Aquatinted.

Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep!

The unforgiving sound displayed on an alarm, warning any human who sets it it is now morning. For me, it isn't much of a warning, but more like a death call. Mornings are dreadful, especially when you have to wake up at 4:30 a.m. This morning, however, I slept in. I woke up at 5:30 and had to put my uniform on while climbing down the stairs. And that didn't go well at all, I fell from the very top to bottom. The injuries didn't matter at the time, all that mattered was getting to work.

I grabbed my phone, along with the umbrella and jacket and ran out. My parents screamed after me to eat breakfast, but I was too late to eat. I'd just have to have something at the café.

The bus arrived right as I came to the stop. Luckily, the bus did pickups every hour. Normally, I'd get onto the 5:00 bus, but given the circumstances I had to take the 6:00 bus. It surprised me to see Hunter there. Was he late as well?

"You're late, Ms. Kokoah." He announced, putting his phone down and facing her.

"What are you my boss now?" I retorted.

I'm not normally this rude to anyone in the morning, but hacking into the owner commands on that stupid game took longer than it needed to. I was up 'til midnight just trying to get the damn code because of a virus I had to delete on my iPad.

Tch

"Is there something wrong?" He asked curiously.

"Just a lack of sleep." I responded. I folded my arms and let them relax as I looked behind me through the window to admire the imagery.

"Well, you can always sleep here," he said, "that is, if you would want to."

I looked over at him as a family of four came on the bus. Hunter stood and told the family they could take his seat, as there were only four in a row. He walked over to me and sat next to me, returning to his phone. He was logged onto the game I shut down last night. That could only mean one thing... he was the owner!

"Shit.." I sighed.

"What? Is there something wrong with the game I'm playing?" He questioned.

I sat in silence watching him play. He obviously knew something was wrong with the game.

"What's wrong with it?" I asked, slowly trying to get a hold of it.

"How did you know-?" He asked glancing over.

"I played a bit last night, then it kicked me. Looked like a hacker's work." I replied coolly.

He handed the game over to me so I could see what was wrong for myself. He tried to mentor me through how to find out.

"You need to press the button on the bottom left to see the status of the game, and the top right button shows you the player list. That button-" He explained.

"I know how to do it." I cut him off. And in the snap of a finger I had logged into my account and went through the server codes. "You're kidding me," I thought, in order to access the main security I needed to resend the verification code and I didn't have my iPad. I'd have to use his phone, then he'd know. Then, I remembered I wasn't playing on my own phone. I grabbed my phone and attached my phone number, sending the verification code to me.

"There it's fixed." I sighed. I deleted every trace on the phone of what had happened and handed it back to Hunter. In that instant thousands of people joined the server and started going crazy about the owner being online and fixing the game.

"How'd you do that?" Hunter asked. Only a tiny bit of amazement wavering in his voice.

"Don't question me." I responded, half asleep. For the next ten minutes everything was a haze and the next thing I knew my head fell onto his shoulder and the world went black.

"-oah. Ms. Kokoah, wake up."

"Huh?" I asked, the lights blinding me as I opened my eyes. Once my senses came back to me I could tell we weren't on the bus anymore. It was darker, and smelled of rain. It felt warm, no not the air around me, that was cold, it felt as if it was going to snow any second, but there was something that was canceling out the frost, replacing it with a warm feeling. It sounded as though there were people rushing around and the sound of cars and motors whizzed by.

My eyes cleared up, revealing Hunter's face and upper body. Not too long after waking up I realized Hunter was carrying me. He held me as if I was a baby and the way he was smiling at me... Wide eyed, I squirmed out of his grasp. I was so flustered I couldn't say anything. I ended up drawing a bunch of attention and, embarrassed, ran into the café, leaving him standing outside as it started to rain...

"Awwwwe! That was so adorable!" Squealed Hazel and Crystal as I entered the café.

