It was mid-afternoon and Joseph took a half day despite of ballooned workload and many more events to be timelined. Mrs. Warner, had no reason to stop him since he never asked for one in years.

With the sun struggling to shine through the multiple layers of foggy clouds, the place seemed abnormally deserted. Joseph assumed everyone to be at work as he ran his exhaustion-clogged eyes at the solemnly silent houses.

His legs throbbed on the hard pavement, and he wondered what Mrs Warner would have thought about his unprofessional departure. Nevertheless, he had much important work on his hands.

Today, I will teach her effective techniques to learn new words. Enhance her communication skills. Lessons on body language. Followed by her introduction in front of Sarah and Ansh, and give her remarks on her performance: He scrawled sloppily in a diary labeled as 'Work Plan' and placed the pen in between its pages.

"She is loaded with confidence in her arrogance, though. I should stop worrying now." He calmed himself down.

After entering through the gate and as per the natural phenomenon, he needed time to get used to the inside dimness. His vision started taking in things, and the first thing he saw was a puff of smoke reaching out for the smoke detector, triggering the alarm in the other second. Simultaneously, the whiff of scorched food entered his nose with a fundamental question and worry, what did just happen here?

He stood frozen like an icicle.

It was a real eye-opener scenario that called forth Joseph's mouth to ache as though it had been hanging down for quite some time. Plonking his briefcase along with his diary on the sofa near him, Joseph drew the curtains, not caring to mitigate his ravaging force onto the humble, soft curtains.

He fanned his face with one hand and sprinted toward the microwave that released black smoke from its corners and pushed the main switch with unskilled fingers, his coughing ensued the possibility of all his inside organs coming out.

Ruby, who was standing with her hands sticking out, gaping at the man, succumbed out of inattention. "Joseph I-I thought I should use it to save time." He scooted upstairs without sparing a look at the awestruck damsel.

She was scared to her bone, unable to move as if her feet got nailed to the floor. But a part of her made her feel somewhat relieved because he had vanished from her sight and now she could breathe normally.

The mere thought of meeting his eyes and facing him made her shudder internally. But amid the trouble caused, she found herself questioning, shouldn't he be here, checking on her if she was fine instead of dashing upstairs and forgetting the fact that she was also a human prone to getting hurt?

Nevertheless, she bent forward, wearing a glove in one hand as she carefully opened the microwave door.
"Aye-aye, skipping a one-time meal wouldn't have killed me? Or I could have simply lived on a coffee."

After a moment he returned -- hot on his heels.

He brought a stormy force along as he twirled her with the cushion of his palm. And her back eventually collided with the fridge. She squinted her eyes at him, as he stated gravely, "Who told you to use this, huh?"

"I-I was hungry," Ruby erred, glaring at the hotheaded Joseph who stamped his one hand near her face with a loud thump, even before she could complete the sentence. Trapping her and pressing a bunch of her hair strands unknowingly.

The more pressure he exerted on his hand, the more dreadfully his lips tightened, and the more painful it became for Ruby, who winced and tried rescuing her hair from underneath his inhuman hand.

"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. ♡