25 Friend or Foe?

Saye folded her hands and nodded shyly, "Hello, I'm Saye. A representative of Evertech. It's nice to meet you…?"

Kai let go of me once he made sure I had found my footing and smiled, "Name's Kai. Nice to see you too, Saye. I thought Evertech and Systema games were rivals?"

I narrowed my eyes at that. They were rivals? How did I never think of it? They must have been rivals for long…since Kai knew about it too.

Saye laughed like a dainty princess meeting his betrothed prince for the first time, "Yes, yes. Since this is a national case however, the government encouraged another company to get involved and see to it that things are going smoothly. And who would be better than a rival herself?"

Rival to Systema Games. Rival to me. Possible magnet to Ethan's heart? More and more reasons to eliminate her first were popping up. But I was so miserably trapped.

I was the victim of a bully after all.

What power did a pathetic victim have?

"Ohhh…" Kai realized and pointed to both of us separately, "So you both are enemies too!"

"Uh…" I didn't know what to say.

Saye let out her laugh again, "You could put it that way," she joked. Why was she trying to be some one she was not in front of them? Trying to be nice?

He stood between us like a scare crow and stretched his hands, "Only peace, alright girls?"

I almost scoffed at that. This was Kai, the same boy who had held a knife to my throat not less than a week ago. Now that I was looking at him, I caught that tattoo on his neck that I had missed earlier. It continued down his back in jagged lines, the tail dividing into seven and fading into his skin.

Was that a guild mark? Did the others have it too?

I reached my hand forward, wanting to touch how a tattoo felt like.

Kai whipped his head at me when he sensed the movement but didn't flinch back, "What are you doing?" he asked softly, his eyes following my hands. His hands dropped to his sides, and so did mine.

"Huh?" I looked at him causing my face to flush red. "Sorry."

"You want to see how a tattoo feels like?" he asked anyway, reading my mind.

I averted my gaze in embarrassment but nodded anyway. He smiled and leaned forward and took my hand gently, "Go on. See how it feels like."

"B-but…" I faltered, "No, that would be awkward…"

He laughed, "What are you saying? We're friends now right?"

I looked up at him in surprise. Friends. Oh friends! Of course! Wow, that word cleared a lot of things!

"Yeah…yeah I guess so…"

He closed his eyes and nodded, "Yup. So don't sweat it."

I smiled with him and my fingertips fell on his dark green tattoo. I had imagined it would feel rough, but it was smooth, like the rest of his skin. I laughed at the discovery and poked the skin where dragon's tail was.

"Hey!" he laughed, taking my hands off. I mirrored his laugh.

We didn't realize we were caught up in our own cackles until the other girl coughed.

"Ahem," Saye butted in, "Is there a room around for me to stay in?"

Kai lifted his hands, "You two figure that out outside my room. Because I, for one, need to put a shirt on!"

I pointed at his lower half mockingly, "And pants."

He chuckled and nodded, "And pants," and shooed us out of the room.

After he shut the door Saye looked me up and down, "You seem to be on good terms with everyone here already. Didn't know you were that type."

My lingering smile instantly turned into a frown. This was something on the lined of what Darren said that day. "And what type is that?"

"You know…" she stalled, curling strands of her long blonde hair in her fingers, not quite meeting my eyes, "The one who befriends boys more easily than girls. One who would spend time with boys rather than herself? Or more blandly, should I say…wannabe slut?"

I bit my lips in anger. But before I could walk away from her, a third voice spoke.

"I dare you to repeat that."

Saye innocently looked up at the boy who had listened in to our conversation, "Oh and this must be Adrien. Darren's told me quite a bit about you."

He narrowed his eyes at me while pointing at her and asked me, "Who is she again?"

Saye extended her hand, smiling like a sunflower now, "Saye Trenner, nice to meet you!"

He didn't take her hand, but returned it with an intense stare that looked as sharp as the tip of a double-edged sword. "One person speaks against the other in this house and you're out, you understand?"

Saye stood up straight, her poker face back on, "Please. You don't own this place."

"But I do own my friends."

I wanted to cover my mouth in surprise. Friends? Me and Adrien? What?

Saye shrugged and started to walk past him, "More reason to what I just said right now."

He stuck a leg out and stopped her. She didn't fall though, she wasn't the clumsy type.

"Sasha, right?" he sneered, "Learn your place."

She tried to suppress a laugh and nodded, pretending to be scared, "Y-yes sir!"

Then she dropped the act and turned to me, "Ashe, which room can I stay in?" she asked me again.

I was hesitant. There were only seven rooms. And I doubted I'd want a toxic girl like this next to any of the boys. I, however, was used to her.

"You can stay in mine…" I said sadly, "The room on the right. Ground floor."

"Alright! Looking forward to it!" she laughed and descended down the stairs.

"Wait." Adrien grabbed the staircase rails and looked down at Saye who was on the first floor now.

She looked up, "Yes, sir?"

"Stay in my room."

"Adrien…you don't have to…" I tried to protest but he didn't listen.

"I'll move in with Kai."

Saye shrugged and went to fetch her suitcase to haul it back up to the upper floor, where Adrien's room was.

I turned to Adrien, "What do you think you're doing?"

He shrugged, "I don't like my room anyway. Too much sunlight."

