Chapter 171 - Vol. 3 - Chapter 36

***

There was a beautiful girl with arranged black hair, while the clothes she was wearing were a pair of simple black jeans that revealed her generous curves, attracting the attention of all the guys passing next to her, walking in the direction of the elegant restaurant, all of them arranged in style.

The young woman had simple clothes with a winter coat to protect her from the show which kept its presence all day long. The young woman's clothes, simple as they were, told everyone that she didn't belong in this place, and she waited in front of the restaurant for someone to arrive.

Her face was touched by a small amount of make-up, looked in a nervous way around the parking lot of the restaurant.

At times she would check her phone that showed the clock being [5:56 PM], about 4 more minutes until the time her mother told her that she should meet someone at the Royal Flower Palace, without mentioning who, but from the way she told her to prepare herself, the hint was evident.

She staged a meeting between Mathias and herself, and with more minutes passing, with the clock approaching 6 PM, she turned more nervous believing that Mathias wouldn't arrive at the restaurant, and wrapping her arms around herself, she heard a loud exhaust of a car which stole the eyes of everyone passing by toward the restaurant.

'Nice car, but rather loud. It must be some rich guy from the town since Royal Palace is rather an expensive restaurant to dine.'

'Hah, I still remember when Mathias took me to this place when he earned his first salary, and we had a nice meal, even though the price probably hurt him a lot at that time. I covered about 50% of the meal since I couldn't allow him to spend his hard-earned money so easily.'

*Exhaust*

The dark-blue sports car, was parked, and the young woman didn't even keep on looking at that car, expecting Mathias to come with the taxi to this location, yet wait and behold, the whispers of the people around the parking lot attracted her attention.

"Is that guy a model?"

"Probably, otherwise why would he flex his muscles on us by wearing that skin-tight turtleneck shirt."

"Ohh, he seems to be coming to the restaurant."

Alexandra who heard the discussion of the people around her, turned her eyes to the parking lot, to see the "model" some girls and guys mentioned wearing a black winter coat that was left open, while his upper body had only a turtleneck shirt that was skin-tight on his body, a pair of stylish black trousers and expensive shoes to match his outfit.

He had ink-black long hair that was left to flow, while his face started growing a full beard, and once her eyes made contact with his green eyes, she was even more nervous than at the start.

Seeing Mathias who looked way different than she used to know him, who would only wear simple clothes on their dates, while in the past he weighed a lot more than the young man approaching her.

'Is he the same Matei, I know?'

The girls without partners started whispering around and got all silent when Mathias appeared before Alexandra, greeting her in a calm, almost professional way.

"Good to see you, Alex. Have you been waiting for a long time?"

"No, not at all. I also just arrived." remarked Alexandra, who didn't have the courage to tell Mathias that she was waiting for about 20 minutes.

"I see, then let's get inside. It's rather cold outside."

Saying that Mathias who observed Alexandra from the moment he entered the parking lot, and saw her wear those simple clothes, had him in conflict, a reason why he Revved his Mustang.

Yet, entering first inside the Restaurant, he kept the door open for Alexandra who followed in a timid way after him, not saying anything the entire time.

'So what Julia said is indeed true. It was Mathias driving that blue car. Did he really change so much after living in Bucharest?'

Taking a seat closer to the windows out of a habit he gained in Satisfy after being one of the patrons of the Raven's Tavern, he didn't feel this place as being anything great apart from having expensive prices, but he picked this place for the meeting because of the deeper meaning it had for him.

The first place he took his former girlfriend when he earned his first salary on a job that required him to manipulate and package goods for their future destination, a job that he as a young boy could do, and wasn't frowned upon by his parents who wanted him to try various things.

Unlike the first time when he took Alexandra's chair to let her sit acting all nervous and innocent, Mathias simply choose to ignore this part and sat down placing his cracked phone upside down on the table along with his wallet.

Once the two got to the table, a waiter came bringing two menus, before retreating and Mathias out of curiosity opened the menu to glance at the various extravagant items this place had to eat.

'Expensive as ever. Well, whatever, I earned myself this meal since I didn't celebrate getting fired.'

"What do you want to eat? I will pay for it."

"Thank you, but I will pay for my food. No need to trouble yourself with this." replied Alexandra glancing at Mathias's green eyes for a brief moment before reverting her look.

"I see. Have you decided what you want to eat?"

"Mhm."

"Waiter." mentioned Mathias, while raising his hand slightly, and not long after, a waiter came to take the orders.

"I want a medium-rare steak, the Wangus Beef, and a bottle of mineral water. As for the lady … "

Alexandra who had the menu opened searched for what she had the first time when Mathias took her, and once she said that item in the menu, Mathias glanced at her while she too matched his gaze.

"That's all, sir, miss?"

"That's all." replied Mathias not bothering himself with the waiter too much, instead focusing on this woman in front of him.

