Hi guys~ Sorry about the delayed-release. I was feeling a bit lazy and decided to rest a bit yesterday since I have officially been writing this story daily for 1 month X'D. All the same, I'm kinda glad that I did cause it gave me a bit more time to mull over the ideas for this chapter and how to go about them X'D There were a few options I was juggling and I think I like the one I ended up going with lol.

Song suggestion: First Love (Tropix Remix) by Lost Kings ft. Sabrina Carpenter

Disclaimer: I own nothing~ I'm not affiliated with CapCom or the Resident Evil IP. Please don't sue, thx.


Subject: Company Birthdays

Emma gave a short sigh as she clicked the email, and sure enough it was an announcement of the birthdays for the week within the company. Monday, June 8th - Emma Swanson, the email read along with a few other names. Woo-hoo. She was officially forty now. Great. She frowned at that thought. It's not like she could stay in her thirties forever but the passing of time just felt like it was sprinting now when it used to be so slow.

She moved the email to the trash before continuing on with her day as usual. Try to work, get Maurice his coffee, put away files, try to work, get files. At lunch, she pulled out her phone to find a few new texts.

[Chris] -Google maps location-

[Chris] Bastion said he'd take out Duke and feed him. Meet you there at 6:30?

The woman smiled at her phone. This was a cute surprise. She knew the general area where the address was. It would be better if she stayed at work and just left from here. Part of her wanted to see what the address was connected to, but the other wanted to wait and be surprised. She stared at the address longer before deciding to leave it be for now and reply.

[Emma] See you there.

Emma finished her lunch with a smile. Maybe it wasn't so awful that she was getting older, she thought with more pep in her step. Organize files, do her own work, put files away, get other files and a coffee, and back to work. Unlike the morning she did all of this with a smile. Staying later even afforded her extra time for her current work project to make up for the minor distractions throughout the day.

It was almost 6, and most of her co-workers had left by that point. Maurice looked up from his paperwork with a smile before getting up and walking over to Emma's desk. He grabbed an armless desk chair and spun it around to sit in it backwards so he could lean forward against the back of the chair "Hey Em, what are you still doing here?" he asked and got no response as she was looking away at a monitor facing away from him while bobbing her head to the music playing from her earbuds.

"Em?" no response. "Emma." Nothing. He knocked his knuckles against the desk. "Emma," he said louder. That combined with the knocking finally got her out of her little daydreaming work stupor. She jolted from surprise as she saw Maurice sitting next to her, which caused him to chuckle.

"Earth to space cadet Emma. You in there?" he asked as she took out her earbuds.

"Hey, yeah. Sorry. How long have you been there?" Emma asked, concerned.

"Couple seconds," he said. "You're working late."

"Yeah, just figured I'd get a few things finished up," Emma said as she checked the time. She needed to head out, actually.

"Well, hey, that works. I was just thinking I could use e to eat. I saw it was your birthday too. Maybe we can head out, get a few drinks?" he offered with a smile.

Oh lord. Um, okay, well… Shit. This was awkward. He was really friendly and she couldn't tell if he was just trying to be the cool boss or if he was hitting on her. Was it rude to jump to 'I have a boyfriend' in response? Uuuugh. "Sorry, I have plans. I actually need to head out." If he tried it again, she'd be more direct.

"You worked late when you have plans?" Maurice asked with a confused expression. That seemed backwards to him.

"Yeah, it would have taken longer to go home and then to the location," Emma explained as she started packing up.

"The location. Very mysterious," he joked as he got up.

"I don't know exactly where it is that I'm going." Yeah, okay, it was probably time for the relationship drop to see if that cleared things up. "My boyfriend sent me an address and said we should meet there. I figured I'd keep it a surprise since he didn't flat out say where we were going."

"Ah fun, hopefully. Have a good time then I won't hold you up. We'll have to see about those drinks another time then." He gave a casual wave before heading back to his office.

"We'll see." No we won't. "Have a good night," Emma said as she left and made her way to her car.

'*'*'*'*'

Chris smiled to himself as he leaned against the hood of his car and waited for Emma. While birthdays weren't particularly important to him, he could still recognize the importance of celebrating milestones. he looked over to the warehouse-looking building. It might not have been the most typical idea, but knowing what he did about Emma, that she was a bit of a goofball when given the chance, something told him she would enjoy this. She'd mentioned before that she enjoyed skating because it felt like flying to her. Part of him considered looking for an indoor rink for her to skate around, but after the last time, he wasn't really willing to do that again. It hurt like hell and he still had a full week of drills to make it through.

