*Beep* *Clack*
The front door was unlocked, and Alex walked inside his apartment. The lights were on, chasing the encroaching darkness of the end of the afternoon.
He looked around to find the kitchen countertop and the area facing it under the chaotic spell of the gifts that had been brought to him in the morning scattered around. And in the middle of the kingdom of papers and boxes, was the disheveled queen who had turned her blue eyes toward him, or rather, toward the door.
She actually had beautiful eyes. Not that he didn't notice before, but only now was he letting himself appreciate it. But he would never say it out loud.
He closed the door and walked toward her as she reacted to his presence and gathered her hair into a chignon. His eyes fell on the movement of her chest before he looked into her eyes and scoffed:
"Still not done yet?"
Sharon curtly responded with a glare that did not hide the contempt from where she had seen him looking:
"No."
Alex's armored skin made Sharon's gaze feel like a passing, inconsequential breeze. His lips curled up with a mocking edge instead:
"Most people would feel ashamed for being unable to deliver what they have boasted about. Shouldn't you be blushing to the point of running away from my house?"
It was Sharon's turn to display a soft sneer and roll her eyes:
"Dream on, I'm not going anywhere."
Then she stopped paying attention to him, the owner of the house. She returned to typing a document on the laptop he had left on the kitchen countertop. His gaze fell on her fingers. They were slim, but not skinny, just like her hand, just like herself.
Alex suddenly frowned, because even though he did not have much hostility against her for being a pawn, she was still an annoyance, an acceptable one only because she was easy on the eyes. So he shifted his eyes away, only to freeze.
Within the chaotic piece of space, he had noticed the boxes and the documents scattered around, but he had failed to notice something else before.
He hurried to the kitchen to open the cupboards, the fridge, the drawers, and each time the sparks in his eyes grew. By the end of it, his annoyance had reached a new peak, and he turned to glare at the blonde.
"Why are my stashes of snacks empty? Why did you eat through them?"
He glanced at the wrappings and empty cups around, his face seemingly ready to display the pain the sight was causing him. And with that, his annoyance climbed even higher.
It was like a mouse had gnawed not only through his treasury, but also through his heart, an uninvited and very unwelcomed mouse. Oh, it was so painful!
Sharon impassively glanced up at Alex, then returned her eyes to the screen of the computer.
"I couldn't go out, so I ate what I could find. And just as well, I managed to save myself some bit of money."
"You!"
It was not so much the cost of the loss that was bothering as the loss itself, as the ravages of the uninvited mouse.
He breathed in, and exhaled, before he spoke in a calmer tone, leaning on his hands resting on the countertop:
"Why couldn't you leave? You have managed to come and go as you please until now, haven't you?"
Sharon impassively replied without leaving the screen with her gaze:
"And a very ruthless someone has shown me the cruel consequences of my wilfulness."
Alex opened his mouth, but failed to come up with a retort, because indeed, after what happened, it would not be a surprise for her to be blocked below after going out, at least if the people he had scolded had grown a brain or two and become wiser. Still…
"Those things were mine, not yours. Taking without permission was stealing."
Despite the intense dissatisfaction on the face across from her, Sharon still remained focused on what she was typing while offhandedly retorting:
"You already see me as a thief anyway, so it doesn't matter."
The blonde's tone was flat, but the screen of the laptop hid the small curve that appeared at the corner of her lips.
Alex looked at Sharon deeply, then exhaled:
"You are worse than a thief."
"At least you did not return to find a dead body in your home."
Alex inhaled, then rolled his eyes:
"Oh, thank you for worrying about me. But had I found a body upon coming back, I would have thrown it over the balcony. At most people will think that one of the many women infatuated with me didn't manage to stand being rejected and she jumped down out of dejected desperation. At worst, some will get a story for dinnertime."
The casual expression he came back wearing returned, and he stopped looking at his uninvited guest who was trying to get him to experience some old people's ailments. He took a bottle of water from the fridge and took a sip to help his blood pressure fall back.
"Aaah~"
He exhaled in enjoyment. When he turned around, he was met with the blue eyes that had been ignoring him just earlier now glaring at him with disdain obvious inside. He questioningly raised an eyebrow, and that got him an answer spat out with distaste:
"Beast! Scum! Pervert! Humph!"
Alex raised his second eyebrow to the same level as the first one, then scoffed:
"Tch! Anyway, with all the meat you have on you, you could have survived on plain water for a long time. What was there to worry about?"
Sharon stilled, then looked down. Even though the ground and her toes had not become visually inaccessible, her chest still took away some angle she was unable to observe. At least it seemed that when standing up, she could not see her knees without bending them or leaning forward.
Her face reddened, and she cursed as she looked up:
"You!!! Humph! You are a beast! Even worse than a beast! Pervert! Degenerate!"
Unfortunately, Alex seemed impervious to the damage. If anything, the curve at the corner of his lips spoke of his enjoyment at Sharon's loss of composure. He took another sip of water, and slammed the bottle down:
*Pa*
"No matter what you think of me, from now on, you will be paying rent, so you'd better succeed in convincing me for the job. Unless you've got more money than you let on before, but do you?"
The words were said seriously, but that curve at the corner of his lips had Sharon gnash her teeth out of impotent rage, and that only fueled the growth of said curve.
With a feeling of triumph, Alex turned around and walked away, leaving Sharon with the desire to curse him, or even to jump on him to beat him up. Then she wanted to beat herself up for having thought for a single second that he was cute when he had been agonizing over the stashes of snacks she had emptied.
*Bang*
She glared at the closed bedroom door, then furiously turned her eyes back to the work that just got even more important. She turned all her anger shining over the living room into energy and furiously channelled it into productivity, leaving only the wind from the balcony and the sound of her fingers hitting the keyboard to accompany her into the night as she glared at the innocent screen of the computer, even though it was not Alex.