DARE

There was no time for Ares to hear more since Eric hurriedly dragged the standing boy into the car roughly.

"Are you trying to become a statue?" Eric asked with squinted eyes once they settled on the last seats of the car and the driver began to drive back home.

Ares shook his head and looked outside the tinted window to see the owner of the garden waving his hands politely.

Even though Ronan couldn't see him, Eric was waving back from his seat.

In the shotgun seat, sat Omal, talking to his mother on the phone about the inspection of the garden and in front of Ares and Eric, sat the couple, Estella and Orion and Karson.

Seeing that his friend was distracted ever since he got into the car, Eric scooched a little bit closer to Ares and whispered, "Is it about Eirene Queen?"

Hearing the name, the boy snapped his head faster than a snake biting into its prey, almost breaking Eric's nose in the action. "No!" His reply was in speaker mode.

The shout made everyone, even the driver check on him for a second before resuming back to their own things.

"I got you." Eric put his hands in the air and nodded with wide eyes. "You don't need to shout."

"Sorry." Ares apologised and met the driver's eyes through the rearview mirror and mouthed sorry.

Eric, seemingly trying to stay out of Ares's unstable condition, didn't try to ask him what was going on with him. Instead, he looked through his school bag and removed two candies. "Milk and caramel. Which one?"

"Milk." Ares answered and was given the candy wrapped in white paper. "Thanks."

"You're welcome." The other replied with a smile and continued to remove his laptop from the bag. "I have to write an essay so shh." After seeing Ares nod, he nodded in satisfaction, plugged his ears with earphones and started writing. This was a good thing, meaning Ares had time to think about what the heck Ronan was talking about.

Ares wasn't sure about which Queen they were talking about but judging from how the workers knew her and Ronan's way of talking, he went on with his hypothesis. Ms Queen they were talking about was Eirene Queen.

And from there, he went on with his thoughts. So the actress visited the garden during one of the stays in the hotel, assumingly, with her child, Theia, and she forgot something there. It was as simple as that apart from one fact.

To confirm his thoughts, he removed his phone from his jacket pocket and looked up.[Eirene Queen]

He looked through the first ten pages of the search but most of them were about her acting career, her history, ceremonies, press conferences, her life, and the company that she worked in. Almost none of the photos were taken of her with a child or babies. The few were pictures taken with child actors and actresses they worked together with.

Ares then went to the search bar again to add, [Eirene Queen child]. He pressed the search and waited for the internet to bring results.

But before he scrolled through the thousands of results with the first link saying, [THE QUEEN OF VILLAINS IS BACK, PHOTO TAKEN WITH A CHILD TAKEN AT A LOCAL AQUERIUM!!], his thumb paused.

He felt like he was invading her privacy although his grandmother would say something different about that.

Ares didn't feel good doing something behind their back. Before when he looked up to the actress after their first meeting, he didn't have the feeling he had right now in his heart. Maybe because he only knew her as an actress and didn't exactly know her personally. But now, there was like a heavy stone hanging from the heart.

When he looked up from his phone, he saw that they were already out of the mountain and they were in a middle of a six-lane road.

Ares sighed deeply and pressed the button to turn off the phone screen. This wasn't right. Just because someone was famous and rich, didn't mean that people could just snoop into their private lives.

The moment, he breathed out the air that filled up his lungs, a voice came from the front. "That was a big ass sigh." It was Karson talking to him from the little space between the seat and the car wall. "You okay? Do you wanna talk about it?"

"Just over-thinking. I'm okay." The boy told the other with a smile and Karson nodded to that.

"Well, tell me if there's anything wrong, okay?"

"Okay."

As Karson was about to continue talking to his friend, he was pushed, closer to the door a little roughly, making him turn his attention to the couple sitting next to him. "You wh*res better stop your love argument."

The only girl in the car, Estella, leaned into the leg space and glared at Karson with her brown, almond-shaped eyes. "Shut up. I can show my affection to him whenever I want. Stop being so single and jealous of us." Her black wavy-curly hair was shaken as her head moved while she talked.