I shook my head, "You know that's not what I meant!"

He looked at me seriously now, "She hurts you right?"

My face went blank. He found out? That was my deepest secret, my weakest of weaknesses. The very fact that made me pathetic. How had he…

"How…"

"I know."

"How?"

"I just do."

He walked past me and back to his room to take out the few clothes he had been given and moved them out to Kai's room on the west side, where the sun only shone in the evening.

After Saye had moved in too, I was just left deeply confused.

Since when did Adrien the arrogant jerk and I become friends?

...….

Dinner passed in silence. Nobody spoke as we ate our ironically delicious chicken sandwiches. Adrien was always silent during meals, so count him out. Romeo, however can't be disregarded. He usually cracked jokes about the maid lady's baby voice. But now, it was as if someone had pressed a mute button on his loud speakers.

Ethan didn't look like he had anything to say either and so did the others.

Saye, being new, tried lighting up a conversation by asking them what they did to pass time. But I knew they wouldn't actually answer her attempts. If they were sad, you let them be sad. Not walk all over it.

I didn't know about the others, but Romeo went straight to sleep without even saying good night. I went back to my room too.

After rolling in bed a bit, I got up again. It was really dark now. Somewhere past midnight. If I had had my phone, I would have scrolled through random posts or fallen asleep listening to slow night-core.

I fell out of my bed groggily and decided to take a strange night walk. At that time, I thought it would have been fun.

...…

About half an hour before I had gotten up in the middle of the night, Saye had left the house front door almost silently. The creak of the door being the only sound she left in her wake.

She slowly strutted out into the borders of the estate, just like Darren had ordered her to. She didn't care about how her hair was then, or what she wore. It was dark, who would see her anyway?

The number of guards by night were slightly lesser than that of during daytime. So Saye had to look around for a while before she spotted a dark-clothed guard standing on the edge, almost blending into the shadows.

He had no sunglasses at this time and his eyes followed Saye's small movements until she reached him.

She extended a hand, palm facing upward and the guard got her point. He dug inside his jacket and pulled out her previously confiscated phone and handed it to her.

She silently took it and walked away to the pool and sat on its edge, dipping her bare feet into the water almost frozen by the clear but chilly night air.

"Hello?" she whispered into the phone.

After a few moments, a deep gruff voice replied.

"Hey."

"Were you sleeping?" Saye asked, now worrying whether she had disturbed his sleep.

"No…I'm in the office right now. Just tired," he dragged. She heard a few books shut close on the other end of the phone and the jangle of keys as he probably locked his office for the day.

"How's Ashe doing?" he asked, being the concerned brother he tried to be.

"She's fine. Doing well, actually."

"Really?" his voice lifted a little, "The boys are not giving her trouble?"

Saye shook her head, "They seem to be getting along just fine, actually."

He sighed through the phone, "Good. Good. You should get along with her too. Otherwise nothing might work out."

"I'll try," she admitted, wondering how in the world she was going to do that.

After a pause, Saye whispered again, "Is that all you have to ask?"

He laughed, "Of course not, babe. How have you been?"

Saye smiled and she felt her cheeks go warm when he called her that, "I'm fine too. This place is nice."

"I knew you'd like it!"

She nodded, "I'm already starting to miss you…"

He went silent and there was only static through the phone for a while.

"Hello?" Saye asked. Had she said the wrong thing? She wondered.

"Yeah. I'm here. You just caught me by surprise, that's all."

"It's your first time right?"

"Yeah. I never had the courage to confess to a girl before. I mean, even now, you were the one who did it first," he laughed nervously, "I'm pathetic."

"Pathetically adorable," Saye laughed with him.

They talked like this for a while. Little things new couples usually talked about. After a while, Darren asked The Question.

"What about the mission?"

"Yes, yes, I know. I just need a few more days to get to know them."

"We have very little time in our hands. The production of the Beamers are slow. Each prototype seems to be a failure. So we can't send them back to the game and make them disappear from this world."

"What about the other side then? Any new leads on the traitor?"

He sighed exasperatedly and she heard a thud. Ah, she thought, must be Darren pounding his head on the steering wheel. "No leads. It's almost like some ghost did it."

"Just keep trying. You have a lot of people to help out, so you'll get something. I'll do my best too."

Darren just hummed a yes. Have a lot of people to help out? Not so much. Not after what he just did to Tasha. A lot of other staff had given in their resignation forms after that, each employee's reason being scared for their safety.

Systema Games was crumbling.

But Darren didn't dare tell any of that to Saye right now. Two weeks more, he told himself. In two weeks, it'll all be over.

He cut the phone so he could drive and left Saye staring at the constellations in the sky. She went through all the events of the day in her head. Getting told off by Adrien. Her fruitless attempts at making friends with them. Something I easily achieved somehow. That sickened her.

And the way she lashed out at me back in Kai's room. She didn't know why she did that. It was like a totally different monster had consumed her, causing her to inflict pain.

Every time she hurt others, especially me, it wasn't because I made her angry. It was because she was angry at herself.

She knew this. Yet, she had no control over the vicious creature she sometimes became.

By the time I was halfway through my walk, I reached the pool and saw the familiar girl sitting by the pool. In other circumstances, I would have ignored her and gone my way. But I didn't. Because.

She was crying.