Mr Love: Dream Date Chap 7 Start with Goodbye

It took me a full week of daily grinding, completing all the daily quests and doing all the city strolls to finally reach level 30. I was really tempted to spend money to progress but eventually my discipline won out. It didn’t help that I already spent money to buy gems for the recent Romantic Holiday event (Double Seventh or Qixi) so I wasn’t going to feed the game anymore than that. It is really important to set a budget for such games so that while you enjoy it, it doesn’t become an unhealthy addiction, as with any other real relationship. If the other person only wants your money then it ain’t worth it.

Chapter 7 starts really anti-climatic because it doesn’t continue from the events of the last chapter but rather several weeks later. Players aren’t told what happened that night except that you are still alive and well and lost in corporate deadlines. Boohoo. Anyway it seems like this is the start of the second series of know your suitors individually better. If the first series focused on the present, then the second series will uncover more about their past with you. First up is Gavin!

Spoilers ahead!

You were dreaming. A flight of endless stairs before you which you kept climbing. Suddenly the stairs gave way and you found yourself falling into an unknown abyss. You started awake at your office desk. You have been working on the outline for a new TV series called Letters in Time and had hit a roadblock. In today’s age, how many people actually still write letters to each other when there are instant messaging tools and emails? That is quite true, I grew up during a time when writing letters was cool and it was even cooler to have pen pals. And I wrote endless letters to my boyfriend then, now husband, on my various insecurities as his girlfriend. We still keep some of these letters today.

While you were still mulling over the topic, Willow and Kiki hauled you off for an interview for a new recruit. Your studio had become a lot busier with multiple projects and needed to hire new employees. You were shocked to recognise the applicant as your high school friend, Minor, who was also the only person who hung out with Gavin back then. Minor appears to be quite the goofball but you hurriedly agreed to hire him anyway before he exposes more of your embarrassing stories from your past. As his first assignment, he was tasked to come up with a concept for Letters in Time.

Later you sent your quarterly report to LFG and called Victor to update him on your progress. Forgetting that Victor was away in the States for a business trip, your call awoke him from his sleep. However despite sounding slightly irritated, he still offered to hear your report and provided some pointers.

Your next stop is back to your high school. You figured if anyone was still interested in letters, it would be students in high school enjoying their fleeting youth, exchanging secrets notes during classes, confessions of love or even posting thoughts and memories on notice boards. You were pleasantly surprised to meet Gavin who happened to be there to attend to an investigation. Since he was about done with his work, he accompanied you to your next stop which was a favourite hangout place for students to slurp down a bowl of delicious ramen after school. You recalled Lynn’s Kitchen used to have a notice board where students affixed post it notes on it. This could serve as useful material for your show.

As you strolled down the familiar street, reminiscing your school days, you suddenly recalled a scene where you had caught the store owner passing an envelope of money to Gavin in an alley. You were reminded that Gavin was a notorious extortionist and delinquent during his schooling days. You instantly regretted allowing him to join you for the visit.

Lynn’s Kitchen was closed by the time you arrived there to your disappointment. However Gavin placed a quick call to the owner who then specially opened the shop for both of you and served up a meal of ramen. You surmised that Gavin still has such a hold on them after all these years and felt rather apprehensive about the situation. You were surprised to find out that the owner actually remembered your favourite soup base after all these years. The notice board in question was still there hence you asked if the owner was open for you to feature it in your show. He was originally hesitant but Gavin managed to convince him to do so. Later Gavin had to go off so he left without paying. You were perturbed by actions and paid on his behalf. Gavin said he would join you for the visit to school the following day as well.

The next morning, you set off earlier than usual in hope to conduct the interview at Lynn’s Kitchen without Gavin. You didn’t want to further stress the owner with his presence. The interview went well and the shop owner’s wife asked after Gavin. You were surprised that she would do so and later learnt that the money handed to Gavin many years ago wasn’t protection money but rather to repay him for the hospital bills for their son whom Gavin had saved in an accident. Nothing was said about their son but I suspect that he had probably died. Gavin has since visited them frequently all these years.

You thanked the owners and left the shop. Outside you bumped into Gavin who was surprised to see you here so early without him. To avoid trying to explain yourself, you hurriedly pulled him along to school for your interview with the students. Minor joined you for the interview and was really delighted to meet up with Gavin after all these years. Hmm if they were really close buddies, surely they would have kept in contact. Perhaps Minor’s affection for Gavin was simply one-sided.

While goofing around, Minor bumped into a female student who looked distraught. She shared that one of her friends had gone missing for three days. The last she heard from her was a desperate call for help. Gavin quickly set about to investigate the situation while you carried on with your interview. After collecting thoughts and stories from the students, Minor shared about a movie he just watched called Letters in the Drawer. It was a poignant tale of a letter that a father left behind for his child before he died but the child never got to read it until it was much too late. Minor related it to the letter that Gavin had left for you and asked if you had read it.