"You know, I will be honest with you. I don't know what to feel about this situation. I never imagined in my mind that I would stand gazing at you in this type of setting. I am only 22 years, but I can tell that life sure has a way of dealing with cards."

"Thank you for giving me this chance to meet you in private, and also allow me this chance to apologize for hurting you in the past.

What I managed to mutter back then, was all my cowardly self could muster. It wasn't even a proper apology." mentioned Alexandra, while looking at Mathias with sad eyes, while the young man in front of her has watched her in a calm way.

"Okay, no need to tell me more. I understand that you are sorry. Let's not make this into some TV drama. This isn't why I've called you for a meeting to waste my time hearing you say "I am sorry". I could be in a different place right now, where people actually matter to me."

"... Still, I am sorry for everything."

"I get it. Alex, do you think I would accept to meet you if I was still affected by what you've done?"

"Probably no."

"You bet. I've called you here to chat, not to listen to apologies or love declarations. So, tell me how have you been?"

"Been good, on a Christmas Vacation since I am in my first year of University." replied, the young woman, looking down at her own lap.

"University? What degree?"

"Law."

"I see, congrats on continuing with your own dream of becoming a lawyer." remarked Mathias who remembered the part where when he was younger in 10th grade of highschool he was talking with Alexandra about their dreams back then, and what she said back then was exactly Law.

"What about you, Matei? Did you pursue the business and international relations degree as you've mentioned in the past?"

"No, and I also don't intend on doing that. Things have changed a lot for me."

"... Why so? I remember you were great with English and French, and you were reading a lot of books about the psychology of people, the classical books, and even the contemporary ones discussing politics and economics."

"And what would I do with that degree in this country? Enter into a corrupt system where I have to do as some pig wishes me to do? Dance to their will? For some money, I will not humiliate myself. No."

"Then?"

"As I told you when we first met, I am on my path of becoming a fighter, an mixed martial artist."

Alexandra's eyes shifted some emotion, as she was still surprised, telling Mathias plenty that she didn't believe him initially, and not bothering to explain himself to her, she just told her how things changed for him.

On another hand, the young woman, also shared some things about her life since they broke up, about how she also did various jobs, in the following year after graduating highschool, as if she, just like Mathias, reached a crossroads which required a lot of contemplation.

"It must be hard, the call-center jobs as you got to reply to all various weirdos, and tell them that they have to connect using the 5G to access certain options in their products." commented Mathias when Alexandra told him she first worked as a call-center agent.

*Giggling* "That's right. A lot of old people called at that time, asking all sorts of at first sight simple things for us, but for their generation, probably are alien words."

"They are just lazy and have dumbed down, not willing to type on YT for whatever problem they had. Pretty sure there's a tutorial for anything in this world. Yet, is still good that dumb people exist, otherwise, call-center jobs would be taken out, being processed by AI's."

"Can't deny this. My second job, where I stayed until I enrolled, was an office job, where I had to write various reports."

"A secretary?"

"Not that, but I was the assistant of the accountant in that firm. What about you Matei? You still didn't tell me about your life inside the capital. Is it as they say on the news?"

"How do they tell it on the news? Being a crowded mess? Full of garbage?"

"Vibrant with life." replied back, the young woman, looking at Mathias's straight face as he was telling some of the ugly sides of Bucharest.

"Ohh, that. Taking in account the crowded mess? I guess you can call it vibrant. As for the "Night-Life" don't bother asking me, I don't go to the clubs, so I can't tell you what it is like "partying" in the big city."

"I don't care about that. I am aware that it's a fleeting thing, as you told me not too long ago, which only later I started realizing."

"I see. Glad to hear that. Now if I may, back to myself. Since moving to Bucharest, I landed a job placing goods in a Supermarket, a decent job for starters.

Then, after I had enough of their mistreatment of the staff and the insane workload that didn't make sense with the job description, I resigned and went on another hunt, this time I got a good job, a Hotel Cleaner at a 4 stars hotel.

That's a whole different animal in itself ...

Plenty of good memories with regard to that place, that I can spend all night telling. Still, I will tell you some of them, so you get a general idea."

Mathias followed next by telling Alexandra about some "unfortunate" events where the rich, old guys, walked around the hallway he was tasted to clean butt-naked, making it a scene about how they were some important people. But to Mathias and some of his colleagues, they were just some drunk fucks, who didn't know what was better for them.

In some cases, he was even forced to get rough with some of the worst cases of being drunk, where they got aggressive, putting them to sleep with various chokes he learned in his MMA training.

Slowly, Alexandra had a general idea that Mathias was in a great working environment, but it all broke as if he was teasing her when he told her.

"Not recently, I received a Christmas Gift from them. I got fired."

"But how? From what you've told me, you've done a great job. How could they fire you not long before Christmas?"

