Youthfulness

Chapter Eight

A second passed in absolute silence. Claire awaited Dark_Magician's reply worriedly. Am I too rude? Should I say something? Claire's mind was filled with such thoughts.

After a few more seconds, the reply appeared: Do you have WeChat?

Claire let out a breath. Thanks God. She thought she had said something inappropriate. But then she realised the problem. Her WeChat was used by Alexander so that he could feel like a girl during the feminine days.

After consideration, she typed out her reply: Yes, but I can't use it.

He replied: Why?

Come on, I don't want to lie, thought Claire, But you leave me no choice. She hesitantly lied: I lost the password. She involuntarily averted her eyes from the screen.

She was relieved that Dark_Magician was not here, looking into her eyes. She was not skilled in saying flawless lies. Luckily, he decided not to pry, and replied: Okay.

After an awkward silence, Claire typed: WhatsApp?

Reply came: Absolutely. Claire grinned. This was the answer she wanted. She quickly typed: What is your phone number?

A line of digits was her answer. She memorised them and typed it in her new contact. After a short time of thinking, she named it as Dark Magician. A strange sense of sweetness engulfed her when she looked at the contact. But when she searched for the contact in WhatsApp, she couldn't find it at all. Mystified, she pondered for a few seconds. As clever as she was, she realised the problem instantly. He was not using the same country code.

God, where does he live? Claire thought, He was not from Hong Kong. She decided to ask him.

"Malaysia" was his reply. Claire froze when she saw the reply. Wow, so far away. We have almost no chance to see each other in real life.

She typed: I am from Hong Kong.

He was immediately interested: Can you teach me Cantonese?

Seriously?! Claire almost laughed at his question. She decided to ignore it first, adding the Malaysian country code to his phone number. There, finally she saw his name. She quickly typed "Hi" in WhatsApp.

Moments later, he replied: Hi.

Claire was so elated that she almost did a victory dance. She typed: I will screenshot the questions and you will answer them, okay?

He replied: No. I screenshot plural questions and answer singular questions. You do the opposite.

Claire huffed in defiance and replied: Okay. This was the first time somebody was willing to share a job with her, except for her twin. Maybe he didn't want her to know so much about himself.

She returned to the game, and Dark_Magician invited her to his team. She accepted it, knowing the rules of Mistletoe Messenger. Both players must be in the same team that consisted of only themselves.

Dark_Magician entered the map of Mistletoe Messenger, and the mission began. First, they had to defeat the perverted old man who wanted to marry a beautiful princess. Although he looked fragile, his blood was quite a lot and it took two matches to defeat him as well as his minions.

The second part was answering questions from the rescued princess. Claire screenshot the question list, and they answered all questions together.

The third part was interrogating the old man for the whereabouts of the knight, the princess's lover. This time, they had to kill the old man.

The fourth part was harder. They had to locate the castle trapping the prince and kill all the jailers. Claire personally hated locating. Each person carrying the information must play a game with them. The first person required calculation. The second one required playing word association. The final one required Western chess.

The fifth part was bringing back the knight to the princess. Along the way they had to pick up ten mistletoe berries, each requiring a question. At last, the princess and the knight kissed under the shower of mistletoe berries. This marked the end of Mistletoe Messenger. Hooray.

The story was actually quite interesting, but when you have to do the mission for so many times, it became very boring.

After finishing Mistletoe Messenger for two times, Claire received a message from Dark_Magician through the game system: How old are you?

Why is he asking for my age? Claire thought with suspicion, Ah, let me play a trick on him. She replied, chuckling while typing: Nine thousand years old.

He replied, his frustration clearly shown though the text: I mean your real age.

She shot back: Then tell me your real age first. 

A few seconds later, he replied: Fine. Claire waited for his reply with her reducing patience.

He typed again: Elf plus elf ist zweiundzweizig.

Testing my German, huh? Claire thought with glee, Luckily, my German is better than my French. At least I know it means eleven plus eleven is twenty-two. She replied: Bist du 22 Jahre alt?

He replied: You do know your German.

Claire smiled. She quickly typed: I have been learning German since I was three, Monsieur.

Seeing no response, she continued to type: I am turning 14 later this year.

Claire felt a bit crestfallen, realising Dark_Magician was older than her for eight whole years. But she didn't understand why she would be upset. Maybe because he would die first.

His reply brought forth some humour: Oh no, I don't want to be called an old cow eating young grass! This lightened her gloomy thoughts a bit.

Claire laughed right out at that instance. Alexander heard the laughter and shouted, "Claire, sis, are you alright?" Oops, thought Claire as she covered her mouth, staring wide-eyes and guiltily at Alexander's room. "Nothing, just saw a joke," lied Claire, barely holding her laughter.

"Old cow eat young grass" is a Chinese idiom saying old men marrying young girls. She comforted him by replying: You are not that old. You are just older than me for eight years.

His reply was amusing: Eight years?! My God, I never thought I am that old. Claire smiled in spite of his arrogant humour.

Eyes flitting to the grandfather clock occasionally, she realised it was almost eight. Terrified by her parents' wrath along with the nightmare that frequently haunted her these days, she typed: I am not free now. Meet me at the same place tomorrow at six, okay?

Reply came almost immediately: Okay, see you tomorrow, partner. 

She smiled, clearly noticing the word "partner".  Partner, does he mean as players or couple? Her thought jumbled into a huge mess, blushing unknowingly. She reply: Bye. And ran upstairs, connecting her phone to the charger. That phone only remained 10% battery. Noticing the severity, she connected it to a faster charger, so that when her parents went to the room, the phone was already fully charged.