Before long, Emma pulled into the parking lot and looked at the building with curiosity. A well-lit sign boldly proclaimed 'EXTREME AIR.' What was Chris up to? She found a parking spot before getting out and looking for him.

"There you are," she said with a smile as she walked over.

"Hey," he replied as he puts an arm around her waist and gave her a peck. "How was work?"

"Ugh, I don't wanna talk about it," Emma said with a sigh. "What about you?"

"It was work," he replied. Her answer was concerning, but he'd drop it since she said she didn't want to talk about it. "Ready?"

"Hard to say. What are we doing here, and where is here?" Emma asked, amused.

He chuckled at that. How to explain this? It sounded better in his head and he could already tell that. "It's a trampoline park. Thought you might like to try a different kind of flying."

"That sounds fun. I haven't been on a trampoline since I was a kid," Emma admitted before a thought comes to mind. She didn't really get to pick how often she could go to a rink as a kid. It was dependent on how often her mom wanted to drive her there. So, the trampoline in the yard was well used by her and her siblings. "Though, don't you think we're too old for this?" she asked.

Chris shook his head. "And that is exactly why we're here. The only thing that has changed is that the sun came up one more time since yesterday. If you weren't old then you're not suddenly old now," Chris said as he offered her a backpack with a change of clothes. "Besides, I'm seven years and some change older than you. Are you calling me old?"

Emma gives a short laugh at that. "Well, I mean, if the shoe fits…" she said jokingly, causing Chris to move the hand from her waist so he could ruffle her hair in response.

"Smart Aleck," Chris replied as he returned his hand to her waist.

"Love you too," Emma said as she fixed her hair. "Let's check it out." She motioned that they should go into the building.

The two headed inside and Chris paid for their entry fee. Sure enough, they did stand out compared to the large groups of teenagers and college students. The place was also loud as the teens and young adults shouted to be able to hear each other over the music. After making their way past a small section of tables, lockers and casual arcade games by a food counter, they found much of the warehouse was covered by a large section of trampolines with a large pool of foam cubes to the back wall that people were jumping into. To the right, there was a decent-sized obstacle course, and to the left there was a glass wall that allowed visitors to watch as groups jumped around and pelted each other with plush-looking hackie sacks that would create a chalky burst of color on contact.

This did look fun. Emma smiled. "I'll be right back," she said and headed to change. She returned wearing a more comfortable set of leggings, a sports bra and a loose white tank top. By the time she got back, Chris was walking out of the men's room having changed into gym clothes.

"Where to first?" Chris asked after they finished locking up the bag with their work clothes.

Emma looked around again. The color tag thing looked more like an end of visit sort of thing or else they'd track the powder around the facility. She could already tell the kids that worked here did not get paid enough to deal with that.

"Maybe the obstacle course?" Emma suggested and Chris nodded and looked at it. It didn't seem too difficult to him, but he was used to stuff like this, considering Hound Wolf Squad got first place for the BSAA obstacle course competition.

"Sure," he agreed and walked with her to get in line to try it. As they waited, they watched the groups ahead of them go through the course. There were three lanes for visitors to use. It looked like the rule was that once you fell, you had to get off the course and get back in line to prevent long holding patterns. There were about twelve or so different sections of the course as well, yet most of the people got stuck around the seventh or eighth task as they either got tired or misstepped.

Eventually, the two were at the starting position with one of the college kids taking the third position, his friends cheering him on. 'Kick this grandpa's ass!' one of them shouted, which lit a competitive flame. Grandpa? For heaven's sake, he wasn't that old. He was still in his forties. But he supposed anyone older than twenty-five was automatically ancient to college kids.

"Ready, set, GO!" the worker announced and the three were off. Emma had a good start bouncing back and forth from balancing pads since that worked to her strengths, but pretty quickly dropped off as the obstacles switched to more upper body strength-focused tasks. She landed in a pit of foam cubes with a soft fwump. She laughed as she watched Chris and the college kid keep going. "You got this Chris!" Emma cheered before getting out and making her way to the side to watch with the others.

Fourth, fifth, and sixth obstacles down. They were different from what they had at the BSAA but once he understood what was required, he was able to make his way across.

