleep, and she knew she couldn't continue to avoid the answer any longer.

Near dawn, when the sunlight began to fade through the curtains, Khả Tâm was still awake, sitting with her head against the bed, hugging her pillow, looking out at the space in front of her. She remembered the entire journey from the day she fell down the stairs until now, from the pain of betrayal, to the impulsive decision to take revenge, and now, to a new emotion that she was never mentally prepared to receive. She wondered if fate was ironically bringing her closer to true happiness, right in the middle of a drama created from hurt and calculation.