The Psycho's Game [GxG]

t h i r t e e n

Ruhi blinks at the ceiling, body tired and eyes still sleep heavy. It's probably around eight or nine considering the sunlight streaming into the room, but she's in a way too comfortable position to reach out and check her phone for the exact time. Hopefully it's not too late so she can still have a swim in the pool attached with the suit. She saw it last night and would have gone in if Gracyn was civil enough to let her out of the bed.

Speaking of the beast, Ruhi pats the mattress on the right side to feel it cold. She faintly remembers Gracyn being in the room till Ruhi had begrudgingly taken a shower at three in the morning, but had collapsed in the bed right after to see if Gracyn had stayed the night. Since the room is Gracyn-less, Ruhi strains her ear to hear the sounds of faucets running in the bathroom.

When she sees the bathroom door open in her peripheral vision, Ruhi turns her head to face a freshly showered Gracyn. As an obvious reaction, Ruhi's brain short circuits.

Gracyn Shaurya, who Ruhi thought only existed in suits and blazers, is in a tank top and shorts. What on God's green earth?

"Cassia?" Gracyn gives a quizzical look, sweeping her fingers through her wet hair. The hair slicks back and Ruhi can see droplets of water falling of the black strands and slowly seeping into the tank top. "Any reason you're gawking like that?"

You're in everyday clothes, is what Ruhi thinks. "So much skin," is what she says.

Gracyn's questioning look turns into that of absolute amusement, brows raising and lips stretching into something more than a teasing smirk. "You're this dumbstruck because I'm showing so much skin?"

"Shut up! I've just never seen you in casual clothes before."

"You saw me in nothing last night."

Ruhi feels her face burn up, the heat creeping towards her neck. "I told you to shut up," she yells indignantly. In turn, Ruhi gets to hear Gracyn chuckle. What the actual hell? "Shut up! Why are acting so out of character all of a sudden? Stop it!"

Gracyn covers the distance between, walking over to the bed and pressing her cold palm on Ruhi's face. "Your face is so warm," Gracyn grins, fucking grins, "are you blushing?"

"As if."

"Funny how you don't like it when I'm bring nice," Gracyn sits face to face with Ruhi, who groans as if she knows where this conversation is heading. "Ah, Cassia, you like it when I'm being mean?"

"Why are you suddenly running your mouth so much?"

"Not what you said last night, you know, when you were begging and crying–"

Ruhi picks a pillow and slams it on Gracyn's face, the latter's sentence coming to a halt. She can hear Gracyn snicker as she climbs off the bed and heads towards the bathroom. "You're an A-grade sadist, Shaurya. Shut the fuck up already."

"Don't be a sore ass loser, Salerno."

Ruhi groans, walks back to the bed, grabs a pillow and tries to suffocate Gracyn with it.

●●●

When Ruhi slides opens the door into the pool area inside the suite, the first thing she sees is a guy leaning against one of the pool walls in a corner. The water covers his body from waist down, eyes indifferently settled on Ruhi. She doesn't sense danger or malice, but the stare unnerves her.

Ruhi thinks of calling for someone, then thinks of asking what the hell the dude is doing here, and then thinks of getting the hell out of the room. But she knows it's the master suite, reserved specifically for the owners, and there's no way of getting into the room if Gracyn herself hasn't given the guy a keycard.

After the guy is done regarding Ruhi, he tilts his head a little and gives an apt response.

"Huh."

The sound makes Ruhi frown. "Do we know each other?"

"No," the guy says as he pushes himself off the wall and moves forward in the water. "But you're the reason why she was roaming around Delara till five in the morning."

"Who?"

He opens his mouth, closes it while he thinks about something, and then replies with, "Gracyn." For some reason, Ruhi feels like the name comes out all weird from the guy's mouth, slightly like a question and with a lack of finality that shouldn't be there when someone's name is spoken out loud.

"But why?" Ruhi's eyes follow the guy's movement in the water, slow and idle. "I saw her coming out of the shower this morning."

"She doesn't like to sleep with her one-night stands," says the man as a matter-of-fact. Ruhi feels something strange and decides to blame it on calling the guy a man while he looks as if he's younger than her.

"And you'd know that because?"

"I just would," the guy pulls himself up from the pool, "and also because I'm not a moron."

"Any chance you both are related?" Ruhi asks, her eyes scanning all the features in the boy's face that are awfully similar to Gracyn's: the rudeness in the corner of his lips, the way he talks, the gray eyes that shine blue in the light. "You both act like something crawled up your ass and died there."

The familiar eyes turn cold in a blink, indifference replaced with warning. But when Ruhi thinks that the boy in front of her is ready to bare her teeth and bite off her flesh, he schools his expression into something very civil and very cruel. His lips twitch up just a fraction.

"Don't bother returning the clothes she let you borrow. Keep it as a souvenir, yeah?" The voice drips with patronization. "Hope you had an awesome time with her last night and some other girl can have another awesome time with her tonight."

Ruhi's nails dig into her palm as she clenches her fist. Before she can tell the guy that she doesn't take advice from wet rats, the door behind her slides open. With a soft sigh, Gracyn enters the pool area and stands beside Ruhi.

"You two have finally met, I see." Gracyn's voice sounds heavy with a single emotion, and that emotion suspiciously feels like regret. "I'll have to introduce you both anyway." Another sigh follows the sentence, as if standing here alone is sucking away her life force.

"Shiv, meet Ruhi Salerno. Daughter of Rosalié Sagaz of SagazSpace and Anthony Salerno of Salerno Technology  Limited."

The guy, Shiv, simply nods.

"And Ruhi, meet Shivan Shaurya. My brother."

♤♡◇♧

A/N

What better way to meet potential in-laws other than insult each other, eh?

(Potential is underlined because no one ever knows when one of these idiots will absolutely fuck everything up, btw.)