"Come on Jerry!" "Yeah, you got this man!" "Let's goooooo," cheered the group waiting for the college kid, who was clinging to a large padded barrel that slid down a bumpy track. The final bump ended up tossing the young man off earning him a group of sympathetic 'awws' from his peers as Chris kept going.

Eighth, ninth, and tenth obstacles. At this point Chris had the group's attention since he was making it further than most of their attempts.

"Holy shit, grandpa's a beast," one of them said through a laugh as the others cheered upon seeing Chris make it through the eleventh obstacle by the skin of his teeth.

Emma frowned at that. It was rude. "Come on Chris! You're almost there!" Emma cheered and the others mimicked that.

"Time!" called one of the workers as Chris finished the last obstacle. "Nice work man, here." The worker gave him a slip of paper with a coupon on it.

"Thanks." Chris smiled and accepted the paper while catching his breath. That was a fair bit longer than the course at work. As he walked back, he looked over the paper, which was a voucher for the Color Tag room. "Well that was a nice warm-up," Chris said with an air of confidence as he approached Emma who gives him a kiss on the cheek.

"You did great," Emma said with pride.

"Where to next?" Chris asked as they walked away from the course.

"Might as well try bouncing around," Emma replied and led the way to the main section of trampolines where a few teenagers were trying different tricks by jumping over hurdles and doing flips. The two tested it out to see how strong the flexible fabric was and it had a decent spring to it. Emma smiled as she remembered various stunts and games she'd play with her siblings. After a solid jump, she curled up in the air to do a 'cannon ball' bounce which rocketed her higher into the air causing her to flail before landing again.

Before long as the two got used to it and gained the confidence to try various smaller stunts. Emma did a front flip, bounced, and did a backflip. Good, she still remembered how to do those. "Wanna try a game of horse?" Emma offered, knowing well enough that they were both at least a little bit competitive.

Chris raised an eyebrow at that. "Run that one by me again?"

Emma shook her head "One person does a trick and the other has to copy it. If they fail, they get a letter. Five failed rounds mean you lose."

"Ah," Chris replied as he understood. "Okay, you go first then." He figured he should get a better understanding of how the game worked.

The two went back and forth offering different challenges, each time they got more complicated in their attempt to stump the other. This eventually got the attention of the teenagers who would occasionally try to replicate a stunt or heckle the pair when they fell. While the obstacle course was Chris' domain, it was becoming more and more apparent that this was Emma's as she was more accustomed to moving around in the air.

"You're up," Emma said as she gave Chris a pat on the shoulder. Four to three in Emma's favor.

"Right, um…" He was kind of running out of ideas. He looked around before nodding. "Got it." With that he got half a running start to bounce over a hurdle, continue running and bounce back off one of the ramped trampolines to backflip off it thanks to the assistance of the springy material. With that done he stepped to the side to get out of the way and made a gesture of 'after you.'

Emma laughed and went over to where Chris started, taking the same half a running start and the following along. The score remained the same.

"Damn, thought I would have got you with that one," Chris admitted, shaking his head then giving her a peck. This was actually causing him to work up a sweat. "Your turn."

"Mmkay, let's see if I can get that winning point," she said with a snicker before looking around and nodding. She wasn't sure if she'd be able to pull this one off, but she had a lead so she could take a slight risk.

She moved to be in line with one of the trampolines that gave her a good runway for the pool of foam cubes. After a few test bounces, she hurried forward, bounced for one front flip, landed on the trampoline at a slight angle that sent her forward into a second flip, which she added a spin to before landing in the pool of cubes, practically disappearing as she sunk.

Chris watched with a low chuckle, overhearing some impressed chattering from the teens while some insisted that they could do the same thing. "Can I just give you the letter on that one?" Chris offered, shaking his head. There was no way. The request earned him some heckling. He waited for Emma to get out of the way before giving it an attempt. He took the same running start, got the first flip in, landed bounced forward, and couldn't keep the momentum for a second, let alone to spin during it. Instead, he landed on his stomach in the foam pit.

Emma winced at the belly flop, but chuckled slightly after noticing he was okay. "And that's game," she said as she waited for him to make his way back over to the edge while some of the kids tried the same trick with similar results to Chris.

"Good game," he said as he got out to stand by Emma. He checked his watch. They'd been here for about an hour and a half at that point. "Did you want to check out that last area before heading out?"

