Chapter 38 - Bonus : A Date

"Uh, a date?"

Adreanna was clearly startled by the sudden exclaim even though it did not show on her face at all. Hell, her face was covered by the red porcelain mask.

"What?" She croaked flatly. Somehow there was still no emotion in her tone at all.

Zack grimaced at how awkward he sounded. "A date, you know. Cinema, cafe, dinner, kisses after midnight?" The brunette raised his shoulders a little, completely uncertain by the situation right now.

He wrinkled his nose for how cringe he had become. "Okay, maybe not kisses, but you get what I mean."

The assassin lowered her gun and stepped back a little from him. "...you hacked my phone," Adreanna tilted her head. "-just for a date?"

Now that she put it that way, it kind of made him like some kind of a creep.

"Uh, yeah? Sorry about that. I was- I was um-" He spluttered, trying to find the right words to say.

The brunette sighed after realizing there were actually no right words to say. "Okay. There's nothing that could redeem what I had done to you. And I know it's creepy, but uh, I can't really step back after I accidentally find out your identity, so yeah."

Adreanna lowered her head, looking at him from behind her mask with two sharp blue eyes. It was like a hunter and a prey situation.

Zack was the prey, of course.

Ignoring the chill down his spine, the brunette tried to justify again. "Look, it was an accident that I found out, okay? I was about to ask you for a nice meet up so I can thank you thoroughly. And you were so cool and pretty. And your blue eyes are so deep like some kind of mysterious ocean, so I just-"

Zack widened his eyes when he realized he had said too much. A blush crept up on both of his cheeks when he realized how cheesy he sounded.

The brunette looked down at her red shoes, avoiding the red porcelain mask. "I mean, either way, you're going to kill me, aren't you? You'll find out that someone hacked your data, and then come for my ass."

Zack's hands fiddled with the edge of the bedsheet. "And I really don't want to go to sleep thinking 'is she going to kill me tomorrow? Has she found out that I found out?'. I won't be able to sleep peacefully, so I think this is the only way to end things?"

The 19-year-old brunette finally looked up to Adreanna with an awkward smile. "With a date, I mean."

The silence was really antagonizing him right now, and Zack hated it more than ever.

"It's a win-win situation if you actually think about it." He added, still showing the awkward etched smile on his face that slowly turned into a pleading one.

Adreanna stood there, staring at the wavering teen in front of her. She stared at him for a pretty long time that the brunette felt like Adreanna had already counted every freckle on his face at this point.

"You are pretty... too. And your eyes are luminescent." Adreanna began emotionlessly.

The leatherback hair teen was taken aback at the sudden statement. "Huh?"

"You are also cool." She added with a dull tone.

Zack was baffled, blinking his eyes to snap himself from his confusing train of thoughts. "I'm sorry, what?"

The assassin suddenly turned away from him and faced the window. The moon shined her porcelain mask as she put a foot outside, ready to jump away.

Right before she jumped, she turned back to the brunette once more. The wind blew her cloak a little, revealing her black braided hair under the dim of light.

"Next week. Afternoon. Be ready." She stated before disappearing within the dead of night.

Zack was still sitting on the edge of his bed, trying to process what actually had happened. However, when he actually did process it, it only turned his face red.

When he finished processing what Adreanna said right before she left, he looked down over to the window and said, "Wait, aren't I the one who was supposed to say that?"

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Zack just realized that Adreanna never mentioned where they would meet right when it was too late.

It had been a week, and the teen was practically beaming with thrill and excitement for days.

After trying to choose the red theme colour for hours, he realized he did not know where they would meet up when he finished wearing his best clothes.

He was so stupid.

Zack was scanning his phone as he tried to call her. The number was not active at all.

Was it because of him? Because he hacked her? Or did she lie about the date?

"I changed my phone. It broke."

Zack's phone almost fell down from his grasp to his bedroom floor if he did not catch it fast. "Holy shi-"

He turned around to see Adreanna in a red dress that exposed her back. She braided her hair neatly with a red hairpin on the edge of it. She wore two red high heels and two red gloved.

Though Zack did not know why she still wore a mask, but all he knew was she looked so beautiful right now.

"You do know that I know about your face, right?" The brunette carefully asked.

"Yes. But I have to wear this to go to our date place." Adreanna answered flatly, fixing her mask a little as she revealed her right hand that was holding a rope gun.

"Wait, why do you have to wear-" Zack choked on his words when Adreanna suddenly picked him up in her hand like some kind of bride. His face went completely red as if he had a fever.

He did not have the chance to actually ask what was happening when Adreanna suddenly jumped out of the window with him without a single warning.

Zack had every right to scream right now.

The wind blew the bottom of Adreanna's dress as they fell. Zack automatically put both of his hands on the assassin's neck and clung to it like it was the end of the world.

He closed his eyes tight as the smell of rose caught his nose when he put his face on Adreanna's neck.

Adreanna shot the rope gun to a building and let it pull both of them to the roof. They landed swiftly on top of the building with Zack that slowly opened his eyes to see the view.

He quickly regretted opening them when Adreanna suddenly ran toward the edge of the building at a fast speed.

"Are we going to jump to another-- wait! Holy shit!"

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"You are... prepared," Zack said as they arrived in some kind of a garden with a table in the middle of it.