"It happens. Why are you stressing yourself over my situation? I have my plan A and B sorted out to feed myself. There's this new game, Satisfy that I play at a competitive level, which can be a steady source of income, but it still has to be seen how stable it is.

Aside from this, I have my upcoming fighter career, where I want to test myself, and see how far I can go. One can earn good money by fighting."

"Aren't you afraid of getting hit?"

"Not really. You get adjusted to pain rather easily. As long as you put your mind to accomplishing the goals you've proposed to achieve, what's some pain going to do? Worse case if I am to lose, I'll go on my shield, and pass out."

Seeing her face all confused, as if she had no idea what he mentioned to her in the fighting lingo, he give her a small explanation, telling her that his forte was striking, which in general was something akin to a mix of Boxing, Kickboxing and Muay Thai, and compared to his striking, his grappling was still far away from what it should be, and it required extra work to get it in line.

That's why, on the ground was the only place he could be defeated, and he was dead-set on not tapping into anyone, as if his mentality slowly changed with him becoming the Saharan Successor and shouldering a heavy weight on his mind and body.

"I still don't get why you want to do this."

"Because it's fun and I am only doing this for the art of fighting and testing myself and my limits. There's a lot of benefits in practicing a sport, more than you can believe. Apart when you get hurt too much, it means you are not made for the sport."

.

Then the food came along, and it made things quieter between the two, and the time passed by, making the clock show [10:45 PM], and as he was speaking with her, trying to show some interest in her life, where both found out new things about each other, with Mathias learning that Alexandra wasn't truly lost, and had a target in life, while the young woman, learned that the young man in front of her changed, becoming more mature.

"Let's pay the bill since it's already been five hours since we've been here, talking about life."

Saying that, he called the waiter, who brought the bill and both paid for their consumption, unlike what Mathias planned, to pay for Alexandra's food, afterwards, the young woman went to the bathroom, and once there, she glanced at the large mirror while beside her some girls put make-up on their faces.

"Hey, girl, can you tell us how you manage to land on such a handsome guy?" asked one of the girls, Alexandra who was taken aback by their remark.

"He is a friend of mine."

"Ahh, then forget it."

Alexandra shook her head as she washed her hands, and returned back to Mathias with various thoughts in her mind that were a result of her amicable talk with Mathias who watched the night sky filled with snowflakes with a serene expression that made her heartbeat.

"Done already?"

"Yes."

"Then let's get going. I will take you home."

She didn't say anything back, and accepted the offer, walking with one step behind Mathias who remained silent on his way to his car, and only when he got in the car, did he ask her.

"You didn't forget anything in the restaurant, right?"

"It's all good, I didn't forget anything."

"Good. Don't forget to put your seatbelt on." reminded Mathias, who started the car's engine, which from how it rumbled it had Alexandra staring all around herself, and the people who were smoking outside the restaurant who once again took notice of the dark-blue Mustang.

"Matei, I didn't ask you, but is this your car?"

"Technically, this guy became mine, it used to be my grandfather's car, but since he turned older it's harder for him to drive it. So he gave it to me, to drive. Haven't I told you that I barely made enough money to pay my bills and have some extra?

Ohh, I get it. So that group of girls was acquaintances of yours?"

"Indeed, they messaged me to say that you were driving this car, and all of them couldn't understand how."

"Hah, does it matter what I drive in? I bet all of those girls only thought that maybe I am some rich guy, and it changed the way they saw me? Don't you think so?"

"You are right." confirmed Alexandra who looked at Mathias playing with the gas pedal, while the temperature inside the car slowly warmed up, and minutes later the car took off.

Watching Mathias drive the car made her remember a time when the same young man managed to gain his license, when he was 16 years old, and to celebrate this, he asked his father if he could use his car to take her to a nice setting outside the town, which made it for a beautiful date to her at that time.

Compared to that where Mathias was worrying about all sorts of turns, keeping to a slow speed so he wouldn't make an accident, the young man next to her when he got to a straight road which would continue for some kilometers, remarked in an ironic voice.

"If it wasn't winter conditions. I would have had more fun driving this car. But, I can't do much about it. Got to be careful with sports cars in the winter."

She saw how Mathias took the roads toward her apartment block which was on the South part of the city, about 10 kilometers from the Royal Flower Palace, and in about 15 minutes she arrived safely in front of her apartment block.

"You've got a little bit scared at those round-a-bouts. What you thought I would do something stupid there?" said Mathias with a small smile, while looking at Alexandra who didn't budge from the seat whatsoever since placing her seatbelt.

"A little bit. This is the first time I am inside such a powerful car. I also noticed that you are more sure of yourself when driving, compared to when you just got your driving license and almost got us lost."

