Page 24

Veronica

“W hat are you listening to?” Shiro lightly jabs his elbow into Veronica’s ribs, the force almost knocking her fork and knife off her grip.

She shoots him a sharp look. “A podcast?” she says, then turns back to struggling with the monstrous-sized piece of pork Mr. Putin had served her.

It’s her second night at Raidon’s house. But the last time she saw him was when he came to her room last night, leaving her with more questions than she came to Russia with. And yet, not a single answer.

One question has been floating around her head since then, plaguing her mind like a vengeful ghost who refuses to leave.

He.

Who was the he, he referred to last night?

“He?” she remembers asking, gazing up at him. “Who is that? What are you talking about?”

But he didn’t answer. He only stared at her for a few seconds, his expression unreadable, then he leaned down and pressed his warm lips on her forehead.

It was just a kiss. A harmless touch. It shouldn’t mean much. She had received forehead kisses a lot of times from Shiro.

Yet his harmless forehead kiss set her world off-balance. Heat lingered where his lips had touched, like a brand, like something meant to stay. Her pulse thudded against her ribs, her body frozen even as he walked away. She should have held him down and demanded answers. But she didn’t. She let him walk away.

And now, hours later, it was still there, the ghost of his touch, but it’s tangled with unanswered questions—who was this ‘ he’ he referred to last night? And why did Raidon refuse to tell her?

“So…” Shiro trails off, cutting into her thoughts. “What’s the podcast about?”

“Love and inner peace,” she murmurs.

It’s all too obvious Shiro doesn’t care for a good conversation. This is his lame way of trying to expel the weird awkwardness around the dinner table.

Captain Gambino isn’t the friendliest guy, obviously. But with his presence at the dinner table last night, there wasn’t a suffocating awkwardness. Tonight, he’s absent, and Veronica and Shiro aren’t so lucky to not have the company of Raidon’s younger sister. You’d think that after one shared meal, she might have warmed up to them. But her hostility—especially towards Veronica—hasn’t softened in the slightest.

When she arrived a few minutes ago, she had a few snarky comments to go around. And every few minutes, from the corner of her eyes, Veronica catches her shooting daggers at her—silent but unmistakable.

The air has been thick with tension ever since. And Veronica is sure if tension suddenly grew into a pair of hands, it would have squeezed the air from their lungs long ago.

“Well, this is about the most awkward dinner I’ve ever had, though,” Shiro finally confesses.

“Sorry,” Veronica apologizes. In the end, any discomfort he encounters here is her fault. If she didn’t drag him to Russia, he would have been having dinner with Rose by now.

“Tomorrow, I’m eating in my room,” Shiro voices, before shoving a piece of pork into his mouth.

They continue to eat in silence. But after a while, Veronica’s eyes momentarily lift to Raidon’s sister because, for some reason, she can no longer hear the sound of her loudly chewing mouth.

She finds that she is staring knowingly at something, or rather, someone, behind them. Veronica would have thought it’s the Gambino guy, but the hairs on her neck have stood up in awareness, a familiar reaction when a certain someone is present.

Raidon.

Relief washes over her as she follows Aiko’s gaze—he’s there, standing at the entrance of the dining room. He looks tired, the weight of it evident in his eyes. Yet it does nothing to dull the power he carries. His presence commands the room, and though unseen, she swears an invisible halo flickers around him, something untouchable, something almost divine.

“Hi.” She waves at him, her smile obvious and wide. His expression softens, and his lips move a little in a failed attempt to smile.

“Care to join us?” she asks, motioning to the table, a vague gesture at the trail of dishes laid out.

To her disappointment, he shakes his head. Her smile falls immediately.

“But, Mr. Putin said it’s your favorite.” She tries to be as persuasive as possible. It’s obvious he doesn’t eat much, or perhaps doesn’t like eating. She wonders why she never noticed this till she came here.

“Wait!” Her screech echoes louder than intended when he whirls around, about to exit the room.

“It’s just pure courtesy to share a dinner with your guest, you know,” she tells him, a little blackmail hidden between the lines.

“It doesn’t count if you’re an uninvited guest.” The comment is made by none other than his bitter sister.

Veronica’s remark, however, seems to be persuasive enough as, reluctantly, Raidon arrives at the table.

Lazily, he drapes his blazer on his chair, pulls out the said chair and lowers himself on it. For the first five minutes, he just sits there staring at the dishes, as if he has no idea what food looks like, as if he has no clue what he’s supposed to do with them.

The longer he stares, the grimmer and darker his expression becomes. While it appears strange to Veronica, his sister, however, looks like this happens often as she just watches him with a mild concern.

And when he finally attempts to turn his plate up to dish himself some food, Veronica notices something familiar. His hands are trembling, and he is doing a failed job of trying to stop it or hide it.

Aiko is looking at him too, her usually mean features visibly softening.

“Um, what’s going on?” Shiro whispers under his breath.

“I don’t know,” Veronica whispers back, keeping her eyes on Raidon. She sees his jaws clench, and his hold on the fork becomes more intense, an attempt to stop the trembling.

Then suddenly, his sister rises from her chair, grabs his plate and serves about the tiniest portion of meal anyone has ever had, then cuts an abominably small size from the chunk of pork on a large bowl, placing it on the plate.

“Water?” she asks him, motioning to the glass jar of water on the center of the table.

“Yes,” he murmurs, his voice torn and raspy. His attention seems to be here only ten percent as he tries to cut a piece out of the pork. And to cut the pork, Veronica can swear it takes him at least ten minutes as the fork and knife keeps slipping from his twitching fingers.

What is going on? Did he not take his medicine again? But it isn’t just his trembling hands. It looks like his problem comes from the dishes on the table.

Finally, after what feels like years later, he lifts the piece of pork to his mouth. But even then, halfway through the motion, he pauses, his gaze drifting back to the spread of dishes on the table. His jaw tightens, face ashen, while his lips press into a thin line. Then, without a word, he sets the fork and knife down, rising to his feet—deliberate and controlled.

“What ha—” Veronica starts, but the words wither in her tongue as he kicks his chair backward, grabs his jacket, and strides out. No explanation, no hesitation. Just the lingering scent of mystery, the kind she fears she might spend a lifetime trying to unravel.

“What in the world just happened?” Shiro’s voice is audible enough to earn a sharp glare from Aiko, who, a second later, also abruptly rises to her feet and walks away.

Veronica stares at the door the brother and sister have disappeared through. Confused, lost for words. Then she begins to wonder, if these questions piling up are a weight she can bear.