166 Lily (2)

Once alone, Kyro returned to work. His mind wasn't on the task at hand, but he acted like nothing had happened. There had been plenty of people watching, and they all saw Frank's outburst. Gossip would spread this throughout the company in ten minutes, but Kyro didn't want to give them anything extra.

In everyone's eyes, there was nothing that could move him, and he preferred to keep that image. When people thought somebody heartless, they didn't come to bother him for every other thing, thinking to gain power that they didn't deserve.

When lunch rolled around, Kyro checked out what he heard from Frank. It showed up that the younger man hadn't even covered all the misfortunes that had fallen on his family. There were headlines and headlines of how far they fell, his sister losing her fiance, all their friends turning their backs on them, dept collectors seizing all their property.

Online, everything was portrayed as something shocking but well-deserved, a fascinating fall of a prestigious family. Yet all Kyro saw was a family struggling under a pressure with which they didn't know how to deal. Never in their lives had they expected or been taught how to persevere when everyone turns away.

Frank had went from high above to the very bottom, yet he had somehow went back up. Kyro's casual search didn't find anything about how he did that, since the public's interest had long waned by then and nobody reported on him any longer.

Although Kyro wanted to believe in Frank, he didn't waste a moment on it. In the business world, people with good hearts didn't last long. Frank might be telling the truth, or he might be using his story to gain sympathy. And as Kyro had told Sheila before, there was no way to know it until he revealed his face or nothing happened for a decade.

'However, if the company falls, it'll be all on me. I'd have created Frank. He even told me how I'll feel at that moment - I'll know why he did it, but I'll hate him nonetheless. Is this some kind of cursed circle I've put myself into?'

He pushed his hair back and closed the browser. Whatever came, he'll deal with it in the future. All he could do now was be wary and make sure nothing slipped past his eyes.

The rest of the day passed in slow motion, every minute lasting twice as long as it should. The clock became an enemy to Kyro, but he didn't leave. This was his life. He had risked everything for this company, and a bad mood wasn't going to get in his way of doing his work.

For a moment though, he wished he was a bit more like Gale. That guy wouldn't bat an eye at the word responsibility and just go and do what he wished. Like today. No one had a clue where he was currently hiding.

"I'll be leaving now," Lara said, opening his door. "If there's nothing else you'll need of me."

"No, you can go," Kyro told her, glancing at the clock. It was past five and he was free.

Free to go home and think on his mistakes. The prospect didn't entice him, but he closed everything and locked up. Staying here wouldn't change much.

Once he opened the door to his apartment, a cheerful voice welcomed him. "Hey! Welcome back!"

"Hey…" He looked at Iris standing by the door, smiling at him. It was oddly familiar, even if she had never done it before.

His stare must have made her uncomfortable, for her expression faltered slightly, and a light blush colored her cheeks. "Sorry. It just felt somehow weird not to welcome you after always doing it."

'Always? Oh, the fox.' Now that he thought about it, she did welcome him every day as a fox. It had become a staple for him to hear her voice before even entering the house. He would then pat her head, thanking her for waiting for him.

"It's fine," he murmured, taking off his shoes and going into his room to drop the suit jacket. "What have you been up to the whole day?"

"Nothing much, watching TV and such," she answered in a dismissive voice, returning to the sofa where he could see two characters in a compromising position in an office. At that moment, Iris seemed to have realized something wrong and quickly turned off the screen. "Anything happening at work?"

He changed and came back to the living room to wait for dinner which should arrive soon. "Was it something you always wanted to ask?" he wondered aloud, and she sent him a deadpan gaze.

"I'm trying to be nice here."

"No need, I can't talk about private stuff, while saying that I've been sitting at my desk all day long will soon get boring."

"Soon is not yet," she said with a shrug. "So you were bored to death?"

She seemed really interested, and so he told her about how he sat at his desk throughout the day. He made sure to mention all the most boring things like when he shifted in his seat and when he rearranged the documents on his table because they stood crooked and it started to annoy him.

For good five minutes, Iris managed to fake interest, but then her eyes started to gloss over and her responses slowed down. "Yeah, I agree."

"Okay, we'll go there tomorrow then," he acquiesced, wondering if she'll notice. It took her a moment, but she blinked and narrowed her eyes on him.

"That was no invitation, you just told me you were reading for twenty minutes, wondering why all three suggestions were wrong, how it could've come to be," she told him righteously, looking down her nose at him. "Better luck next time."

It surprised him a little. Why was she bothering to listen to something like that? He himself would have fallen asleep after the first two sentences.

"So what really happened?" she asked, watching him with a gaze he couldn't decipher. "Is it something you cannot tell me?"

How… His fingers tightened around the remote controller he had just picked up. How did she know that something had happened? Nobody beside him and Frank knew about it.

"Why do you think something happened? It was just a day like any other."

She instantly shook her head, then bit her lip, looking at him as if deciding on something really important. "You'll think I'm weird, I just know it."

"Weird?" That caught him a bit off guard. Was she going to come up with some supernatural excuse like mind reading or something?

"Well…" She lowered her head a little. "I could tell from the way you walked. It's not something I really paid attention to, but as a fox, I got accustomed to focusing on hearing just as much as seeing. So I could easily tell when your pace changed drastically."

"What if I was just rushing back home," he suggested, a bit taken aback. His walk? What kind of an explanation was this… Did his pace really change that much because of thinking too much about the day's events?

Iris looked up at him. "Something would have needed to happen for you to do that, too. You wouldn't be rushing back without a reason."

"Right," he muttered, shifting his gaze away from her and at the black screen. This was crazy, yet he could accept it. And that worried him. Was he starting to get too used to weird stuff?

Yet how could he not? When he turned back to the girl, she was looking at him with wide, pleading eyes. If he guessed right, then she was silently begging him to not throw her out. Again.

'If you're so worried, why in the world do you keep surprising me like this? Every time I think I got used to everything, you throw another curveball my way.'