"Easy. Yellow."
"Okay, but that was a pretty obvious one. Your turn."
"Hmm..." the scientist thought while slowly stirring his tea.
The couple was sitting in the living room, after they had had a nice breakfast and were now drinking tea on the sofa. The girl was wearing her usual outfit, just like him, except that he did not wear the feather boa, the cape, his jacket or tie. Only his vest, shirt, hat and mask. While the two were playing a game of asking the other one questions, Emmy found it quite creepy how he knew so much about her. Of course, she only knew very little about him and was mostly guessing.
While he was still thinking, she suddenly began to giggle, covering her mouth with one hand, while trying to balance her cup in the other one. He gave a questioning look.
"What's so funny?" He asked, eyes narrowed behind his mask. Emmy tried to stop laughing and finally managed to speak.
"You. You didn't put any milk or sugar or anything in your tea..." she said and started giggling again. Descole tilted his head slightly.
"So?" He stopped stirring. She pressed her lips together.
"You're stirring like crazy!" She laughed, almost spilling her own tea. Descole slightly opened his mouth, but did not have anything to answer to that. He looked at his cup, then up again, only to see the girl laughing even more at his realisation. He frowned and rolled his eyes, smiling to himself.
"I don't know any more questions." He finally said, which made her giggling stop.
"Oh, come on, you just don't want me to know anything about you!" Emmy complained, leaning forward and letting her shoulders drop.
"That's not true. There's just nothing interesting about me." He replied and took a sip from his tea, to avoid her pleading eyes.
"Of course, there is! You're a walking enigma." She argued. He glanced up from his tea, which was a mistake, since Emmy was giving the scientist a puppy-dog look.
"Alright, ask away, but please don't look at me like that! I bet you got everything from your parents with that strategy." He smiled while avoiding her face once more. But the question never came. After the sudden silence, Descole turned back to Emmy, only to see the young woman staring at the floor with sad eyes. She put her tea down on the coffee table and brought her feet onto the sofa. The scientist watched as the girl wrapped her arms around her knees and rested her head on them, still staring at nothing at all. The man exhaled knowingly and put his tea down as well.
"Family issues, huh?" He asked quieter than before and slid over to her. As soon as he had wrapped both of his arms around her, Emmy leaned against him. "We have something in common there..." he added, also looking at nothing in particular. Both sighed in unison and knew that they both were not going to talk about it, but also that that was completely fine. The couple sat there in silence, watching the steam of their teacups disappear after a while. Emmy was the first to move when she held his arm in front of her knees with her hands. Then she looked up, seeing that he was still lost in his own thoughts.
"It's blond, isn't it?" She put the question into the silence after about a minute and sat up a little, not leaning herself completely against his torso anymore.
"Huh? What is?" She received a questioning look. She had obviously caught him completely off guard.
"Your hair. Dark blond." She said and reached up with one hand and began to stroke his hair on the back of his head. It was much softer than she had expected, since it always looked spiky.
"Or maybe light brown...?" She asked, more herself than him while she put her legs down beside her, knees now overlapping. Her hand wandered over to his ear and then to his face, moving over the edge of his mask with no hint of removing it, until her hand slid down to his cheek. When she caressed it with her thumb, he eventually gave a smile.
"It's funny... You're kind of like the professor, having something that you're always wearing, no matter what." She smiled back. Descole looked down when the last words escaped her lips. Emmy's smile faded at his reaction and she slightly opened her mouth to ask why, when he spoke first, silently and a little unsure.
"You don't, do you?" He slowly started. She was confused at first, especially by his sudden change of mood. She turned her head away, looking slightly upwards to think.
"No, not really." She started and shrugged. A small smile flashed over her expression when she continued, very slowly letting her hand drop from his face. "I mean, I mostly wear my yellow trench-coat and I almost always have my camera with me, but you know that that's not a general rule. For example at the ball, I didn't wear anything of the usual, or-"
"Would you..." the scientists deep, yet nervous voice interrupted her soliloquy, grabbing her wrist, before she could take her hand back entirely.