"Shouldn't you two be making coffee for our customers?" I said coolly, despite the storm racing through my head and the blush all across my face.

"Yeah but we couldn't miss out on that! Besides you're the one who should be worried. You were an hour late." Hazel responded.

She was right. I went and ate a blueberry muffin Crystal offered me, then I ran to the register and took as many orders as I could. All of my past drowsiness vanished and was replaced with optimism and happiness after the bit of rest and breakfast. And just as yesterday, everything ran smoothly until the same group from the day before entered the café. However, today, everyone else was busy, so I was forced to deal with the yelling of the Australian people. My coworkers sent me side glances mouthing 'I'm sorry' whenever they could. I wondered where Hunter was, but it seemed he wasn't with them this time.

I had just given up on trying to find Hunter in the small group when someone walked through the door. Almost simultaneously, one of the Australian boys reached over the counter and slapped me, after he did so it was as if time stopped. Everyone looked over and stared in shock. After a minute of silence from everyone, I apologized to him for not being able to understand, handed the tablet to Hazel who was stunned after seeing what he did, and then I went to the back to take over Hazel's work. I heard her talking to the boy and explaining the consequences of physical interaction with an employee. She wasn't friendly with him at all and even cursed and yelled whenever he was being too difficult. But, a loud, scary voice sounded from the customer that came through the door after a few seconds of Hazel's conversation with them.

"VICTOR." The voice called out.

Everyone in the restaurant looked over to see what had happened. The boys looked terrified and apologized to Hazel. I looked back in time to see Hunter whispering something to Hazel, then they both walked to tell everyone what had happened and not to worry. Hunter went and told all the customers and Hazel came and told all the employees. The employees and customers all asked if I was okay whenever they could and Hazel pulled me aside and told me Hunter wanted to talk to me.

Once everything calmed down I headed over to their table to ask if everything was alright. I completely forgot Hunter wanted to speak to me over the time, so when he stood up, it caught me off guard. He pulled me aside and apologized for the boy's actions. He offered to pay for any damage or disturbance the boy may have caused, but I declined it and I told him everything was fine. We both went back to our jobs and carried on with the day. Today, the group left 4 hours before closing and the rest of the day was pretty boring without being able to see Hunter.

10 minutes before closing

"Who's that?" Asked Ferne.

I looked over and saw a hooded figure leaning on the glass front of the store. His hands were in the pockets of his jacket and he just waited outside.

"I don't know. But just leave him alone, I'll tell him to leave when I lock up." I said.

I gave Ferne his jacket back before he left and I finished stacking the chairs before I left. The figure was still outside the building, waiting. I walked outside and locked the door, then when I turned to the person, they had already managed to hold out their hand and they held my chin up so I was face-to-face with them. His green eye's were unmistakable.

"Hunter?" I asked, surprised. Once I realized what he was doing, I stepped back, getting away from his grasp again. As I did so, he closed his eyes and stood up straight, looking disappointed.

"The bus is here. Come on." He said and grabbed my hand, dragging me with him.

He sat next to me again, but this time, he wasn't on his phone. He stared out the window across from us and didn't let go of my hand. After a little while of silence he smiled and calmed down a bit. When his stop arrived, he didn't get off which at first, confused me, but I thought about it a little and decided not to worry. I rubbed my cheek where the boy had slapped me with my one free hand, since Hunter was still hold my other one. Hunter noticed and asked if the boy hurt me. I told him that wasn't the problem and I had explained that the boy slapped me in one of the spots I had hit while falling down the stairs.

Finally, once my stop arrived, Hunter followed me off the bus and didn't stop. I kept looking back to see if he was gone yet, but he was intent on following me all the way to my house! I looked forward and quickened my pace. I didn't look back the rest of the way home, so I couldn't tell if he was still following me.

