022

The sun began to shine into the mansion in which Melody Harm, Jack Dream and Elisabeth Adams were having their last breakfast before they would try to infiltrate Harm Incorporated, so that they could steal important information to use as a weapon to bring the mega company finally down from its throne. At first, Jack only accepted to help Melody out of empathy towards her, but not because of the guilt, but because he actually felt something. He wanted to know why and thus accepted her request to "kill Harm Incorporated".

While sitting at the table with Melody and Elisabeth, he couldn't help but wonder when the next time would be, of them just sitting together, enjoying a meal and talking about trivial things. Jack sat on the one End of the table, Melody to his right and Elisabeth to his left.

Melody was as beautiful as ever, however since yesterday she looked different. She asked Elisabeth to do something with her hair, she wanted it to be cut short. Her unique blue and green stripes were gone too, and her brown hair was barely reaching neck length. She said her reasoning was that it would stand out too much and that with her unique hairstyle everyone would recognize her the moment they saw it. Jacks response to this was a simple "fair enough" but he felt like there was more to this than what Melody told him, after all even he knew that a girl hair was sacred.

*SLURP*

The person on his left was slurping up her drink loudly, while visibly having a hangover from drinking too much the night before. Elisabeth's hair was extremely messy and untamed and she was wearing sunglasses while leaning on her right hand, trying to not fall into the food in front of her. She tried grabbing her cup, missed a few times, until she finally got a hold of it and took another big sip of the green liquid, which she always carries around with herself.

Over the two weeks they lived here Jack had learned a lot about Elisabeth's odd habits, one of them was this strange green liquid she always drank, which turned out to be modified green tea. The leaves for it she grew herself and modified them genetically in a way, so that they were able to calm her down, while handling dangerous plants. One of these plants could lead to one acting hyperactive, like the first time Jack met her.

She always pledged on her green tea being her life essence and bragged about how great its healing effects were. However to Jack it just sounded like a drug so he always politely turned Elisabeth's offer down to taste it, even though she continued to pursue him to take a sip to this day.

Today was the day. It would all end within the next week or so, depending on what they would find and how quickly the media would catch on. For Melody, it would be over as soon as her safety was guaranteed. He promised her that after this whole scheme was over, they would be together as a couple and spend their days together with happiness, helping each other in any way possible. That wasn't a lie, it just wasn't the entire truth.

He still had that conversation with the director lingering in his head. The director himself said that he planned on becoming the new leader of the underworld, after Harm would be gone. However Jack's plan was to prevent this from happening. He would be the next leader and in turn he would bring the whole system to fail, he planned to destroy the whole criminal system, so that something like his fate would not happen again. Of course he knew that wouldn't happen, but at least he could lower the number of people having to live out such a cruel life.

However doing such a thing, didn't mean that Melody would need to be involved. She had become too important for him, to let her get into dangerous situations. He knew that once he told her she wouldn't be happy with it and would try to stop him, so he planned to tell her once they had the data.

- Let's do something together, let's have some fun before it all goes down!

Melody seemed exited and with the look on her face both Elisabeth and Jack knew they couldn't win against her.

- Fine, what do you want to do?

Melody seemed even more content after Jack asked her for her opinion.

- I want a movie night!!!!

...

- What?

Elisabeth was the first one to react. After all Jack and Melody would need to do a heist tonight, so watching movies was out of the question.

- Of course not tonight, but we could lower the curtains and simply pretend that it's night! It would be fun!

- Okay, but why?

- Well, I was always a big movie fan, but I didn't get to watch many movies, just a few when I was little. However watching these movies gave me such a warm feeling, it was like I was in another world, far away from my father...

There was an awkward silence, it was a very sensitive topic, so Jack quickly responded to avoid Melody thinking about it too much.

- Sure, it sounds like a lot of fun! I have never watched a lot of movies, so I am down for it.

- Yeah, let's do it... Dimming the room sounds about right for me...

Elisabeth's voice was plagued by her hang over, however she seemed happy for Melody.

- Here, let's watch this!

They had gathered in the room with the fireplace, where Elisabeth placed a huge flat screen for them to watch the movie. They had shut down the curtains so it was completely dark, the only light source came from the candles placed around the room, creating a comfortable atmosphere.

Jack and Elisabeth had already sat down on the big sofa and got comfortable with some pillows and blankets. Melody was standing in front of them, proudly presenting the movie she wanted to watch. Jack had never heard of it, but judging from the cover it would be the most sappy romance movie he had ever seen. However looking at Melody shining brightly, neither him nor Elisabeth were able to turn Melody's movie down. He sighed and nodded, to which Melody seemed to explode with happiness. She put in the movie and snuggled in between Jack and Elisabeth.

Well, it's good for her to feel this happy, after all tonight she would need to go to the server all alone. Well it's not like I don't trust her to do it, however I can't help but worry about her. Worry? So that's what that feels like...

Not even halfway through the movie Elisabeth fell asleep and Melody tightly hugged Jack, with her eyes glued to the screen. Jack's prediction was correct, it really was extremely sappy. However, he was invested to the story, so maybe it wasn't as bad as he thought.

- Hey Jack. Please don't leave me...

- What are you talking about Mel, I won't leave you. I promise.

- I want you to stay... Please stay...

- Of course I will, what's wrong Melo-

He felt something wet on his chest, where Melody buried her face. She was crying. He hugged her and stroked her back lightly. He tried to comfort her with all he had, but he knew all he could do now was being by her side.

Of course she would cry, after all, it could mean the end, for not only their relationship, but for their lives as well. Of course they never spoke about that possibility, yet it was lingering in the back of their head. With what harm had done in the past, it was not out of the question for them to be killed if their heist got busted.

She cried herself out at his shoulder, they didn't even get to see the end of the movie. After a while, Melody had tired herself out enough to fall asleep in Jack's arms.

Without the context it would have been a sweet scene, however now Jack felt an even bigger burden on himself. He looked at her and softly went with his hand through her hair. He smiled, but at the same time felt like he was being crushed. In what kind of a cruel world did they live, so that such an innocent girl had to live through so much hardship?

Looking at her sleeping face, he swore it to himself. No matter what would happen, he would protect her no matter the cost and be it his own life. With that he himself decided to sleep for a few hours, so he would be prepared for what would come their way later that night.

Our plan will succeed, it has to... It just has too...

With these thoughts he fell asleep with an uneasy feeling, yet high hopes for what was about to come their way.