Jack's P.O.V.
After our seemingly long, heart-to-heart conversation on which we rarely
had, Scarlet and I finally headed to where we were needed. The walk to my
mother's new office was a long one. There seemed to be no one or any other
agents around even though when I firsts came up here; it was as busy as
midtown Manhattan. Our footsteps echoed in the big, gray, half-circle
hallway. Then we came to a fork in the road. We stopped as Scarlet looked
at me for the next direction, knowing I had memorized them.
"Left." I said, pointing to the beginning of the new hallway, blue and greatly
lit. She nodded and we continued or journey onward.
After a few minutes, the echoing of our footsteps, the emptiness of the
corridor, and the faint sound of our breathing was finally started to get to
me. Usually I was fine with silence; I was trained to be silent and to work
silence. My grandfather used to always say "silence is your friend"
whenever he taught me and Scarlet. I tried to think of anything that would
start a conversation.
As soon as we crossed over the bridge that connected the two largest
buildings of the headquarters together, I spoke.
"So did you ever get any information from Milton, Jerry, and Eddie?" I
turned to her waiting upon her answer only to see that she was gazing out the
many windows that we passed.
"No," she responded after a while. "I learned nothing useful." I thought
about this. Even though the information wasn't useful, I still wanted to know
what she had learned about them.
"Well what did you learn from them?" I asked this time she was looking
straight ahead.
"No time Jack, look we're here." I looked forward to where she was
pointing, and sure enough she was right. My mother was sitting at her desk,
seen through glass doors that had the HQ symbol on each one. We walked
up towards the doors and I knocked until she beckoned us in.
Nothing about us being agents and she being my boss, it's all about just
having good manners.
After Scarlet and I sat down and made ourselves comfortable, my mother
started to talk.
"So how was your first day? I'm expecting there was no trouble at all." We
both shook our heads.
"No trouble at all Ma'am." Scarlet answered for us.
"Good, good. Made any partnerships?" I cringed at this question, knowing
exactly what my mom meant by asking this. 'Did we make any friends, talk
to anyone, and if so, what information did we find out about or from
them.' is what she was really asking us. Scarlet looked at me, expecting this
answer to come from me. I sighed.
"Yes Ma'am. 4 partnerships were made. No information granted to tell." I
said aiming the last sentence mostly at Scarlet, telling her with my eyes that
my mother didn't need to know what happened between Kim and I. At least
not yet.
My mom nodded, not seeing what just passed between me and Scarlet, or
maybe she did and just didn't acknowledge it.
"Good." She said shaking her head. She started rummaging through her top
right desk draw, soon taking a box.
"I called you in here to receive these." She said as she opened the box
revealing two new, one black and one white, iPhone 4S. Scarlet and I stared
in shock as my mom took each out of their cases and handed them to us.
Scarlet received the white one, and I got the black one.
This was a big deal because usually, agents out age weren't allowed to have
these devices.
I carefully took mine in my hand and looked at the back. Sure enough, it had
the HQ seal on the back in gray I turned it back to the front, and looking
close enough I saw a green eyed dragon designed across the top, and when I
turned it in the right direction the eyes glowed and sparkled. Just like my
necklace, my father's emblem.
Down right, I immediately fell in love with this phone.
"Now everything is already set up, the phone has a pager for whenever I or
the HQ needs you. There will be updates on everything that goes on here at
this base. Even though this phone is meant for work only, you may still
enjoy it because after all, it is now your own." She said smiling, knowing we
were happy.
"That is all, you two go home and rest now, school in the morning. 8:30
sharp."
We nodded and stood up and walked out the door. But before I walked out
into the hallway, I quickly turned back and ran to give my mother a hug. I
knew she was surprised because she took a while to hug back. We usually
don't show affection as mother and son when we were at work, and I see
myself changing now with all the hugging I've been doing lately and my
mother would see it too, if she had known what happened between Kim and
I.
But soon enough, when I was about to pull away she hugged me back tightly
and whispered into my ear.
"Good night Jack."
Monday. After school.
I walked out into the bright sun from the dark school building. I'll never be
able to get used to the bright sun that I rarely saw back on the east coast.
During last period class, Scarlet got paged on her phone that she was needed
at the base for training, so that meant I was walking home alone today. I
stopped by the curb to check my phone again, seeing if they had paged me
for anything, but they didn't.
"Hey Jack! Wait up!" I turned my head quickly, instinct taking over to fight.
But it all collapsed when I saw that it was only Kim who was calling me.
I smiled and waved at her and waited till she got close enough to begin
walking again. She smiled up at me since I was only an inch taller.