"W-would you... like to have something like that?" He slowly asked and held her hand against his chest. The young woman turned to him, surprised by his attitude. His hands were trembling and his voice slightly shaking. He did not look at her. She watched him with confusion – why his heart was beating so rapidly, why his cheeks were a little flushed and why he was acting so strangely on such an unspectacular question. She tilted her head to the side a little and put her palm firmly against his chest to reassure him.
He lifted his head up and met her eyes which were a mixture of puzzlement, sympathy and encouragement. Trying to take a deep breath as silently as possible, Descole retreated his arm from around her. Emmy watched excitedly, her heart pounding wildly against her ribs, as she did not have the slightest idea of what he was up to. Her eyes followed his trembling hand, reaching into the pocket of his vest, not revealing the object in his fist when taking it back out.
He bit his lip and tried hard to breath naturally when he removed the girl's hand from his chest and held it in front of him. Emmy followed his movements and regarded her upward turned palm in his gentle yet shaking grip. His other hand moved to hers, less than a centimetre above her palm. She could feel his accelerated pulse through his fingers on her wrist. He seemed to hold his breath for a second, and so did she when he opened his hand and the small object fell the last millimetres into her hand.
It was warm and solid. It felt like metal and was partly even and partly uneven. Before Emmy could take a look, Descole closed her fingers with his hand, not daring to look up to meet her eyes, and then retreated his hand. The young woman's gaze went upwards, waiting for him to look at her. Her lips were parted, and her eyes were politely asking for permission to open her hand, even though she knew that he wanted her to have whatever it was. It took the usually very confident man a moment to dare to look at her, but he eventually lifted his head up, carefully and then, almost unnoticeably, nodded.
Emmy pressed her lips together for a second, before gingerly opening her fingers. Time seemed to stop for both of them held their breaths. Her shoulders dropped and her mouth stood open even more as her widening eyes caught sight of the small object. She could not help it when she noticed her eyes to be watering and felt an ice cold shiver of excitement run down her back, at the same moment as seemingly boiling-hot blood rushed through her body, shooting a deep red blush into her cheeks. Rather a swarm of a thousand excited, wildly fluttering birds, than butterflies were escaping their cage inside the girl's stomach, almost making her dizzy. She wanted to swallow, but her mouth had dried out an eternity ago.
Emmy started breathing again, her parted lips turning into a smile and a tear rolling down her cheek. As soon as her positive reaction came, she could feel his hands' shaking decrease.
Slowly, her gaze wandered up to him, another tear rolling down her other cheek, hanging on her jawbone for a second until it dropped down onto her sleeve. Her eyes quickly glanced at the object, then up at his face again, which was showing a great relief, as if he had seen his life passing by in front of his eyes. Emmy's light sob was the only thing to interrupt the silence.
Her smile grew bigger as she nodded at him and Descole gently put the ring on her slim finger. I fit perfectly. Through the tears, it was hard for Emmy to see the details of it, but since the first second she had seen it, she could never forget its beauty. There was an oval shaped diamond, around the size of regular fingernail, surrounded by twelve small diamonds, all glistening like stars in a clear night sky. The ring itself was silver and held the diamonds like winding vines on both sides.
"I know I'm more than ten years older than you but-" Emmy's lips prevented the scientist from continuing. A wave of relief flowed down his spine when her warm lips were lovingly pressed against his own. He wrapped his arms around her waist, while her hands were crossed behind his neck.
"S-so you don't mind…?" He slowly asked when they parted. Emmy shook her head, smiling brightly, the last tears flying through the air. He exhaled with relief and held her tightly. They shared a hug for minutes in overjoyed silence.
"You know what?" The young woman whispered after a long while.
"Hm?" He loosened his arms around her to look at her. Her smile transformed into a grin as she leaned forward to get closer to his ear.
"You just told me something about yourself..." she said while her fingers tangled in his hair. "And it was everything but uninteresting." She added and placed a soft kiss on his cheek, smiling brightly.
Emmy unfolded her legs from her side and stood up, taking her cup and saucer with both hands and walked towards the kitchen. The scientist stood up as well, taking his cup and saucer in one hand and followed her.
"Yes, isn't that great... Now you know that I'm an old solitary lunatic." He joked as he arrived next to her in front of the door. Emmy spun around, mouth open to complain, but he took her by her waist and, in the blink of an eye, pulled her close to quiet her down with a kiss.