I arrived at the apartment complex and walked in to find a huge crowd surrounding my parents. They were all yelling over each other, but it was obvious they were from the hotel right next to us. The people from that hotel always have something to complain about. And they always have to go to my parents for it. I pulled out my phone and turned off the power in their hotel building. They noticed right away, since that hotel was the brightest place in the neighborhood, and ran over to ask what was happening, allowing my parents some peace.

Hunter was still behind me and that became apparent when my mother and father both burst out and welcomed him. They shook his hand and asked him a whole bunch of questions. I kept walking, ignoring them and went to my parents' apartment. I went to my room and quickly changed into my pajamas before my parents told Hunter where I was. The braid I put my hair in was very sloppy because of the chaos from the morning. I pulled it apart and brushed my hair. As I did so, Hunter and my parents came into my room. He was taller than both of them, but that's not too surprising, seeing as they're the reason I'm super short for my age. He was telling them the answers to the questions they had asked. My parents wouldn't leave him alone so I had to kick them out of my room so they'd leave. Hunter looked around my room and his eyes rested on my pink computer. Panicking, I walked over as fast as I could and put it away. If he had activated it by the face command it would have revealed everything about my secret hacker identity. "I really need to get that face command to work." I thought to myself.

"Well I suppose I'm staying here for the night." He announced.

Surprised, I took a small step back. Once I saw he wasn't kidding I told him he could have the bed and that I have a small couch in my room that I could sleep on. He insisted on having the couch, so I ended up getting to sleep in my own bed. Thankfully.

Hunter left the apartment after a while saying he was going to get supplies. While he was gone I took a shower and got dressed again after drying off my hair and body. Making sure no one could get in my room without knocking, I logged onto the game Hunter owned using my hacker I.D., Psyche. Many people noticed and reported me, but that didn't matter. I had Hunter's phone with me since he forgot it. So I was perfectly fine until he came back.

The game was your average fairytale, with magic and fairies. But, the cool thing about it was you could battle to raise your popularity and stats. I played for almost an hour, just enough time for me to raise my stats to second place. I was almost to first before Hunter knocked on my door. Startled, I saved and quit the game and practically threw my computer underneath my bed. I let him in and he took a shower while I made dinner. My parents sat down at the dining room table, obviously overjoyed to have my rare cooking. When Hunter came out his hair was still wet, so I gave him my blow dryer. Once we were all sitting at the table we said a prayer and began eating. My parents asked Hunter everything possible until we were all finished and it was time for bed.

It was already 10:30 p.m. and we had just ate dinner. I was so exhausted, I didn't care about the computer and thought I'd just put it away in the morning. I collapsed onto my bed and fell straight asleep..

~~~Hunter's POV~~~

I was too far away from my house to walk back and the bus wouldn't come back until the morning, so I had to stay at Kokoah's estate. Once her parents showed me to her room, asking me many questions, she kicked them out and I looked around. I saw a computer sitting on her desk. It was pink on the outside and the keys were purple. Kokoah acted quite suspicious when I saw it and she quickly put it away. Leaving my phone behind, I went to go buy some supplies from the store and a group of girls walked up to me. They asked if I wanted to shop with them. I kindly turned them down and walked back to the apartment complex Kokoah lives in. I took a shower upon arriving and then Kokoah made dinner for me and her family. They asked me quite a few questions. The food was amazing, but, I couldn't help but notice Kokoah's silence.

We all finished dinner and they all headed to bed. I did as well but I sat on the couch for a little before falling asleep. Kokoah was already asleep and I assumed her parents were as well. I decided to check my phone, I found out the famous world-wide hacker, Psyche had logged on and played one of my games called Fighting Field. so many notifications of reports and decided I would deal with it in the morning. sitting on the couch I saw something under Kokoah's bed. I didn't take me long to notice that it was her computer. I looked at it for a few seconds and it turned on and unlocked. I tried looking away, so I didn't invade her personal stuff but something caught my eye. She was on the homepage of Fighting Field. I took a closer look and the login page showed a username..

Psyche.