Memories of a blood-stained letter came back to you. As you had a really bad impression of Gavin back then, you assumed that the letter must have been a threat or warning and thus never got down to opening it. Minor shared that Gavin had asked him to pass it to you back then and he was pretty sure it didn’t have any such sinister meaning to it. Unfortunately you will never know. As you left the classroom, thinking about the new things you have learnt about Gavin today, you saw the familiar silhouette of the missing student pass you by. Without a second thought, you hurried after her.

You followed her into an empty and dark auditorium and after climbing many flights of stairs, you suddenly had a bad feeling about this. Before you could retrace your steps, you were knocked unconscious. When you awoke, you found yourself at the roof of your school building with your hands bound behind you. Your captor threatened to throw you off the roof if you did not cooperate. He also claimed that his sister would be safe with your demise. What? This doesn’t make any sense at all. Who is his sister and what has it got to do with me?

You tried to stall for time by bombarding him with questions, hoping that Gavin would somehow reach you before you plunged to your death. Just as you were about to give up hope, Gavin whooshed in from behind and handcuffed your captor. You fell into his arms, finally safe in his warm embrace. Even before you could collect yourself, Gavin pushed you to the ground and covered you with his body just as bullets whizzed past and ricochet off the ground. Once the coast was clear, he grabbed you and jumped off the building to safety. You clung onto him for your life and found yourself still holding on tightly to him even though you had landed. Gavin teased you about letting go. Embarrassed you quickly let go and he left to take care of the unknown sniper.

As you recounted the incident, events from a few weeks ago flooded your mind. Back then if Gavin hadn’t taken that shot directly at you in order to disrupt a bullet headed towards you, you would be dead now. He didn’t have time to explain matters then, simply barking an order to Lucien to see you safely home. Finally these guys meet each other. Based on the story to date, we know that Lucien and Victor have a contract. Victor knows Kiro is an Evolver but knows nothing else about him. Gavin probably knows who all the Evolvers are as a special ops investigator and have now met Lucien in action protecting you with a force field. So the only person who hasn’t got in touch with the others is Kiro.

Anyway back to present moment, Gavin had taken care of matters and escorted you to the police station to give your statement. He also returned you the gingko charm aka tracker which you have dropped while trying to escape. Caught in your various new feelings for Gavin, you asked him when did he start to notice you back in school. He replied nonchalantly that he couldn’t remember which was far from the truth. Apparently he had noticed you one day caught in the rain under a shelter, way before you even knew him.

After filing your report at the station, he told you the bullet that was meant for you was the same type of bullet as the previous incident. Someone really wanted you dead. He also told you that your captor had never meant to kill you. He was only acting upon orders from others to save his sister. You felt sorry for him that he had to pay for the crime he committed because he had no other choice. Gavin then looked at you meaningfully, saying that he was grateful that he had someone to save him back then.

At this point, you decided to come clean with him and apologised for all the misconceptions you had of him. You also confessed that you never read his letter and whether he could now tell you what it contained. He brushed it aside and said it didn’t matter now because both of you have time to catch up. You had a sudden recollection of the boy outside of the piano room with gingko leaves swirling around him.

Back home, you received a recording from Minor. He had conceptualised the show for Letters in Time – unspoken words that you wished you had said. He cited several examples and later interviewed a caller whom you recognised as Gavin. Gavin said his biggest regret was not handing you the letter himself. When asked what it contained, he said it was a farewell. He wanted to say goodbye to you because he knew you hated people who disappeared without a trace. After your best friend left you suddenly, you left a note at Lynn’s Kitchen about how you hated people who didn’t say goodbye.

That was a surprising twist. I had thought it would have been a love letter where Gavin confessed his feelings for you. Turned out it was simply a letter to say goodbye. A lot is still not said about your friendship with him back in school. Gavin was obviously grateful to you for saving him, how I still do not know. You were wary of him and probably never spoke much to him otherwise you wouldn’t have had all these wrong ideas about him. I felt that this chapter was trying to accomplish a little too much. The whole incident of setting you up to be captured and killed was so rushed such that its sole purpose seemed to culminate in being rescued by Gavin again.

I was a little disappointed in the romance plot if any here. If the writers had intended for players to fall in love with Gavin after clearing up all the misunderstanding, they failed at it. Without actually having had these negative impressions of Gavin to start with, there was nothing to clear up at all. From the beginning, Gavin had been portrayed as your knight in shining armour albeit sometimes overly protective. If you recalled, he gave me the best first impression, and after all the chats, messages, dates and story plot progression, I found him to be a rather boring person.

Gavin would always say the right things, do whatever you liked, be aware of your preferences, encourage you to exercise and use his powers to bring you to see interesting sights. He was essentially a very simple, nice and down to earth guy (ironic since his special powers is flying and wind control) – serve and protect like any other police officer. He would support you whether you tried your best or not and often refuse to let you drink. He was neither provocative like Victor, mysterious like Lucien nor playful like Kiro. He was just very matter of fact as evidenced by the letter he left for you. You didn’t like people who said goodbye so he made sure to say goodbye. Erm…

I’m sure Gavin would appeal to some people, he is after all the most popular of the four guys and he does look really good with his soft brownish hair and golden pupils. But for me, I like a guy who is a little more complex and who surprises me at every turn as I get to know him more.