Who are you

Situation Three

The next day Julian and Lotus met up at the same restaurant. At first they both greeted each other as professional courtesy and Julian started with the day’s lesson. Julian tried to focus but he couldn’t, he kept thinking about last night incident and he kept spacing out mid-sentence. He tried to cover up for his shortcoming but he realized it was of no use since Lotus has noticed and she has hinted that she is not going to take the lesson serious until Julian took it serious. Julian looked at Lotus as she get brushed through her social media page pretending to be listening to him. So, Julian decided that it would not harm to man up. “Lotus” he called “look I’m really sorry about last night. I wish I could explain but I can’t. So, I hope you won’t take it to heart and pretend it never happened ”Julian said. Whatever is there that can’t be explained.

Lotus nodded without a word, she put her phone away and asked him to Continue with the lesson. Julian taught her Enumeration. This simple means to gather information about the system you want to hack because the more you know in advance the fewer surprises you will have. Then he moved to explaining the nix terminal for command. He talked about cygwing and winPCap too. Later during their lunch break, Julian offered to pay for their meal instead of Lotus

“I’ve got nothing to loose” Lotus shrugged and placed her orders

“you ordered 10 cups of ice cream?” Julian asked in surprises as the waiter placed their orders on the table”

“What? You can pay?” Lotus asked

“That is not it?” he replied

“Don’t worry, I won’t get a brain freeze because this is not my first time”

Julian smirked and spaced out a little. In as much as he doesn’t want to believe it, it seems like history was repeating it’s self and for some reason he believes all this is no coincidence. Subconsciously he said out Loud “Is she really dead? Could you really be her incarnation”

Lotus looked up from her ice cream as Julian talked and saw how he looked at her with a very cute but sad expression. Caught off guard with guilt by Julian’s word and action, Lotus chocked on her last scoop of the tenth ice cream. Julian jerked back o reality and instinctively stood up to apply first aid to relief the chocking. As Julian parted her back and lotus became relief, she became aware of a familiar feeling she thought she had let go so her natural response to her discomfort was to stop Julian and him make him return to his sit.

“Are you okay?” Julian asked from his sit. It wasn’t as if he cared, but he believe it was just a natural human instinct to care for an innocent person exposed to harm. He shouldn’t have choose the word “Innocent” because he really doesn’t know how innocent Lotus really is.

“Yes” Lotus replied and Julian smiled “Why are you smiling?”

“A while ago you acted like wonder woman, I can’t believe you chocked on ice cream”

“A while ago you acted like you actually cared about me, I can’t believe you are mocking me now” Lotus scolded and they both laughed.

The waiter came to cleared up their table, however the waiter happened to be the restaurant’s “reporter”. Instead if him to clear the table and walk away, he sat with them and started chatting “The thing is, you guys are the most lovely couple to eat here in the history of this restaurant, you should laugh more together you know” the waiter said.

“Sir, you are mistaken…. It’s not” Julian tried to explain feeling uncomfortable with is choice of words “couple”.

“I understand.” The waiter interrupted. “When both of you entered this restaurant for the very first time, I thought you mistook this place for a battle zone, I really thought one of you wasn’t going to leave the restaurant alive”

“It look like you are tired of your job.” Lotus said. Wow! That was harsh “I will help. I will tell your boss to let you resign instead of firing to uphold your dignity.”

“I’m sorry” the smile on the waiter face disappeared as in apologized and walked away after clearing the table.

“That was too cruel” Julian said feeling sorry for the waiter.

“Was it?” Lotus asked without remorse “Well, I don think so.” Lotus continued when Julian didn’t reply “Personally, I think you are the cruelest man on earth” Actually, that was meant to song like a joke but it came out the way it really is

“Why did you think that?” Julian asked. It was a joke, right? why does it hurt?

“Because you are a liar!” Lotus wanted to scream but it was to early to blow things up. “I was just kidding” she said instead and decided to change topic but she hit the wrong direction. “You asked if I was her incarnation” Curiosity indeed killed the cat

“That…” Julian stammered.

“Is the her your fiancee from eight year ago?”

“I believe this is something you won’t want to get involve with” he said. Obviously, he wasn’t going to talk about it even if Lotus pressed. So she just nodded. “I will end it all sinner than I expected, I wont be wasting two more years.” He subconsciously said to himself and stood up “Since we are done here today, see you tomorrow”.

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“Wow! You ordered ten cups if ice cream”

“Don’t worry. I’m the only one in the world that can take ten cups of ice cream without having a brain freeze”

“Do you have any idea how small you make the world look when you use the phrase ‘In the world’”

“In the future I will belong to you, so you will become my world. Technically, I will be the only one to you, Claire!”

“Grow up, Julian”

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Julian woke up, not with a scream this time but with tears as Claire name escaped his lips. It was not tears of joy neither was it tears of regret, it tears of confusion. Julian couldn’t fall asleep again because he was no longer sure of the answer to a question he subconsciously created “Claire, is this my punishment for pushing you away from me to your own sake or are you trying to tell me to move on. Please answer with a sign if you can.”

Then the wind started blowing and Julian’s room window flew open. Thunder struck and hit the lotus flower vase on the table by his window but surprisingly it didn’t break, instead the written on the vase suddenly made sense to Julian.

“Two souls bounded by fate cannot be destroyed by anyone, no even fate itself”

“I will take that as an answer” Julian said and went to sleep.