0.1 | No Exit from Deception ✓

0.17 | First Attempt At Heating Pasta

"So? This doesn't mean you can go around touching things you don't know how to use and cause warfare in the kitchen. And this─"

"Screw it! I'm getting hurt, Joseph." He noticed her eyes welled with water and soon enough he felt a drop of its warmth melting on his hand. He backed off.

"Sorry," he muttered coldly, which could easily go unheard with the tumultuous rush of his heavy breathing.

There was some different sort of tension on his visage which was certainly beyond her understanding. But what she understood well was his habitual spiraling deeper into aggression at the mere mention of her name.

Joseph extended his arm and opened the fridge door forcefully; she moved aside. "You could have just eaten the pasta." Getting through the crisis, he closed shut his mouth and tilted his head sideways. "I guess we had a bowl full of pasta from the last night's leftover."

"Yes. No doubt it was there─" Ruby said, her voice implying she was retreating and withdrawing.

Suddenly, the microwave door slid down and broke into two major portions, redirecting their attention from the battering to the poor appliance that took its last breath. The ashes were scattered around, much to the dismay of both people.

"This was your . . . spinach cheese pasta. I was reheating it-" Ruby stated and coughed, thrusting the foul-smelling pasta out of the oven, that looked more like a piece of garbage now.

Ruby placed the plate on the kitchen counter and took the glove off, squeezing it between her palms. She exhaled and looked straight into his eyes after gathering her wits.

"Joseph, I-"

He roared with laughter and his eyes sparkled with genuine happiness and a tinge of silliness. The fury that once boiled under his skin, seeped away into the thin air. His back curved as he palmed his knees, laughing like he never had a stronger reason before.
"No praise is enough for you."

"Is it that funny, or you just don't want to fan the flame? Playing it smart, huh?" Ruby asked a mixture of curiosity and fear marked her voice.

He didn't reply but only encouraged her to laugh just like him, by waving his hand. Ruby giggled awkwardly at first and sealed her mouth thereafter. Joseph stood up from the folder bow position, wiping his tears and a trail of faint giggles escaped his lips.

"You aren't angry at me?" Ruby clutched her chest as she closed the distance between them. She was suspicious of the little show of innocence he had put up just after scolding her harshly. How is that duality even possible? She thought.

"No." He made a stern face. "It's not funny at all. How can you play with an electronic appliance when you can't demarcate between its head and tail? Did you read the manual? No, I knew it." He nodded his head, accentuating each word with despise.

"I tried to give it a read but, some words flew over my head. The matter written in the manual gave me a foreign feel as if I was reading some alien lingo."

Joseph who was glaring at Ruby draconianly, completely lost it and a mistake in the form of a 'chuckle' that made his composure shrunk a bit as he controlled himself from laughing again. He drew himself closer to the stringent Joseph.

"You chuckled?"

"I snorted," he lied woodenly, containing his smile.

"What a bipolar man you are! You never fail to amuse me at any time," Ruby declared, crossing her arms and breathing an air of succor.

"But I think it should go another way around. It's you who amuses me the most. Like today, you just ruined the microwave, tomorrow you might want to take over this house and commit some other unaffordable mistake."

"Add the amount to your account book. You will see my dead body if I fail to pay back. Take my word for it," she poured her confidence into her statement.

"I'm not interested in seeing your dead body. You are not that dear to my heart, money surely is." He maintained calmness in his voice.

"For you─ it is definitely. After all, money is the only language you understand and speak." Ruby rolled her eyes, out laughing in a small manner.

"And that's where you are wrong? You, too, are working under me to reap the benefits of her bounty, aren't you?" Joseph countered, placing one hand on the table behind him.

"Yes. I'm here. For sure. But for a purpose that can't be compared with the pleasures of your so-called glamorous life. It's much above that."

"Purpose? What type?" Joseph wasn't interested in hearing more from her, he had inadvertently given her a chance to keep her heart from shattering.

"I want to help a friend." Further, she mumbled to keep the story to herself, "She's much more than a friend to me."

Joseph's eyes scanned her body and head, up and down for a few seconds. He muttered faintly, as if he intended the talk for himself, "What are you? I wonder if you are a fairy godmother in disguise."

Ruby couldn't make a word out of his incessant mumbles. She spoke in an altered tone, "And this other language of yours is also a twin sister of the first one. Don't try using this code language with me. I don't praise the malign gentry who overtheorize things unnecessarily. Keep it real and simple. Now, tell me what did you say, a grandmother in disguise? Oh, do I look like a grandma?"

"Malign gentry who overtheorize things unnecessarily." Initially, he parroted her line with a straight face, and then he hissed out laughter, "Where did you learn that complex thing from?"

She was exasperated and looked sideways, showing a lack of interest. "I was watching a movie."

Unexpectedly, Sarah arrived happily and intervened in the conversation as if she was a part of it from the very beginning. "But we can buy some drop-dead gorgeous dresses for you. It's fifty per cent off this week."

"I'll buy," he exclaimed loudly and faced Ruby again while moving closer to her with a weird determination dancing in his eyes. She had to strain her neck muscles to look at him. He whispered, "Will make a mountain of every clad you lay your eyes on. Then I'll see who wins─── your floating desires or your odious stubbornness."

Ruby blinked, jutted out her tongue, and swiped it over her lower lip.

"Now if you don't come out with ten shopping bags in your hands: I'll admit my defeat."

Ruby scoffed at his thoughts. He considered her a weak-willed person who would change her mind and get tempted by the glitzy aspect of the shopping mall.

"We'll see that," she added boldly.

Word count - 1403

a/n; in the next chapter Ruby will surely teach him a lesson.
an unforgettable one. ♡