His heart was still beating from the leftover adrenaline for how much they had jumped over a roof.

His grey eyes darted over the table to find a set of tea and some pastries. There was also a candle to make it even romantic.

He looked over to Adreanna, who was putting away her rope gun. "I feel like I'm the one who's supposed to do all of these, you know? Cause I'm the guy here, and you're the lady." Zack confessed to her.

"I learn it from the internet." The assassin said dully.

Zack was at a loss for words. He fixed his tie awkwardly as he walked over to the table. "...right. Okay. That's cool."

"You too." Adreanna retorted back as she opened her red porcelain mask, revealing two beautiful blue eyes and a red lip.

Zack cleared his voice and looked away from her. "You know, you don't have to compliment everything back when someone compliments you?"

She blinked at him. "I don't?"

He nodded, pulling a chair for her to sit down. "Yeah, well, sometimes you have to, sometimes you don't have to."

When Adreanna did not sit where he offered her to, he apologized for himself. In the end, he awkwardly sat on the chair.

"I don't understand." Adreanna tilted her head, swaying her braided her a little as she stared at him.

Zack's heart was beating too fast at the stare.

"Well, picture this. When someone says you're pretty, you can compliment that person back. But sometimes, you can answer it with 'thank you'." He smiled at her as he explained, staring right into her two deep eyes.

"Thank you." She repeated the word at him.

Zack's smile widened at her. "Yes, that's right! You're learning here."

Adreanna nodded and offered him the tea. The brunette accepted it gratefully and quickly drank it. As he lowered his cup down, he noticed that she was drinking a whole different liquid in her cup.

Zack raised her eyebrows. "Hot chocolate? You like it?"

"Yes." The girl answered in between her breath.

The brunette's gaze wandered as he began to talk. "I prefer coffee, though. It's kinda cool knowing that an assassin drinks hot chocolate."

Adreanna nodded again as she drank more. "Thank you."

"Ah-" Zack grimaced at her answer a little. "You don't have to say-" Zack cut off his words when Adreanna looked at him with two confused eyes.

He smiled fondly at her. "Nevermind."

They continued to drink and eat for a while. Letting the breeze accompanied the two strangers in the middle of a rose garden.

"Is this love?" Adreanna broke the silence, causing Zack to almost spill his tea.

"What?" The grey-eyed teen scrunched up his nose in a mix of embarrassments and awkwardness.

"This all," Adreanna pointed to her surroundings and then him. "is it what people called love?"

Zack cracked his neck and put down the cup in his hand. "Well, um, not right now. Maybe."

The brunette put a hand on the back of his neck. "Right now, we're learning how to love."

Zack could catch the surprise on her face despite how emotionless she looked. "..you are learning too?" The assassin asked.

"Yes." Zack scratched the back of his neck, blowing off his hair a little. "Love is for two people. A mother to her child, a husband to his wife, a brother to his sister."

The grey eyes met with the blue one as the brunette continued. "-Or two strangers that weirdly meet with each other a couple of times."

Adreanna tilted her head. "How do you know if it's love?"

"Well," The brunette darted, tapping his fingers on the table as he thought about his answers. "You'll feel butterflies in your stomach when you meet the person. Your heart will weirdly beat so fast, and your face would go warm at the person."

Adreanna looked down to her stomach before looking back at her date. "Do you have it?"

Zack examined her blue eyes of wonder. She was acting like an adult in a dangerous situation. Yet, she looked so vulnerable like this.

The hacker's smile was unwavering as he dreamingly looked at her. "Right now? I do."

Adreanna opened her mouth slightly, clearly taken aback by the sudden confession. She diverted her gaze to her cup. It was almost as if she felt guilty.

"I still don't." The assassin fiddled with the cup, looking away from the teen in front of her.

Zack chuckled a little at her behaviour. "It's okay. You don't have to." He explained, reaching out his hand to the girl.

He took her hand and intertwined their fingers, making Adreanna stare at his grey eyes. "Love is not forced. It just comes."

The two looked at each other. The sunset beside them ricocheted its light to the two beings. The roses swayed a little, and the time became slow to the two.

Suddenly, Adreanna's phone rang, and the two strangers looked away from each other. Zack's face was a completely red colour, unlike Adreanna's pale one.

The assassin took her handphone from her pocket. When she answered the call, her face tightened and loosened, her emotionless eyes got intense before they quickly turned dull again.

Zack learnt that she was not emotionless. She just did not understand what emotion was.

"I'll be there." She stated to the person in line. Zack got slightly curious about who the person was.

Adreanna quickly got up from her chair and let out the rope gun in her pocket when the call ended. She was about to put her mask on again when she accidentally remembered that Zack was with her.

The assassin turned around to see two puzzled grey eyes. "I need to go. The mercenary called me."

Zack blinked. So it was confirmed that the assassin worked with the mercenary. He did not dig more about Adreanna because he knew it was a death sentence.

Well, the more you know.

Zack smiled at her and waved. "Oh, okay. Be careful! I can walk home by myself."

Besides, he did not want to experience jumping off buildings like a maniac again. Nope, not anymore.

When Adreanna disappeared from his view, the teen suddenly realized something that they should have discussed in their date.

"Wait! Are you going to kill me or not?!"