"Sure, we could use a tie-breaker," Emma said as she walked with him out of the main trampoline area.

He nodded at that; they didn't really have any sort of bet going for this, but he accepted the excuse all the same. Outside of the plexiglass wall were two lines, one with a red-carpet runner and the other with a blue runner. Chris got into the blue line while Emma got into the red line and joined what appeared to be two large groups of college kids. It was a tie-breaker, after all, so they'd need to be on opposite teams.

"Hello and welcome to extreme Air's ultra color battle. You'll have fifteen minutes in this area. The first half of this will be a game of dodgeball. If you're hit then you're out, and you need to stand to the side. Once it's down to the final person everyone is free to rejoin the mat for the remaining time as a freestyle game of tag and throw the colored chalk bags as you see fit. We do ask that you avoid aiming for people's faces. To avoid injuries, please follow the guideline of One person per trampoline square," the employee explained before handing out multi-color chalk sacks and a pair of goggles to each person as they walked in. "Red to the left, blue to the right," he'd repeat each time someone walked up to him and he gave them their three chalk bags.

Eventually everyone had their positions. Emma jokingly gestured a silent taunt to Chris with a cheeky grin, which he returned.

"On the count of three," the worker said. "Three, two, one!" A loud buzzer rang announcing the start of the game as fifteen minutes showed on a large digital timer on the far wall.

The second the buzzer went off, and a flurry of chalk filled the room. As each person was hit, it made more and more dust making it a little bit harder to see.

"Out!" called one of the workers as Chris was inevitably hit due to being a larger target.

"Out!" shouted another as Emma was hit shortly after.

It took another four minutes or so leaving nine on the timer before the Referee announced, "Blue team wins!"

"And that's the match for me," Chris said as Emma lightly swatted his arm.

"You were out before me," she pointed out with an amused smile, but Chris only shrugged and smiled in return.

"Everyone back to your starting position for the battle royale," one of the workers called. Emma gave Chris a peck before hurrying off and picking up a few of the color sacks on her way.

"Three, two one," a worker cried and again the buzzer announced the resuming of the timer. While before they had been avoiding targeting the other, they were exclusively throwing the chalk at each other at this point as they laughed.

Where did she go? Chris thought as he looked around the large dusty area to try and figure out how he lost sight of her, only to feel something hit his rear. He turned around to find a snickering Emma and, sure enough, there was now a bright neon green chalk print on his backside.

While proud of her aim, she then noticed the agent had spotted her and was heading straight for her. Oh shi—She quickly turned to book it out of range while still gasping for air through chuckles. It didn't take Chris long to catch up with her and hook her waist with his arm, bringing her to a stop before leaning around to give her a quick kiss her which she returned before laughing more. She was hardly surprised to feel the texture of one of the Chalk bags gently smacked against the side of her face which now sported a large neon pink chalk mark that matched the chalk bag in Chris' free hand.

"Hey! One person per trampoline!" one of the workers called, causing them both to wince through their laughter before moving away only to hear the ending buzz as the timer hit zero.

"Awww, can we be like that when we get older?" they heard one of the college girls ask their significant other who laughed and agreed.

Gee thanks, Emma thought, chuckling to herself. "Suppose we should head back and wash up," she suggested.

Chris nodded. "Yeah, hopefully, this stuff comes out easily, or it's going to be an interesting day at the office tomorrow for both of us," Chris pointed out as they made their way back to the lockers to collect their stuff.

"Oh gosh, I didn't think about that." Emma wasn't too worried, though. It was just chalk, surely that would wash out easy enough.

"It will probably be fine," Chris replied as he put in the locker code to open it for them. The two gathered their belonging and headed for the door to go home for the night.


Well this was a fun chapter XD I enjoy getting to write ones where they get to relax a bit and have fun =v= for those that might be curious, the other options I was debating between were Dance lessons, Chris packs up a picnic for a night under the stars, and drunk painting class where you're encouraged to goof off and make a bit of a mess. Lmao if anyone needs a unique date night idea feel free to use any of these X'D I might still save a few of these for future chapters so if you feel like you would have preferred one of these options, don't worry they're not off the table completely just because I didn't use them this time.

Review Responses:

Tayna - LMAO I'm glad it amused you as much as it amused me X'D I wasn't sure if the joke would be too crass but at the same time I couldn't resist.

Guest1995 - ye boi~ still progress to be made but he's curious enough to look and see if it's possible XD