19 The Perfect Pair

My face heated up to the temperature of the sun. Nine thousand nine hundred and forty Fahrenheit. Kai didn't move at all and I felt him freeze as we both looked at our new cold visitor.

"Get out of the bed, Kai."

Kai craned his neck backwards and looked up at me and grinned. I finally broke up from the lock and stepped out of the bed, in a fraction of a second. By the time I tucked the stray strands back into my ponytail, Kai was also up on the opposite side of the bed.

I raised my hand tentatively, "It's not what it looks like, Adrien. We were j-"

He scoffed, "Like I care, Ashe. You guys can do whatever you want. The others were asking for Kai. I simply came to call him."

Kai cleared his throat and nodded to me before making his way out of the room. Adrien saw him go, but didn't follow him. Instead he turned his head to look at me.

"Why were you on top of him?"

My hand almost flew to cover my mouth as a laugh tried to escape me. Instead, I just raised my eyebrows, a smile on my lips. "So you care…"

Adrien shook his head, "I'm just protecting my brother's sanity. He already went through a lot. I don't want you to mess up this peace he has now."

I frowned and crossed my arms. I took a step forward before asking, "What do you find so revolting in me? Am I that ugly?"

He paused and held my stare. His eyes travelled down my body, towards me feet and to the side of the floor. He fixated his gaze on something in the corner and I turned around to look at what he had found.

It was the shoe.

He pointed at it and knelt forward to take it in his hand, "This…" he looked up at me in confusion, "You still have it!"

I pursed my lips and nodded, remembering that he had held it before, when he was nicer. I reached forward and grabbed it from his hands. No shoes for rude boys.

"It's mine. Don't touch it."

He stood up, towering over me, "How'd you get it?" he asked. For once, his eyes had emotion in it. Curiosity.

"I-uh…I bought it from a store."

"Then where's the other shoe of the pair?"

I stuttered in confusion. I wasn't very good at making excuses on the spot. I needed time to plan, prepare and jot it down in her mind.

He grabbed my hand and pulled me out of my room. His hold was tight and my wrists thought they were going to die. He led me up the stairs and I followed along like a homeless puppy. "What happened?"

He flung me inside his room before he entered it himself. Checking to make sure I was inside his room, he turned back and locked the room door.

"Wha-what are you doing?"

He stepped closer to me and I felt like time froze. In Kai's face, I had found little imperfections. Little marks, a tilted lip.

But as I looked at this boy in front of me, my heart threatened to slip out of its cage and fall.

He was perfect.

But not perfect for any girl, that was for sure. His face was a deceiving factor, covering all the black inside.

"Stop staring at me," his deep voice ordered me and I cleared my throat, looking away sheepishly. I looked down and saw a hand extended at me, palm facing up.

"The shoe."

I shook my head and held it tighter. "You have no business with it."

He sighed and bent down to reach under his bed. As he stood up, I saw what he had fetched from under the bed.

Two matching shoes shone under our eyes. One in his hand and the other in mine. He held his shoe closer to mine and I confirmed it as a perfect pair.

"You had the other one all along?" I whispered and he nodded in agreement.

"Yeah…but I never put it on."

I unstrapped my eyes from the two shoes and looked up at him, "Why?"

He shrugged, "It never fit."

"Oh."

Well now that I looked at it more closely, the shoes were quite small. Maybe its only purpose was to hold the invitation card. The card…I tried to feel the card in my pocket but it was missing!

"It won't be there. The invitation disintegrates in three days. But the shoe…back in Breakfire Online, there was a final level nobody could cross."

I nodded. I knew that. It was there in the game, I had seen a walkthrough of it when I was a kid. Only a special key could open the final level. No one knew what it was, though.

"Did you find the key?"

He narrowed his eyes at the shoe in my hand, "These shoes are they key. I once tried to walk into the final level with this shoe in my hand. It let me in to an extent but then I got blocked. And I knew that I needed the other pair of the shoe to get in."

Sneaky dad. How hard will he make the game if he put each half of the key in two dimensions?

"What's in the final level anyway?" I asked.

"Nobody knows. We've always wanted to find out."

I gave the shoe to him now, "Well, when you go back to Breakfire Online, take this with you. So that you'll find out." There was a small possibility that Darren will finish making the Beamers before I manage to kill him, so it probably didn't hurt to say this to him.

"I can't Ashe. Only the person who this shoe fits can open Final Level," he sighed, taking the show from me.

We stood there in silence for a while, not knowing what to do. We were merely acquaintances at this time and it was really awkward to stand in the same room. Locked room. Just us two.

Badum.

Badum.

'Stop, heart! Stop it already! Adrien is a folder to be deleted, don't you understand!' I screamed at myself.

Then I heard Adrien gasp in surprise. I got startled a little and asked, "Why? What is it?"

He threw the shoes on the bed and grabbed my shoulders and made me sit on the bed. "Don't push me around without my permission!"

He knelt down and flashed me a crooked smile. Oh dear, my heart.

He actually smiled. What made him smile like this?

He reached for the shoes and slowly with one hand, lifted my right leg. "You want to see if it fits me?" I whispered.

"Yes!"

"Well then, I'll do it myself," I tried to retreat my leg but his hands curled around my ankles and held me in place.

"No. I want to do it."

"But-"

"Please?"

I relaxed after a few moments and contemplation. Fine, whatever then.

I stared at his blonde hair shine under the morning sun as he loosened his grip on my ankles and swiftly, put the shoe onto my left leg.

It slipped on perfectly.

Adrien gasped and looked up at me. Weirdly, I found myself laughing too.

"It fits!" we both screamed in unison. He hastily reached for the other shoe and that fit on perfectly too.

I jumped up and jogged in my place, "Oh my god, oh my god!" I looked at Adrien in childish happiness. He laughed out loud in both relief and excitement.

"10 years, Ashe! 10 years I've been searching and finally I found it!"

I laughed a little more, his excitement flowing into me.

"You are the one, Ashe!" he blurted and my smile fell. My cheeks turned scarlet and I looked at him. His laugh also dwindled down as he slowly realized what he had said.

Both of us weren't smiling anymore, just staring at each other.

Locked room.

Two people.

He cleared his throat to clear the silence. "I mean…you are the key. Yeah. Well," his voice turned dark again and he unlocked the door and left the room. I heard fast footsteps retreat down the stairs.

The door swung in the momentum and I could only stare at it in disappointment. For a moment I thought we were actually becoming friends. But Adrien just proved otherwise.

He didn't even bother to say bye.