The ladies had not heard from Leon since his phone was confiscated and they had no idea of his whereabouts or updates, their messages and calls went unanswered.

While out with his mother at a park on a Monday afternoon, Andy spotted a familiar face from afar.

"Leon! It's Leon!" he cried out with a frantic wave and rushed to his old friend. Leon was surrounded by screaming fans the moment he stepped into the park with his bodyguards.

"Andy, wait up!" Ariel ran after him.

She tipped her sunglasses down and her heart flipped. Was it really Leon? Wasn't he suppose to rest and recover? What was he doing outside? What should she do next? She hesitated for a while.

"Leon! Leon! It's me, Andy!" Andy sliced through the crowd.

"Andy!" Ariel followed after him.

When he finally managed to get to the front, immediately he threw his body at Leon and gave a tight squeeze.

"Leon, I miss you!!" he expressed his largest grin and brightest eyes.

"Careful there, boy! You almost crushed me!" Leon flinched.

"It's me, Andy! Don't you remember me?"

"Guards, can you help take this fella off me?" He tried to pull his hands off.

Evan came forward. He was surprised when he saw Andy being pushed away. Ariel's jaws dropped.

"Why are you doing this?" Andy was visibly hurt.

"Sorry, kid. Don't know you," the superstar dusted himself and adjusted his expensive silver sequinned white blazer.

Andy stared hard at the man whom he was once close to and who recently send him a birthday gift. Now, he was pretending he didn't know him? He was on the brink of tears. 

Ariel was infuriated. 

Unable to take it anymore, she removed her glasses and confronted him so near to his face that he was sure her eyes were to pop out, "You don't know him, seriously?"

He instantly recognised who she was, and so did the crowd as who took pictures and videos of the confrontation.

"Miss...I..I..," he struggled with his words.

"Miss?" she raised her brows and shook her head in disbelief, "You're unbelievable!"

"Com'on, Andy, let's go!" she pulled her son away, and some people from the crowd starting following them. "Please stop," she pleaded, shielding her face with her hand from their phone cameras. Now she regretted not bringing along her bodyguards because she wanted some normalcy in her life.

"Ariel!" the crowd cried out her name.

"B***! You ignored Leon when he was in the hospital, now you expect him to acknowledge you?" cursed another, whose remark earned cheers among the crowd.

"Ariel, can I have your autograph?"

She ignored them. It was so intimidating and infuriating to have them push their phones to her face that she felt giving them a trashing, but she tried to maintain her self-control and protected Andy with the flap of her coat to cover his face while they hurried off from the scene as far as possible.

"Smile!" said a fan who stretched out his camera to take a wefie, and others followed suit.

"Andy, don't be shy! Let's have a look at cha!" said another.

"Please don't! Stop!" She pushed the intruding phones away from their faces, visibly upset and at her wit's end. "I've got a kid here, leave us alone, please!" But they ignored her plea and continued their harassment, recording every action and reaction with glee. They felt violated.

Andy lifted up the collar of his coat to hide his face further. He hated the noises and the nasty comments the people were throwing at his mother and them pestering him. He was feeling frightened. Ariel felt helpless and could feel Andy clinging tighter onto her waist.

Pro-Leon fanatics began to chant Leon's name in an attempt to put her off, "Leon! Leon! Leon!"

"BACK OFF!" Evan yelled as he rushed to their rescue. He gestured the crowd to distant themselves from Ariel and Andy. "Follow me," he shielded them with his arms and whisked them away into a taxi that happened to be nearby.

"You okay?" Evan asked, helping them into the backseat. Ariel gave her nod of thanks and he closed the door.

"Stand back!" he held back the crowd until the taxi drove off.

———

Back at home in the living room, Andy was still visibly shaken to the point he was breathing abnormally hard and sobbing in between. Ariel rushed to feed his anti-arrhythmic medicine to him, and after a few moments, he finally calmed down. Nevertheless, he was quite downcast, no mood nor appetite.

Ariel was trying her best to comfort him, letting his tears fall into her embrace.

"I'm sorry, I should've brought the bodyguards with us," her voice was filled with regret. She stroked his head. His eyes narrowed at the drone that Leon gave him, displayed proudly on the wall shelf.

Ariel noticed his gaze on the drone.

How could Leon do this to a young child, pretending not to know him and humiliating him before the crowd! How cruel and callous!

After all that she did for him, taking the bullet for him and making soups to bring him back to the pink of health - why was she so foolish again and again to bother to care about him!

Andy uttered with a sniff, "He's strange."

"I understand. It must be so hard for you to-"

"It's not that, Mum," he furrowed his brows as if deep in thought. "Doesn't feel like Leon."

"What do you mean?"

"When I hugged him, he felt thinner. His voice sounds different too."

"He recently got out of the hospital, that's why."

"No, mum, seriously. Did you see his eyes? I mean, the blue looks weird - not the same blue. And he seems shorter. Really doesn't feel like Leon."

Ariel pondered for a moment and replayed the encounter in her mind. Little details that she missed out were crystallising in her memory. Andy was right, Leon did look and act different, and he was a little shorter. She recalled the shape of his lips when she confronted him up-close, the pair of lips she used to kiss - there was definitely something odd about the shape.

Did he go for a surgical makeover? It did not make sense that he would need any work done to his famous good looks. And did his illness make him shorter? Did not make any medical sense but maybe she and Andy may have been too overwhelmed and imagine things.

Well, whatever he wanted to do to himself and whatever the case, Leon was no longer her problem. She shrugged.

"Anyway, I can't accept the way he treated you. If anyone doesn't treat my Andy right, they're not treating me right either," she got up and took down the drone from the shelf.

When Andy saw that his mother was about to dump the drone into the trash can, he jumped out from the sofa and rushed to stop her in time.

"No, Mum, don't!"

"I'll get you a new one," she assured.

"It's my toy!" Andy snatched the drone from her, holding it protectively.

"Alright, alright, I won't," she sighed with her hands surrendered. "Would you like to watch a movie?"

Andy shook his head, still not in the mood.

Just then, Ariel's phone rang. It was from Hiroshi.

"Hey Ariel, would you and Andy like to join me for dinner and bowling tonight? The bowling alley is at the seaside country club which I'm a member of."

"Dinner and bowling? Hmmm...I'm not so sure, because me and Andy had just-"

"Bowling?" Andy lit up at the word. "I want, I want!" He exclaimed with hands clapped excitedly, forgetting the troubles from the park instantly. He never played bowling before.

Seeing how Andy keen was, Ariel replied, " Ok, sure. We'll join you."

"Right on! I'll come over and pick you guys up."

"Oh Hiroshi, will the bodyguards be with us too?"

Hiroshi laughed, "I thought you don't like having bodyguards around? You know I'm your best bodyguard."

Technically, he could but she was not willing to take any chances this time.

"Well, I just need 1 or 2 to accompany us. I'm being recognised and chased more now."

"You're right. If you insist," Hiroshi agreed. "I'll see you guys then, bye!"

"Bye."

Ariel smiled at the thought of Hiroshi's sweet invite. It was just what they needed, at the right time.