"I dare you to do that in front of your parents and we'll see about that." The boy dared, reciprocating the same attitude she had given him.

Estella slowly leaned into the middle while moving her neck like a snake ready to attack."You know damn well I'll do that."

"Go ahead."

Orion, in between the two, had no intention or motivation to stop what was happening in front of his chest as it was a very usual sight, so he closed his eyes to take a rest.

Estella and Orion's engagement story began when they were born. Their family was close friends of each other and the two frequently played when they were young. When they began going to high school, the parents often joked about making the two a couple and loved seeing the flashed faces of the two.

The joke only became official-ish when the two families had a lengthy conversation when Orion and Estella were freshmen. And that conversation was held without their participation, resulting in Orion hearing it after he came home from studying at Eric's house.

Since then, the two, mostly Estella, had been showing off their affection to each other everywhere according to Karson although Orion didn't admit it. But still, up to this day, they were only able to side-hug each other awkwardly from embarrassment.

"Kiss then!"

The scream made Orion open his eyes in shock and stare at his friend with confusion and surprise. "What?!"

Even when he asked the question the two, neither gave an answer and still competed with their little attitude competition.

"Did I just hear kiss?" Orion heard Eric asking from the back. When he stretched up a bit and turned around, he saw the boy with the earbuds in his hands and a mixture of confusion, shock and smirk on his face.

Ares, who wasn't paying attention to what was going on in front of him, turned abruptly towards Eric and asked, "Kiss?!"

Omal in the shotgun seat, also turned around to witness the drama and asked, "Kiss?!"

"That's right," Karson confirmed, not breaking eye contact with the girl.

"I'm going to do it. Right now!" Estella said in reply.

"Do it then!" The boy demanded.

The girl took a shaking breath just to say, "P*ssy."

"That's literaly my line." Karson frowned while still keeping the attitude.

The drama going on in the backseat even made the driver, Jace, check them frequently through the rearview mirror.

"I'm gonna do it!"

"Do it!"

"You sure?!"

"YES!!"

"THEN FINE I'LL DO IT." With that wild scream, Estella grabbed, the confused Orion's shirt around the chest with her right hand and violently pulled him in for a kiss, all in that position and second.

"Young mistress!" The driver was the only one that spoke at that moment.

There were many flashes in the car made at that moment but everyone was so concentrated on the kiss that no one cared to point it out.

Karson had his jaw dropped along with his amber irises fully shown, making him look like the surprised-face emoji.

Eric and Ares had their hands covering their O-shaped mouths as they watched the scene from up. From their position, they could really see that the couple's lips were connected which made them surprised and blushed in the place of Orion.

The inside of the car was engulfed in a pin-drop silence even after Estella slowly moved away from Orion with a serious expression, the boy also having the same. The couple was staring into their eyes like they weren't being watched by five people in the car in the middle of a busy road. They were so into each other that it took time for the both of them to process what they had just done.

Once they realised it, Estella sat back in her seat in a flash while covering her crimson, burning face with her jacket. Orion covered his lips with his big hands while being red-faced and staring at the floor of the car with wide eyes.

"F*ck!" Karson exclaimed and covered his smirking lips with his hands to not get a glare from his friend.

As Karson was laughing, Eric and Ares sat back down in their seats while facing each other with the expression of shock, still stuck on their faces. Before the two could hold a secret meeting in the last seats, their phones dinged simultaneously.

When they checked on what that notification was about, Omal spoke, "Took a video and dozens of photos. All in the group chat, baby! I usually don't like a shotgun, but if this is the kind of drama I can witness, I will gladly accept this seat."

"I'm downloading this." Not even checking the video and the photos, Eric clicked download.

Hearing that, the red-faced Orion, tried to stop that in panic. "Hey!"

Omal laughed, "It's too late, pal. I already have this in my gallery, on my drive, sent to my other phone and laptop, and to the photo album. Better suck it up."

"Holy sh*t." Karson cracked up once again when he began seeing the photos taken. Indeed, Omal was in a good spot.

Ares saw the photos taken from another point of view and smiled. "I'm going to make this our chat background."

"Ah, hell no!! You devil!"