The Boy chattered on incessantly.
Sen Getsusa wasn't buying it. She quietly pointed behind them. "Hey, your ex-girlfriend is also in a romance of free will."
Jack uncomfortably adjusted the expensive watch on his wrist and explained, "That... that's an accident! Free romance isn't about money—"
She looked at the Boy with a smile, her thin red lips curling as she took a sip of coffee, elegant and quiet.
"You only pretend to be disdainful because you don't have it."
The girl ruthlessly pierced through Jack's facade.
"You aren't someone who truly craves freedom. You're just using freedom and new romantic values to hide the fundamental desire in your heart."
"Because you can't have it, you pretend not to care."
"You crave to climb upward."
"You crave to become a great person."
"Mr. Jack Dawson, you crave success. You crave an unprecedented success that can drag you out of this mire."
Sen Getsusa's casual words crushed Jack.
He leaned back into the sofa in his suit, his hands up in a gesture of surrender. "Alright, alright, you're right. I'm just glad I don't have a sister like you."
Sen Getsusa raised an eyebrow. "I, on the other hand, wish I had a brother like you. It would make every day much more interesting."
Jack, having lost a round, was not resigned. He thought for a moment and suddenly leaned in toward the table—
He brought his face close, looking at Sen Getsusa with an expression he considered soulful.
The blond's sudden proximity made the girl lean back slightly.
Jack didn't actually have any designs on this girl who was young enough to be his sister; he wasn't a pervert.
The experienced Boy believed he knew all about a young girl's shyness and that she certainly wouldn't be able to handle a surprise attack from such a 'handsome' man like himself—
His uncle's gap-toothed daughter had been made to blush and make a fool of herself by him.
With a mischievous heart, the Boy stared at the girl without blinking.
Closer and closer... what met him was a flick of the fingers.
Snap!
"Fuxk!"
The Boy jumped back into the sofa, grimacing. "What are you hiding in your hand, a table knife?"
He moved his hand away, revealing a faint red vertical mark on his forehead.
"Now you look like a Yang Jian who hasn't washed his hair in three days."
While asking who Yang Jian was, the other party gave Sen Getsusa a globally recognized gesture.
Sen Getsusa declined with an offhand, "I don't like men—keep your distance, Mr. Hanhan."
"Then we're friends." Jack shrugged, rubbing his forehead with one hand while lifting the soda he'd just ordered from the clerk, cheerfully clinking glasses with Sen Getsusa.
"I don't like men either."
In his tailored suit he looked almost debonair.
Ignoring the dagger-stares from the young ladies around her, Sen Getsusa yawned and glanced at the middle-aged man still rattling on and the worshipful young girl, Mary.
She swung her little leather shoes, heels tapping the floor, toes wiggling; the white lace socks looked all the more enticing.
"Of course I know you don't like men. Otherwise the one in his arms right now would be you, not your ex-girlfriend."
The words wiped the smile off Jack's face before two minutes were up.
He looked over glumly. "Why'd you make me wear this stuff? Pretend I'm rich?"
The conversation circled back to the Origin Point.
Sen Getsusa winked playfully. "No, not pretending.
Mr. Jack Dawson, young master from the Central City, is a rich man by birth.
You're not pretending to be rich…'
The girl tilted her head. "You're pretending… to be a poor boy."
Jack gaped.
"Poor boy? I'm obviously—"
Sen Getsusa wagged a finger. "Don't shout at your little sister."
Jack: …She's already in character?
He watched the girl slide her coffee cup to the table's edge, then "accidentally" nudge it with her elbow.
Crack!
Snap—
The sharp clatter of porcelain exploded through the café.
A waiter hurried over, bent low; heads turned.
Including the middle-aged man and Miss Mary.
Jack Dawson stared at the girl he'd met an hour ago.
With exaggerated delicacy she dabbed her mouth, lifted her skirt, and—under every eye—walked toward his ex.
Her swaying waist looked every inch an aristocratic young lady.
Why "looked"?
Because Jack no longer knew whether this mad girl actually was nobility.
Half an hour earlier she'd slipped him like a little fox into a tailor's, tried on clothes, bought outfits; her erudition was obvious.
Yet those vivid expressions and that bellyful of mischief… oh, he wasn't doubting modern nobility's standards, but even the gradually rotting sort couldn't pull this off.
Sen Getsusa glided over to Miss Mary—long jade-green nails traced her throat, eyes appraising.
Then, to everyone's shock, she yanked off the necklace!
Snap!
Mary yelped in pain.
"Our family has centuries of history, Miss Mary—how dare you deceive a noble?"
Fuming, Sen Getsusa tossed the necklace into a coffee cup.
Coffee splattered across the table.
She turned to the middle-aged man. "Sir, I believe you know exactly what's happened."
The man scrambled up, shook his shirt, shoved Mary aside.
At the word "noble" the obsequious smile he'd kept hidden flashed openly; no anger at the scene.
"May I ask… your name?"
"You're not qualified to know," the girl snapped.
He'd meant to kiss her hand; when she ignored him he laughed awkwardly, adjusted his cuff to show off a gold watch.
"I'm Karl, Karl Hockley." The man introduced himself. "You and Mr. Jack are…?"
"He's my brother."
Sen Getsusa shot a contemptuous glance at the helpless Mary, chin high. "He loves this 'poor-boy' game; today I caught him red-handed.
Miss Mary, Mr. Karl—any explanation?"
Her words carried an accent that, to a modern top student, was effortless—yet to the worldly Karl and the half-informed Mary, it struck like thunder.
Mary, clutching her coffee-stained bodice, jumped up, eyes darting. "No! No, not me! He forced me to come!"
She hunted frantically for Jack.
"Jack! Jack, it's me—your sister's mistaken! Mr. Karl and I are nothing!"
Karl Hockley stayed calm; he could see who held power in this "family."
He bowed politely to Sen Getsusa, lifted his coffee cup in a distant toast to Jack.
"My apologies, miss. I had no intention of interfering with Mr. Jack and—" he glanced over—"Miss Mary, yes; she lured me out claiming a banquet list was missing. Before that I'd never met her."
Jack, now properly solemn, pushed back his chair and strode over in polished shoes.
Admittedly, he looked the part.
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