Masquerades

Chapter 20 (Part 2)

“That was… hella creepy. Are you some kind of a stalker or something?” she asked to hide her nervousness. The fast beating of her heart couldn’t seem to calm down even though she managed to escape their close proximity. The hidden meaning of Arcane’s words kept repeating inside her head, and she was confused if it was a question or a statement.

He loves me? He loves me.

“You still haven’t eaten much, lunch break’s about to end. Here, eat some,” he then pushed an untouched plate of different flavors of sushi towards her.

The cafeteria food is not that bad and she actually had no complaints about it, but she heard a different chef comes everyday to cook for the Masquerades. The group has an expensive palate and all their meals had to be approved by their nutritionist first, especially Arcane, who is allergic to quite a number of foods. That must suck…

She can’t judge them about their food preferences though, because once upon a time, she lives the same way too. She also had this luxurious life where everything, from her food intake to the type of fabric on her clothes, was closely monitored. It’s not the expensive stuff she misses sometimes, but the care she was receiving.

“Don’t worry, it’s not poisoned. The others were eating it earlier, didn’t you see?” her companion suddenly reassured, probably mistaking the look on her face as suspicion.

She reached for the unused chopsticks and took one piece of spicy tuna. She couldn’t help but glance at the piece beside it with shrimp on top. Arcane has severe shrimp allergies, she remembered her mom mentioning once. She took it and raised it in front of the guy, testing what he'd do.

“Here, want some?”

The tip of his lips immediately arched into a smirk as he gazed straight into her eyes. Cali guessed he was trying to see if she was joking or not. He probably thinks that if she was the real Song heiress, she would’ve known about his allergy… but here she is, offering him shrimp sushi.

“How could I refuse?”

His response greatly surprised her, but she stopped herself from being obvious about what she felt. And as Arcane’s parted mouth slowly got closer to the piece, her hand seemed to move on its own – she suddenly retracted it and put the sushi in her own mouth like some mischievous kid playing a childish prank.

“I changed my mind,” she simply said before looking down at the plate, hiding the disbelief written all over her face. That was too obvious, Calista! And why would he even eat it when he knew he had severe allergies? Is he out of his mind?!

“I’m actually allergic to shrimp… I wanna eat it because it’s the first time you’re giving me something.”

Her head snapped back towards him. “You should’ve said so… I didn’t know.”

His eyebrow rose as he grinned, “good thing you were just being playful.”

Was that sarcasm? Or is he being sincere? God, I hate this guy! I can read him sometimes, then the other times I cannot – it’s frustrating!

Arcane’s eyes passed over her shoulder, as he gazed at something behind her. She once described the Masquerades floor as some sort of a VIP box in a stadium, and that’s exactly what it looks like. Instead of handrails like the ones used by the Populars, this one was surrounded by glass. Its visibility can be controlled and, at the moment, it’s heavily tinted. That’s why they can’t be seen from the outside, but they can see what’s happening on the ground floor.

“Your beneficiaries are waiting for you.”

Beneficiaries?

She whirled around to see what he was talking about, and saw her former co-targets standing near the foot of the stairs leading to where she currently is. She then wordlessly put the chopsticks down and was about to leave when Arcane spoke again.

“If I apologize to them, will you be less guarded with me?”

She looked back at him, “apologize because you mean it, not because you want to get into my good graces. Your apology won’t mean anything if you don’t know what you did wrong.”