01-01-2021(02)

Evening that day, Tom and Messy's date night is on. They roam around the entire city in Tom's jeep, eat roadside foods, and stop at a tea stall on the Brigade bridge to drink tea. 

The two gossip while having tea, watching the people and automobiles that pass by on the road under the bridge.

"Messy, look!" Tom points at a red color rich people's car that's passing by. "How is that car? It looks good, doesn't it?"

"Yeah,  but it doesn't look comfortable to me!" Messy replies.

"I'm not gonna marry that car, you lowlife! I'm gonna drive that  to show the world that a successful person is passing by!" Tom says to Messy. 

"I'm not interested in showing the world anything. The life I have is all that I want. I'm more than happy with it. I can't ask for anything more." Messy says with a sweet smile on her face. 

"To drink tea in a costly cup, to eat in a five star restaurant and to live in a sea facing triplex penthouse, is what I desire in my life!" Thomas says arrogantly. "Just you watch, Messy! That ocean, these roads and all those people in the city will acknowledge me one day. Everything will belong to me, just me!"

"You See that rich people's apartment over there! It will be mine one day!" Thomas says to Messy, pointing at one of the most expensive apartments in the city. 

"Tom, look closely! There is a woman in white, standing alone on the balcony of that rich apartment!" Messy says, "There are also people in this world like that woman whose dreams won't let them sleep at night."

"Dreams that can't dare keep us up at night are not worth being dreamt. I want my life big, not long!" Thomas says, taking a picture of that woman in his mobile. 

They get in the jeep and ride through from one end of the bridge to the other end. When the jeep is about to cross the bridge, the scarf of that mysterious woman in white flows off and lands on Tom's face, blocking his view. The jeep loses balance for a moment and is about to crash into the bridge railing when Messy removes that scarf from Tom's face enabling him to apply breaks to the jeep and avoid the crash. 

"That was close! Where the hell did that scarf come from?" Tom asks Messy while they both are relieving from the sudden shock. 

"Hell if I know!" Messy replies, about to throw it away. 

"Eh, don't! It'll come in handy to clean the jeep!" Tom snatches the scarf from Messy's hand and throws it in the backseat. 

Back at that woman in white's rich apartment, 

"Kate! Kate!" The woman in white, standing in the balcony, hears her mom calling her name from inside the home. 

"Yes, mom!" she replies, on her way to her mom's room. 

When she enters her mom's room, she is taking a sip from her wine glass. 

"Come here, Kate!" she said, putting her wine glass on the dressing table. 

"Tell me, dear! Between the two, which one is better?" she asks Kate, holding two different earrings one in each hand. 

"This one is his favorite! I think I'll go with this one!" her mom chooses one on her own. 

"David will come, right? I know he'll, since it's our silver jubilee anniversary today!" she says, wearing her husband's favorite earrings in front of the dressing mirror, "he promised me that he'll be here before midnight! I made his favourite dishes! Let's have a family dinner!"

Kate just stands there, staring at her mother without saying anything.

"He'll come, right?" Her mom asks Kate with a worried tone. 

"Go have your dinner before it gets cold, mom!" Kate says to her mom and leaves the room. 

"He'll come!" her mom talks to herself, bashfully. 

Some time past midnight, back at Heaven's Mist apartment, 

Messy tries to unlock her apartment's door silently but gets caught by surprise with her mom opening it from inside. 

"In the society, Daughters carry around the pride and honor of their families in their hands. Once lost, those two are impossible to regain. I'll have to reconsider our house rules if you continue to keep this up!" Mary says, looking Messy from top to bottom and back to the top. 

"Which rules are we talking about? Going to bathroom rules, or going outside rules?" John butts in, making Messy smile. 

"You almost got me there for a second with your typical mother act, mom!" Messy teases her mom. 

"For a second maybe, but I did get you, didn't I? Admit, you two! Admit that my acting skills are beyond exceptional! Haha!" Mary laughs, acting so full of herself!

"Get a hold of yourself, mom!" Messy taunts Mary while she runs toward her dad and hugs him. 

"Seriously, one of these days, you need to learn to keep track of time when you are with Tom. It's for your own good." Mary advises Messy, with a concerned look on her face. 

On their parents' insistence, Messy vaguely shares her date night experiences with her parents before she rushes to her parents' bedroom and lies down on their bed flat on her back. 

A second later, John and Mary enter that room, climb the bed and sit each on either side of Mary. 

"You don't know how to spend even a second without Tom around you. Why don't you marry him already? At least then we'll get our bedroom back!" John starts to harass Messy making her cover herself fully with the blanket. 

"Say a word and I'll talk to Tom's mom about your marriage. You two knew each other since childhood. You don't need to get embarrassed over the fact that he is your boyfriend. We don't have any problem with that either." Mary says to Messy. 

