187 The Scandal (2)

"What do you want to talk about?" Kyro asked after a long while. His voice was soft, but she could still hear him through the wall.

'Is it too late to call it off?' It probably was, but it was way too awkward. Iris hugged herself in the water, feeling warm and uncomfortable at the same time. There was something inherently wrong in talking with a guy while in a bath.

Even though he was behind a wall, Iris still felt like she was lying naked right next to him. It didn't matter that she had yet to take off her clothes. There was just something about taking a bath that made all the wrong associations form in a person's mind.

"Why did you leave me?" she asked in the end. Her discomfort wasn't going anywhere, and the awkwardness was only growing the longer she stayed silent. In other words, she didn't have much of a choice. Something had to be said.

Silence reigned for a time, then she heard Kyro sit down. "I needed to rush to the company. There was no time to take you."

"And after that? You didn't think to ask what happened?"

"I didn't believe Gale would do anything to you," Kyro answered after another silence.

"You believed, I see…"

But she didn't see. Iris couldn't believe he was actually spouting such rubbish and expecting her to believe it. If she wasn't currently in a bath, she'd be all in his face, ready to tear his eyes out. He had the right to not care about her, to throw her out since she was a freeloader, but saying such childish excuses was too much.

Did he think she was just going to accept it because it was him who said it? Because she was too afraid to be forced out?

He was wrong then. The more she came to care about him, the more she realized that she couldn't live with a person that didn't feel the same way. Strangers could freely lie to one another, acquaintances and friends could keep things away and embellish the truth, but best friends and romantic partners had to share things as they were.

What was an upgrade in a relationship worth if it didn't come with a level up in what people could freely share with one another? In Iris' eyes, if a person couldn't tell everything about themselves to their best friend, then they weren't best friends in the first place.

"Are you angry?" Kyro asked when she didn't say anything more.

For a moment, Iris debated if she should tell him the truth. "Thinking whether I need to get up now to claw your eyes out, or if it can wait till I'm done with the bath."

"That's probably a yes…" He groaned at that moment, and she could almost see his face scrunch up as he thought of a way out.

After giving him a moment to stew, Iris spoke up again. "Not for the reason you think, though. Next time just tell the truth or say nothing. You're not a person who does things at random. If Gale said he didn't think about it, I might believe it. But you? Not a chance."

A bitter chuckle came from behind the door. "Is this the case of my own reputation coming to bite me?"

Iris didn't say anything in reply. His reputation was of little concern to her. She knew him from his everyday actions, and he was always meticulous in his plans. If he found a pet, he did every little thing necessary to find the owner and then acclimate the pet to its new home.

If he knew he had guests, he not once forgot to increase his dinner order. If he thought someone had entered his house, he even left it to make sure that it was checked by professionals for anything.

There wasn't a time that he forgot anything. Even if he was worried about his plan when leaving Gale, he would have still remembered her. It was simply in his nature to know where all his cards lay.

But he didn't want to tell her. Even when she asked him face to face—there was just a single wall between them—he still refused to say anything. Only half-truths left his mouth.

Iris took off her clothes and picked the shower head to wash herself. As relaxing as it was to just lie in the warm water, she didn't want to risk falling asleep. Even if her mind was filled with questions over why Kyro was keeping the truth away, she was past the point of exhaustion. At any moment, she could just drop asleep.

Once she left the bath and dried herself, she realized that she had no clothes here. Again. With a sigh, she picked Kyro's bathrobe and wrapped herself in it.

When she opened the door to leave, she noticed a shape sitting by the wall. Kyro looked up at her, then turned his head away. "I'll tell you most of it tomorrow, okay?"

"What's so special about tomorrow?"

Iris didn't want to let him go this easily. It would be good if he really explained everything, but she had a feeling that it might be just a delaying tactic. For all she knew, he might not even come back home the next day.

"I have my reasons." He glared over at her at that moment. "Why are you still standing here? Aren't you tired?"

"Mhm…" Iris was tempted to retort, but she was indeed barely standing on her feet. If they got into some kind of staring contest, she would certainly lose.

'Might as well leave while I'm still winning then.' She looked down at him and strode away in the direction of her own room.

When she looked at the bed, she realized that her pajamas were still at Gale's, along with the rest of her clothes. She didn't have anything here besides the wet with which she had come.

After frowning at the bed for a moment, she bolstered her own courage and left the room. Kyro was standing up at that moment, and when he noticed her, he swiftly entered the bathroom. Iris scoffed at him and went to his room with a rapidly beating heart.

While he wasn't present, she quickly stole a long T-shirt and ran away. In the confines of her room, she changed and looked at herself with part mortification part excitement. They weren't dating, and might not ever do that if he continued down his path of silence, but she couldn't help the giddiness that came from doing something that had to happen in almost every romance flick set in modern times.

With a smile on her face, she lay down and fell asleep.