To Live Again, For the First Time!

Grace never spoke about what she meant about 'so you've tricked a little lamb!' and so Noah would never know.

He gave up asking after having the conversation deviated to who knows what 3 times.

This reminded Noah how impossible it was to extract useful information from Grace.

She could distract and deviate without one ever knowing a few years ago near flawlessly, and since Noah knew that his perceptiveness couldn't possibly increase faster than Grace's skill level, he knew that she was going easy on him, most likely due to their friendship.

If it was someone else, Grace might start digging holes with her words out of habit to turn the conversation into something embarrassing for the other party and then act all innocent just so that she wouldn't have to disclose any information.

He thought back to that poor innocent young girl back at the ball a few years back… that young girl really kicked an iron plate!

Grace made it slightly obvious to send him a signal that she didn't want to talk about it, and he took it with gratitude and annoyance.

As for what Emilin was doing in the bathroom for that long, though Noah was curious at first, he stopped thinking about it after realizing how inappropriate it was.

And Grace, well, she was quite certain of what was going on in Emilin's mind, which only made her feel like that little cutie pie that was getting herself all worked up was too flustered to recall she never gave her phone number to Noah. Too cute!

5 minutes later, Emilin walked out of the bathroom with a confident-looking posture, but her burning ears betrayed her true composure.

'Did she finally figure it out? That this boy doesn't even have her number.' Grace giggled to herself, but she didn't disclose anything.

It would be a lot more fun to watch from the sidelines no?

The more Grace thought such sneaky thought, the more innocent Grace's smile became... both Noah and Emilin didn't suspect anything.

"You're back?" Noah asked, he did his best not to insinuate anything that would embarrass her, something dumb like 'how come you took so long' or 'what were you doing in the bathroom', but Emilin had lost track of time in the bathroom completely missed his goodwill.

"Yeah, how did the call go?" Emilin asked casually as if she could really care less and with an air of sincerity that nearly convinced Grace that Emilin truly didn't know anything.

"Well it didn't go, I forgot that I didn't get her number, oh well." Noah shrugged.

Emilin hummed as if to say, 'oh, okay then.' with nonchalance.

'Thank god you didn't!' Emilin shouted inwardly.

"That's too bad, I'm sure she'll call back sooner or later from the way you described her," Emilin comforted, even though this was partially her fault.

Well, she would just call later to make up for it...

Noah once again felt like Emilin was a great kind person who made good moral support! Unlike Grace who would make him feel like a dumbass for everything he did.

Noah gave Emilin a grateful glance.

Grace who was watching at the side eating imaginary popcorn simply chuckled to herself once again.

Now she could barely tell which one was the true cute innocent little lamb here.

"Then I'll get going first, I have some things to get to, you guys have fun. It was a pleasure meeting you Weiwei. See you much, much later Grace."

"Pleasure is all mine!" Emilin smiled with no stiffness and waved goodbye as Noah felt through the same door he had come in from.

As for Grace, she simply waved Noah goodbye before putting the phone that she just used to send a message to a certain someone down.

'Just what did Emilin do in those 15 minutes for there to be such a big change once again?' Grace was interested.

She saw the potential in Emilin. She was adapting quite quickly, and if Emilin was as good as she thought her to be, Grace didn't mind taking in a student.

Things were getting boring anyway.

This could be quite fun!

After all, she was most confident in her skills in the art of disguise, acting, trickery, and misdirection.

At that thought, Grace started plotting in her mind how she should go about it to successfully entrap this little lamb into her fence so that she would become one of her own.

But how was Grace to know that this sheep she wanted to entrap wasn't a normal sheep but rather a golden magical sheep that had the power to shapeshift?

One day, when she thought back to this day and her thoughts when reaching out to Emilin, who knows what she would be thinking.

Pride in teaching such a monster? Dumbfoundedness at what the world had become? Ridicule at her own thoughts? Joy in tripping upon this little golden nugget that just happened to be the most precious little thing?

Or maybe just all of those feelings at once and then alternatively. 

And this day would be much sooner than she could ever imagine, not that Grace had ever expected such a thing to ever occur.

***

Noah, who had just left Grace's office went straight to the one next door and knocked before going in.

"Oi, Mason, I need a favor," Noah said casually.

With Mason's office and Grace's office being so fucking close to each other, it was a true wonder how they allowed themselves to follow Emilin in the opposing direction for so long.

"Why do you knock on the door if you don't wait for me to answer?" Mason looked up at Noah annoyedly.

"Are you busy?"

Noah took Mason's silence as a 'no'.

"Then that's why," Noah shrugged.

Mason's vein's bulged, but he didn't say anything since he needed to talk to Noah anyways.

His timing was actually quite good.

If not for also needing to talk to Noah, Mason may have very well had just kicked him out earlier.

"What do you need?" Mason asked patiently, thinking in the back of his head that he also needed something from him, so he was going to get back at Noah later.

"Do you have Emilin's phone number?" Noah asked without a hint of awkwardness nor embarrassment as if he were asking for some very important work thing he had to do.

"What do you need it for?" Mason narrowed his eyes, his question was basically a confirmation that he had it.

"I also saw the photo from yesterday you know? Because that dinner was a more formal setting, well as formal as it could get. And that was our first time meeting, I didn't get the chance to ask, I still want to know why she did it. What she was thinking at that time, and if it was with the intent that things turned out like that." Noah spat out a whole load of bs calmly and seriously.

After spending enough time with Grace, he was quite good at that.

That is, in front of everyone except for Grace herself.

Well, every once in a while he could get things past her, but those times were few and far in between, yet another reason he would like to stay further away from her.

  Mason couldn't help but nod his head.

That reason seemed to make quite a bit of sense.

"Then tell me when you figure it out," Mason added shamelessly.

Then again, he had already come to an agreement with Emilin, so it wouldn't have been too difficult for him to figure it out for himself.

But if someone else was willing to go through the trouble, why would he bother?

"Oh, you don't need to ask me though!" Mason seemed to have just remembered something.

"Emilin is right there," Mason pointed at a wall to his own left.

"With Grace. Grace is showing Emilin some of her makeup skills to convince her to come model for me."

'It's already in the bag,' Mason thought.

Noah narrowed his eyes dangerously, if he still didn't get what happened, then he would have to be a real moron.

'Hehe, was I just played?' Noah smiled gently.

'No wonder I felt something off when I looked into her eyes… they were so familiarly electrifying.'

"If she's with Grace, then I won't disturb the two, you know how Grace is, if I go there, she may just chop me in two. Pass me the number and I'll give Emilin a call later."

Mason thought about it and shuddered, sending the number to Noah's contacts right after.

What Noah said made complete sense… but why did Mason feel like something was up?

"Why do you sound so rushed? Do you have something you have to get to?" Mason questioned.

Noah also realized that he had spoken a little too fast to be considered normal and so he came up with some other bs answer.

"Yeah, I have to go to the old mansion later," Noah casually said.

Mason made the face of someone who had just eaten a sour lemon before waving his hand.

"Okay, okay, don't tell me anymore."

Looking at the good results, Noah couldn't help but be proud.

It was still amazing how effective that one line was.

'I guess Grace's lesson was right, you have to know of the other party's weakness to be in full control of the flow of the conversation.'

It worked every time.

Noah knew clearly how scary his old man was from Mason's perspective and so every time he mentioned going to see him, Mason made the face of someone who would rather be at a gravesite than to hear another word.

However Noah wasn't as professional as Grace, while Mason wasn't looking, he smirked like a little kid that had just pulled off a petty prank, unlike Grace who would be unfazed even after ruining someone's reputation with some casual words.