"Tom is not my boyfriend!" Messy says from under the blanket. 

"Yeah, yeah. We know." they say, "Tom's your best friend, right? That's what you say every time we talk about him."

"Whatever! Let's just sleep, you two! I'm very tired!" Messy says, yawning from under the blanket. 

"Fine. Go to sleep then. Goodnight, everybody!" John switches off the light.

"Goodnight, dad!" Messy greets. 

"You haven't slept yet?"John asks Messy.

"Dad, don't!" Messy snaps. 

"Alright!" John gets frightened and goes to sleep. 

Back at Tom's home at the same time, 

Tom unlocks his home's door, opens it, enters and closes it from the inside. 

"You're home at last. What's the time now?" a woman wearing round glasses and reading a book, sitting on a folding chair in the living room asks Tom. 

"It's three in the morning." Tom replies, looking at his watch.

"I've been waiting!" She says, closing her book. 

"I have a key to the house. You didn't need to wait for me." he says back. 

She gets up from the chair and walks toward him saying, "Jack has exams this week. I hope you won't disturb his early morning studies." 

"Don't worry. He won't have any problem because of me." Tom walks toward the sofa and lies down on it, flat on his face, saying, "this is my bed for tonight. Happy now!" 

"That's not what I meant! I!" seeing him tired, she holds back on arguing with him and leaves to her room. 

Back at Messy's home at the same time, 

"Who turned off the light?" Mason says, turning on the light. 

"Why are you here, Messy? Today's my turn to sleep here. How dare you steal my turn when I was busy in the bathroom." Mason shouts at Messy. 

"It's your fault to leave the precious spot wide open to go to the bathroom, my little brother. Of course someone's meant to occupy it, you dummy!" Messy says, pretending to be asleep along with the chuckling John and Mary. 

"My life's biggest problems are you and your boyfriend!" Mason says angrily, laying the floor mattress beside the bed. 

"Hey, Mason! He is not my boyfriend!" Messy says. 

"Yeah, yeah, he is your best friend!"Mary and John say in rhyming. 

"That's enough for one night! Now go to sleep everybody!" John switches off the light. 

Back at Tom's place after sometime, Tom's mobile starts ringing, waking him up from a good sleep. 

"Hello." Tom answers barely awake. 

"Open the door, bro!" the person on the other end of the call mutters. 

"Hmm!" Tom gets confused in his sleep. 

"What hmm? Hurry up and open the door! If mom sees me, I'm done for, bro! Please!" the person on the call talks tensely. 

"Jack? You are outside? Tom gets up from the sofa, hurries to the door and opens it. 

It's Jack with style glasses on, dressed up in full fashion sense saying, "Yo! What's up, bro! Mom's sleeping, right? You sure?"

"I thought you were inside! What are you doing outside at this hour?" Tom 

"Coming from a party, bro!" Jack replies. 

"Who wears sunglasses at four in the morning!?" Thomas says, taking off his glasses. 

"Shhh! Mom will wake up!" Jack shushes Tom. 

"Mom will wake up, eh?" Tom smacks on Jack's head quite a few times saying, "Because of you, I'm sleeping on the sofa. I got scolded by your mom. On top of that, if you fail in your exams, I'll get scolded by her even more. You, idiot!"

"Bro, bro, today's math test is a piece of cake for me! Don't worry about it!" Jack says with a smile, "And it's not my mom, it's our mom! Got it?"

Jack goes into his room and says, "bro, why are you still standing out there! You plan on sleeping standing there! Come on in!" and then pulls him into their room by his hand and closes the door. 

Back at Kate's place at the same time, 

Maya worries thinking about her mom, laying down on the sofa in her room without sleeping through the whole night. 

Next day at nine in the morning, 

Tom's mobile starts ringing continuously, waking up Jack, "Bro, it must be your heroine calling! Please answer it, bro!"

"She is not my heroine! She is my friend!" Tom says in a semi conscious state, tapping his hand on the lamp table, searching for his mobile. 

"Umm." Tom answers the call. 

"This is my twentieth time calling you! I thought you were dead! It's about damn time you wake up, Tom!" Messy shouts on the other end of the call. 

"Why are you torturing me, calling in the middle of the night like this?" Tom says to Messy on the mobile.

"It's nine in the morning! Wake up, you idiot! Today is our first day under the new captain. We should not be late!" Messy says.

"What? It's morning already? Shit! Now what do I do? I will be late and miss the chance to impress her by my punctuality! Why? Why didn't you wake me up earlier?" Tom forces open his eyes into consciousness and starts yelling at Messy on the mobile. 