*Laughing* "True, I still remember that part when I got confused by the GPS, and thanks to sticking to that group we got where I wanted to go. Good times, truly." said Mathias who laughed a bit, remembering the time when he was 16 and had to plead to his father to allow him to drive his car and take Alexandra on an outside the town date.

If Satisfy had adventures noteworthy, then young Mathias, also had plenty to talk about if he ever would write a book in his old age.

"Matei, can I ask you something that you might not want to hear?"

"Hmm?"

"Do you mind giving me your new number? ... You rejected me 3 days ago, but I really want to be in touch with you."

"..."

"Matei, I am aware that I don't deserve this kind of treatment from you. It was you who told mom to have this meeting at the Royal Palace, and I also know the reason why. This is the first place we went on a date when you got your first salary.

How can I forget about those sweet memories?

"You know that we might not have a future ever again, and still place your hopes on this? Just because I've treated you nice, and talked with you? Sigh, girl, I just didn't want to hear that you killed yourself because of some stupid past emotions."

"You might have hurt me, but this doesn't mean I am a monster ... to hold grudges. You offered me a lot of beautiful memories, but also gifted me one of my worst memories ever, which still haunts me."

"I know, I know, Matei. And I am sorry for hurting you. I am to make things better between the two of us."

"..."

"Do you really not wish to talk to me ever again?"

"Mixed feelings." remarked Mathias, who for once glanced at Alexandra with his eyes turning serious, as he watched the beautiful eyes of the young woman being on the verge of tearing up.

"Does this mean that you will give me your phone number?"

"If I give you my phone number, will this make you happy? No longer thinking about stupid things that might harm you?" asked Mathias, in a short manner, to which Alexandra nodded her head like a little chick.

After some minutes of contemplating, while he could hear Alexandra's breathing and heartbeat, he closed his eyes to himself, before extending his right hand.

"Hand me your phone."

She didn't hesitate for a second, as she passed her own phone that she opened beforehand, and Mathias didn't bother himself to check her messages or notifications that counted to a large number, and getting to the Agenda, he made a new contact that he saved with his full name [Mathias Dumitrescu].

"There you go. I hope this made you happy. However, this doesn't mean that you can call me at whatever hour you want. Since I will be busier with Satisfy, and my training, it would just bother me.

Understood?"

Looking at the contacts and scrolling around, she found Mathias's name and tapped on it, after some seconds, the phone in his coat pocket started ringing, and taking the phone in his hand which had an unregistered number, he pressed the answer call.

"I understand that you want space, Matei."

Ending the call, Alexandra who gave Mathias a small smile, said with emotion in her voice.

"Thank you for spending this time with me Matei, and telling me what you feel. Have a beautiful night, and a new year where you'll see your goals achieved."

Her voice trembled, and watching Mathias from her seat, she moved her hand toward his own, and not caring about her attempt of creating new emotions to him, he let her hold his right hand that she was holding tightly.

"Matei, I will continue loving you. I will do everything to make things right between us."

"Alex …"

"You don't have to tell me anything. Take care of yourself on your way home." said Alexandra who watched Mathias's face, and from her posture that was leaning closer to him, having in mind giving him a kiss, but she stopped, not daring to do this, feeling that if she would do that, the small bridge she constructed in those 5 hours, would be burned to ashes.

Getting out of the car, and leaving Mathias staring at her walking toward the apartment building, he sighed to himself, opening his phone and staring at the unknown number, which he changed, adding it to a new contact.

[Alexandra V.]

Taking off, from this area of the city, and driving for about 25 minutes, along the way, he had points on his journey home that he Revved his engine just to release some of the pent-up steam he was experiencing right now, and once he got home, walking inside the kitchen to drink some water, he saw old Augustine all in the dark, watching the snowflakes flow to the ground.

"How was your date? Did it hurt you more than when you found out that she cheated on you?"

"It didn't hurt as back then. Initially, it made me angry looking at her, but over a couple of hours, I spent around her, watching her, talking to her, this feeling in my heart mellowed down a bit. That guy who she cheated on me broke up with her not too long after I departed as if it was all a scheme staged by someone to have her fall in."

"That's on her. She is a dumb little bitch to think that some little shit could be better than my boy. Now she probably made an attempt at making up with you, and confessed her love for you, telling you that you two can be together again and everything would be good. Yes?"

"Mhm, close."

"And?"

"Obviously, gramps. I rejected any of such notions. Still, I gave her one single chance."

"Ohh, what could that be?"

"To attempt to make this whole thing into a friendship. I gave her my phone number, and we will be connected in some shape or form. God knows what the future might hold for me, but right now, I don't want to think about anything. Make space, I also want to stare at the snowflakes."

"Bah, there's only sufficient space for one person."

"Stop bullshitting old man, the window space has space to allow 3 people around."

"In your imagination maybe. Tch, fine, get your chair and shut up. Cristina is sleeping."