Test of Strength (13)

Once the dumplings were ready, Iris and Kyro sat down to eat. Over the table, she asked, "There's little information about Gale, is that good or bad?"

"You're reading on the wrong website then. The business world should be abuzz with questions about what his appearance will mean for Dioscuri and everyone else."

"Mhm…" Iris swallowed a dumpling before speaking. "Is he returning for real? Or you're planning some sort of scheme?"

"Up to Gale. I kind of remember him sharing some ideas, but we were both half-drunk by then, so not too sure." A smile tugged at his lips when he saw disbelief in Iris' gaze. "What's with that look? If it's something I'll need to know, he'll tell me. Otherwise, we'll be working on our own tasks."

Iris found it quite amazing how they were fine with being in the dark of what the other planned. It was like they never even entertained the idea that the other could make a mistake or do something wrong, let alone betray them.

After breakfast, they decided to watch a movie, but Iris found it sleep-inducing. The ordinary action flick was exactly as advertised; there was not a single unique feature about it. Yawn after yawn forced itself out, until Iris could no longer bother to try and stifle them.

She yawned widely and let herself fall to the side. Kyro was sitting there, and her head landed on his knees. There was no way it could be comfortable, but she wanted to find out what it was like.

Her tightly squeezed shut eyes flew wide open when a hand landed on her hair. She looked up into Kyro's smiling face. "Didn't you just get up?" he asked in a soft voice.

"Mhm…" She closed her eyes, enjoying the gentle massage of her scalp. This kind of resting, it was a lot more enjoyable than she'd thought. "So what," she murmured after a moment.

"Then sleep," he teased her, his fingers tracing figures on her cheek.

It grew hot under his touch, but Iris refused to open her eyes. "I will," she told him. There was no way it would happen if he didn't stop, but he might not know it.

For the next few minutes, Iris pretended to rest, her teeth clenched, but Kyro seemed to have lost any interest in the movie. He was playing with her hair one moment, then tracing her features with his finger the next.

Everywhere he touched, Iris' skin tingled. In the end, she couldn't take it anymore and swatted his hand away. "Let me sleep!" she ordered with a glare up at him. "Stop pulling my hair!"

He chuckled at that, then bent down to steal a light kiss. "Weren't you playing the sleeping beauty this time?"

Iris pushed herself up with a huff, pulling away from him. She thought to say something, then just shook her head; his sentence wasn't worth a reply. With righteousness, she stood up and left the living room. "I'm going to sleep," she informed him from the bedroom door.

Her answer was another laugh. There was no mistaking the mirth playing in Kyro's eyes as he watched her.

In the bedroom, Iris fell on the pillow face first. How was it that every time she tried one of the supposedly romantic things, she ended up the first to retreat due to embarrassment? How could other people do it? She just couldn't understand it.

When she came back out in a few hours, they played some games—with her losing nine out of ten times, and that one won only because Kyro was being nice—and then she cooked dinner. Kyro helped with the washing, but not much more.

In a blink of an eye, another day arrived, and Iris was back to being home alone. Well, if she didn't count Lucy. The cat was napping on the sofa, curled up in the corner. He didn't seem to have changed much in character, still sleeping the majority of his time away.

Late in the morning, Iris planned to go and check her email, but her phone began to ring. The caller was Lily, so she picked up right away.

"Why would you go and piss off Homeland Security?" a male voice asked, and it took Iris a moment to recognize it as one that belonged to Gale. "I though I told you that passport will work for normal occasions, but not extremely deep scrutiny."

"What?"

His words made no sense to Iris. What Homeland Security? She hadn't even left the house but for that party yesterday! She hadn't even met anyone that worked for the ministries!

"Wait, let me guess, you have no idea what I'm talking about, do you?"

"Yes…" Gale's tone was a tad condescending, but it wasn't like she could refute him. She really had no idea what he was talking about.

A long sigh came from the other end. "I really have no idea how Kyro deals with this. To put it simply, you're in deep shit. Do not, under any circumstances, meet with any officials. Run and hide if you have to, but don't get taken. Even my people got implicated because of you.

"But who would have thought that you could piss of Homeland Security just like that. I really want to know what you did. The time I raised their ire, I did something really spectacular, but you… It's quite disappointing if you ask me. You need to get better at this, like seriously."

Gale fell into a rant which went in directions Iris couldn't even come close to following. She barely managed to grasp that something really bad had happened when he began scolding her, and then making it all look like a joke. What was the situation then?

"Can you just tell me what happened?" she asked, giving up on trying to make sense of his thought process. "Short version."

"You pissed off someone important and ended up on the list of threats to the country. It's quite an achievement, I dare say. If it were me—"

"Gale!"

"Right, right. Don't open doors to any strangers, or you'll be taken for questioning. That will end up with a grand mess that even I wouldn't know how to start solving, so just don't, okay? I'll call Kyro after, so just stay still and don't do anything stupid; we'll think of something."

"Right," Iris agreed, forcing her words to sound strong. After a few more warnings, Gale ended the call, and Iris took a few steps back to drop on the sofa. A shiver racked her body as she imagined uniformed men kicking the door open and dragging her out.

No, they couldn't come that fast. It was fine. Kyro and Gale were invincible, so nothing would happen to her. But even as she thought that, her mind brought up Dioscuri and what happened to it. The two men were great, but they weren't unbeatable. And this time they'd be faced with a country's internal security ministry.

As she thought that, the sound of a car came from the outside. As horror stole the color from Iris' face, the car's engine was killed, right outside her house. The little gates were opened, and the doorbell rang though the silent house. Its light, cheerful tune was like a mockery of what Iris was feeling.

"Open the doors. We have reason to believe that you're harboring a dangerous criminal."

The strong male voice said more, maybe even who had come, but Iris could not hear any of it. The only thing in her ears was the sound of her heartbeat.

Thump. Thump. Thump.