"I'll be there in ten. Hurry up and get ready, you distort!" Messy snaps and hangs up. 

Back at Kate's place at the same time, 

Kate's mom is rising hell, throwing and breaking all the things in her room, saying, "once again he didn't come! Why? Why didn't he come?"

"Mom? Calm down, mom!" Kate embraces her grieving mom, saying, "it's enough, mom! Why do you keep hurting yourself again and again! He'll never come!"

"He'll come because he still loves me! I know he does!" she says to Kate. 

"He only loves himself, mom!" Kate says to her mom. 

"It's not true, Kate! You were never able to understand him very well! You see this ring, Kate? David gave it to me 25 years ago as a symbol of our love! As long as I wear this ring, I will never lose hope in us." she says to Kate. 

Kate wipes her mom's tears, looking at that ring. Then, she gently removes it from her finger and walks into the living room, holding it in her hand. 

"Kate? Kate? What are you doing, Kate?" her mom follows her into the living room. 

She takes a hammer from one of the drawers, holding it in one hand and the ring in the other. 

"Kate? Stop, Kate? Don't do it, Kate!" her mom chases her, yelling worriedly. 

Placing the ring on a table, Kate smashes it into a million pieces with the hammer right in front of her mom leaving her in utter shock. 

"Now you can let go of that hope." Kate says to her mom with a dim look on her face. 

"Kate! What have you done?" her mom asks her, getting depressed. 

"Mom. Love only those who you can control and when that love starts to control you, destroy that love." Kate says to her mom and leaves from the house. 

Tom and Messy are on their way to the precinct in his jeep. 

"Listen, you moron! Keep your attitude down and don't start fights with the new captain like you did with the one before." Messy says to Tom. "Remember, you have to work under her captaincy not the other way around."

"We'll see about that!" Tom replies arrogantly, saying, "you done with your speeches yet? Mom!"

"Asshole!" Messy snaps. 

"Go on in! I'll park my jeep and join the others." Tom says to Messy after arriving at the precinct.

Messy walks into the precinct while Tom parks the jeep in a random available slot in the parking lot. 

As soon as Tom shuts off the engine and gets down from his jeep, a middle aged man in a security guard outfit approaches him, saying, "that parking slot is reserved."

"Yeah. For me." Tom says, "and don't mind me asking who the fuck are you!"

"Can't you see or is it that carefree sense of humor of yours got the best of your eyes, boy?" that man says back to Tom. "I'm  the new security guard to this precinct!"

"So, you do know this is a police precinct but you still don't tell me what the fuck you are doing here, uncle!"

"Who you called uncle, you spoiled brat?" that man shouts at Tom. 

"Who you called a spoiled brat, you uncle!" Tom shouts back. 

"This is no time to play around, boy! Remove your jeep from that slot! The new captain may arrive at any second now!" that man says worried. 

"Let her come! It's a free country, boss!" Tom says back. 

"You don't understand! She is the one who hired me yesterday for this job alone! If she sees this, my job is done for!"

"I don't see her name on this slot! She should have kept a name plate here just like the one in her office! Haha!" Tom criticises the new captain. "Whatever! I'm late! Park my jeep in some other slot while you are at your lady boss's service!" Tom throws his keys to that man while he moves away from him toward the precinct. 

But another person catches it to their both's surprise. That security guard starts trembling, seeing her. 

She is in her early twenties with curly black hair, and is wearing cooling glasses as if she is trying to hide her beautiful yet mean and unkind eyes. Tom, without noticing that guard's shaking, as usual, charges toward that woman. 

"Wow! Nice catch! Do you play cricket?" Tom starts flirting with her. 

"What? What are you doing?" that security guard tries to tell him something but holds back, being terrified by her glare.

"That slot is!" she tries to say something when Tom interrupts her, saying, "that slot belongs to his boss he says and believe me when I say she sounds like a bossy crazy ass bitch."

The security guard becomes a statue unable to move any part of his body due to her dominating pissed off evil aura. 

"But you don't worry! This guard here will be pleased to help you out in parking your car on my command." Tom says to her. 

"I'm a rather busy man and everyone's waiting on me but if you give me your number, I could help you out myself, gorgeous! What do you say?" Tom continues his flirting. 

Seeing her stare at him without saying a damn word makes him uncomfortable. 

"No it is then! Fine! You had your chance but don't come crying at me after you realize that you can't stay away from me anymore!" Tom says angrily before turning back and starts walking away from her toward the precinct. 

After taking a few steps, Tom hears the sound of his jeep's engine turning on and when he turns back to see what it is, he sees her riding his jeep, removing it from the parked slot and parking it in some other slot. 

He just stands there not knowing what to say while she approaches him and drops his keys at his feet, and walks away into the precinct.