It was seven in the evening and Sanya had just left the main building. She stretched her hands up. "Time for a break!"
Sanno, who went to work early at 6 in the morning, had just logged out at 6 in the evening and completed his 12 hours. He had been waiting for Sanya out in front of the main building where benches are lined up. He saw her stretching and called out to her, "Hey, Prettiest Scientist!" He was loud enough for everyone out there to hear.
Sanya was surprised that Sanno had called out to her like that. She panicked and quickly approached him. "Ssshh, Mr. Angeldame, you're too loud!"
Sanno chuckled, seeing how embarrassed she was. "I was actually waiting for you." He said while staring deep into her eyes.
"Why? Did something happen with the chameleon mutant?" Sanya asked, thinking that Sanno's inquiry might be work-related.
"No," Sanno said, grinning. "I want to take you out for dinner."
Sanya gave him a troubled look. She thought of him as a playboy. She felt that her brain cells were debating whether to trust him or not. "Why?" She just asked, raising her eyebrows. "We can eat at the cafeteria, and give us less trouble to ride the train again-"
Suddenly, Sanno took her hand. "Let's just go, okay? It's my treat!" He pulled Sanya towards the e-train platform.
Sanya looked at his large hands enfolding hers. "His hands are a bit rough, perhaps he's a hard worker." she thought, then looked at Sanno's smiling face. She didn't know why, but talking with him took all her tiredness away. There was something in his personality that drew her to him.
After a ride from the e-train and a ten-minute ride in an e-bus, they arrived at a famous local steampunk-themed restaurant called "Griller's Heaven". They sat in front of each other on cushioned seats.
"Good to see you again, Mr. Handsome, what will you have today?" greeted the waitress who recognized Sanno as a regular customer. When she realized that he was with a woman, she raised her eyebrows and said, "Oh, you have someone with you today… Your girlfriend?"
Sanya shook her head. "I'm her workmate." She said, noticing that the waitress had been glaring at her.
Sanno just laughed heartily. He was enjoying Sanya's reactions. "Give us two plates of my usual order, okay?" said Sanno to the waitress, with a wink.
"Alrighty handsome," the waitress said as she pressed the food icons on her tablet. When she walked away, Sanno stared at Sanya, who seemed to observe the waitress's actions. She was looking at how she walks or how she speaks.
"Don't be jealous," Sanyo said jokingly. "You're still my number one, Sanya."
Hearing this from him set her cheeks on fire. She reached out for the cold water at Sanno's right side, and when she grabbed the cup, Sanno's hand touched hers.
"I'll pour it for you," Sanno said, and Sanya immediately pulled her hand.
While pouring the cold water onto the cup, Sanno struck up a conversation, "So, Sanya… I heard you were awesome this morning…"
As she was shocked to hear this, she asked, "How did you know?"
"I heard your colleagues talk about it in the lobby when I logged out."
She thought that it might be Dr. Brown and Dior. "I did okay, maybe not that much…" She said and remembered how Dior told her that he was disappointed. "I think my senior colleague Dior expected more from me. He was not satisfied." Sanya furrowed her eyebrows.
Seeing this, Sanno used his pointing finger to touch the middle of her forehead. "You can't please everyone… don't frown like that." Then he took his pointing finger onto her nose. "Congratulations, my favorite scientist." He pushed it lightly, chuckling.
"Ahhh, my nose!" Sanya said while pushing his hand away from her face. "Sanno, you-"
"There! You should call me informally." Sanno said, giving her a sweet smile. "I was always calling you Sanya, so don't call me Mr. Angeldame.���
"Fine…" She said, pouting.
"Ah, I almost forgot, I'm going to give you something," Sanno reached out for his sling bag. It was a small, yellow box tied close with a pink ribbon. "Here's a congratulations gift."
"Oh, you don't have to-"
"I want to, Sanya." He tugged her right hand and placed the box in her palm. "You can use it for work."
Sanya was about to open the box when the waitress returned with plates on her hands.
"Two plates of grilled duck meat," the waitress said while putting down the plates on the table. "Call me if you'll order more," she said, smiling at Sanno while glancing at Sanya just to glare at her for a short while. She strolled away from them as she was called by other customers.
"Open the box as soon as you get back to the office," Sanno said while helping Sanya to cut her duck meat. "Let's celebrate and eat now. Congratulations to my favorite scientist and the future Head Scientist of D.M. Cadre!"
"Hey, keep your voice down!" Sanya said while panicking a little. "I haven't even started my experiment!"
The two of them shared a heavy dinner, and after chatting for some hours, Sanno led her to the e-train going back to D.M. Cadre Research Facility, while he went back to her mother's condo.
Sanya was so inspired by their dinner date that she was determined to continue revising her proposal. She used her office computer that was connected to the D.M. Cadre's library to easily search for journals. A lot of ideas came rushing into her mind, and she typed in sentences rapidly. After two hours, she had almost finished revising it.
"Oh, I forgot Sanno's gift," she said, bringing out a cute box. She untangled the ribbon and took out the cover. "Whoa… This is so nice…"
Inside the box was a gold-colored, mini USB shaped like a heart and attached to a gold necklace chain. Sanya slowly took it out from the box and stared at it from all angles. She was wondering why Sanno was so kind to her, but she was also dealing with it positively by thinking that perhaps it was her intelligence that he liked about her.
Sanya decided to use her new USB and tucked it into her computer.
---
"Caught you, D.M. Cadre," Sanno sat comfortably in his cozy, gaming chair inside his room at her mother's condo unit. He grinned as he saw the very long list of exclusive files and documents being copied into his computer.