Esmeralda was in the middle of applying her makeup when she heard Francis curse loudly before falling down in his seat to prevent someone from seeing him.
Esmeralda turned to the side and her eyes widened as she noticed Mark looking right at her! A small smile suddenly spread across Esmeralda's face as she waved at him, but she was stunned when Mark completely ignored her and turned away to look at the road. Esmeralda brought her hand down in annoyance, and her anger only grew when she noticed someone sitting in the passenger seat of Mark's car!
Wasn't that Arit!?
Esmeralda noticed that Arit was leaning against Mark's shoulder and reading a book calmly, and from how Mark's hand was positioned, Esmeralda could tell that his other hand was on Arit's thigh! That fucking bitch! Esmeralda grit her teeth as she felt a surge of anger fill her! Just knowing that Arit was the one in that car instead of her pissed her off!
That bitch is relaxing like she is in her parlor! Is she trying to show off!?
Esmeralda looked down at Francis with a glare and immediately shouted at him to get up!
"Aren't you ashamed to be scared of your junior! He is younger than you and you're the one hiding when you run into him! Get up!"
"Shut up, you bitch! Just tell me if he is gone!"
"Don't ever call me a bitch! You think you can say that to me just because I refused to sleep with you! You're not worthy of me, so don't you dare talk to me like that! Just get up and stop embarrassing me!"
"Shut up!"
Ping!
The traffic light showed green and Mark put his car into gear before zooming off! Esmeralda immediately shouted at Francis that they were gone and he should get the fuck up! Francis peeked up from his window before he sighed in relief as he noticed that Mark was gone. Esmeralda scowled at the pitiful display before she turned back to finish applying her makeup.
She had to get rid of this useless man and find herself a real man soon. How dare he embarrass her like that!?
"Just you wait. After today, I'll be the one looking down on you, Mark Vanitas."
Esmeralda blinked in surprise as she heard what he said and she turned to look at him.
"What do you mean?"
Beep!
Patrick cut off the call once he was done talking and Mark sighed as he decided that he could only wait for some good news from Patrick. Mark moved his hand and wrapped it around Arit's shoulder and she smiled at him while closing her book.
"Is everything okay? I didn't want to bother you while you were on the call. It seemed pretty serious."
Mark nodded while entering the school building.
"Everything's fine. Just a rat that refuses to show itself. We'll find it soon."
Arit's face fell as she knew that Mark was not telling her everything. Based on what she caught from that call, Arit could tell that this was a much more serious situation than anything Mark had ever faced before. Even Patrick sounded like he was taking it seriously unlike his usual nonchalant attitude.
"Just don't do anything too dangerous, alright."
Mark smiled as Arit said this, and he leaned down and kissed her forehead gently to tell her that everything would be alright. Mark was worried for Arit and Talia, but he was not too disturbed because he knew that the real target of this assassination was him, not them, and the killer was not the kind of person to just go around killing indiscriminately.
That meant that if there was ever a situation where he faced off against the killer, he could be certain that Talia and Arit would not be targeted intentionally.
...
The trip to the school was not as hectic this time as the previous day. Since Mark was driving a car instead of his bike, most of the students did not see him, so they did not swarm him or prevent him from moving because they wanted to get his autograph.
Mark was able to drive the car towards the car park, and it was only after he came out of the car that the students who were close to him exclaimed in shock as they saw him.
Mark already told Arit to go ahead of him, so Arit quickly made her way through the crowd of people that were gathering and went into the school before they could get too much while Mark stayed behind and gave out as many signatures as he possibly could.
Mark knew that if he kept avoiding them, they would become even more desperate and things would get worse, so he decided that he would take some time every morning and give out the sensible requests that some of them had for him. That way, he could slowly make them become used to his presence and they wouldn't swarm him like they were doing right now.
Inside the school, Arit made her way towards class, but she was stopped in the middle of the hallway by Maria. Maria had a contemplative look on her face as she glanced behind Arit to search for someone. She furrowed her brow when she didn't see him and finally frowned at Arit.
"Where's Mark?"