"Where you going?" she asked, I shrugged my shoulders, really not
knowing. There was no one home, and the HQ didn't need me, so I really
had nothing to do.
"Nowhere." I answered simply.
"Oh." She nodded. "Well, I'm heading over to the dojo now. You wanna
come?"
Their dojo? With Scarlet not being here, I was free to do things I wouldn't
do, meaning hanging out with Kim. In my own defense, it's been a long time
away from the dojo. The last time I was in a dojo it was New York. I took
my phone out, looking at the time.
3:06pm
I looked at Kim, who was waiting for my answer. I quickly nodded my head.
"Sure. I'd love to go." She smiled.
"Cool." She then noticed my phone. "Hey, I have the same phone. But my is
plain, I don't have all those designs." She said pulling out hers. I laughed,
thanking her.
"Here, I'll put my number in." she said holding out her phone. This again
was something new, but I went along with it.
I handed her my phone and took hers, and just like that we exchanged
numbers.
When I took my phone back, our hands touched and I wanted it to stay there,
just like that. But I knew I couldn't do anything like that, I couldn't even
think like this, for her own safety.
Knowing this was supposed to be our last time together; I decided I wasn't
going to hold out any boundaries.
When we finally got to the dojo, I noticed no one was there as yet. I guess
Kim saw me wondering because she soon answered my question.
"It's a bit early, no one would be here yet." I nodded. Walking onto the blue
mat, much like the one back home.
"Let's spar till everyone arrives then." I asked, not quite knowing where it
came from.
No boundaries today. I said reminding myself. Just be normal.
She nodded her head.
"The locker rooms are over there, so you can go in there and change if you
want. There should be extra clothes in the closet." I nodded and walked into
the empty locker room and set my bag down by the door. After looking
around, I found the closet and opened it up, seeing a few pairs of shorts and
shirts. I easily found my short size, but never found my shirt size. I sighed.
Guess I'm doing this shirtless.
I quickly changed, feeling a bit embarrassed that I was only wear a pair of
blue shorts, but I sucked it up and went outside.
I saw Kim sitting on the floor with cloth tape aside her while she was
wrapping up her fingers.
"Jack come over here." she said while still looking down, wrapping her
fingers. I wonder how she even saw me, much less heard me come out,
something only people like me could do, but I decided to look past, and I
went straight over to her and sat down.
She finally looked up at me for the first time, seeing me shirtless. She
quickly blushed while she stared and soon cleared her throat while trying to
hide her burning face.
"Sorry I couldn't find a shirt." I said smiling, and laughing a bit out of
embarrassment. I was really physically fit, maybe a bit over my age level, so
I could see why she stared.
"It's fine Jack," she said laughing. "Just a little unexpected, that's all." I
smiled at her again. Then I noticed what she was wearing herself. Shorts
way above her knees, but still not too short, but enough to make me dizzy,
and on top of that, she only had on a sports bra. I teared my eyes away from
the sight before she caught me staring.
I needed a distraction.
"So whatcha doing?" I asked hoping this would be enough.
"I'm just rolling up my fingers, sometimes it hurts when I throw punches,
and the tape just supplies protection and smoother hits." I nodded, having
the same problem sometimes myself.
"You want me to patch you up?" Kim asked me. I nodded my head.
"Sure." She smiled.
"K. Come closer then." I eased myself over until I was so close, I might as
well been on top of her. I tried to expel the thought while she took my hand.
I tried to focus on her hand wounding itself in-between my own with the
tape while stray strands of her hair tickled my shoulder.
The key word in all this was tried. I did try, but I failed once I looked into
her eyes. She smiled as I kept my gaze; I looked down and noticed that she
stopped moving her hand. I looked back up at her, about to ask her why
should had stopped, but she beat me to the conversation.
"You have really…really nice eyes." She whispered moving some of my
hair out of my face, so she'll get a better view. I smiled, happy that she likes
them.
"Thanks Kim." she nodded, then looked back down at my hand. Most of her
hair was infront of her face and I could see that it was bothering her.
"Here wait." I said pulling my hand away from hers. I reached up and
smoothed it out from her face and rolled it back up into the bun it was. I did
it rather fast from all the training with knives. Her hair was just something
new to work with. It was soft and fluffy, and I didn't want to let it go, but
eventually I did. The hair that couldn't fit in the bun, I simply tucked behind
her ear with my left hand while I slid my right hand, the hand she was
working on, back down to take hers again.
The whole time she was blushing but only smiled when I spoke again.
"Alright, continue."