IRENE

A week later, Kian's first words to me played on my mind in a loop.

'Not so talkative now, wife?'

Wife.

He called me wife.

Wife.

He succeeded in rendering me speechless with just a few words. I was flustered on hearing him call me 'wife', butterflies were fluttering in my stomach.

But that's it. For the next one week, he didn't speak to me again.

That didn't stop me from speaking to him.

He is my husband, I live with him now, who else am I supposed to talk to?

Armano and Alamea are good too but I am not with them most of the time.

It was evening when I reached home and Alamea asked me if I would be okay in looking after Alyona for a while as Armano and her had to go for some important work.

I couldn't say no. Alyona was a cute kid and I liked kids, I would have someone to talk to.

"Wow!" She exclaimed, staring at my makeup kit in wonder. "You have so many lipsticks!"

"Yeah, I love makeup. Do you also like it?"

She nodded eagerly. "Yes, but Mommy doesn't have so much makeup."

"Oh."

"Can you do my makeup?" She asked excitedly.

"Um, I am not sure. Let me ask Alamea first."

"Mommy won't say anything. Please?"

Even then I decided to ask her first so I called her and confirmed with her if it was okay to put a bit of makeup on Alyona.

Alamea was okay with it so I made Alyona sit on the bed along with all the makeup supplies.

"Make me a princess!" She told me, grinning.

"Okay. Stay still."

I cleaned her face with some wet wipes before doing her eye makeup.

After five minutes I was done and then put on a blush on her cheeks followed by nude lipstick.

When I was done, I picked her up in my arms and lifted her to the mirror making her gasp. "I look like a princess!"

I smiled. "Yeah, you do."

She turned around and hugged me. "Thank you, Aunty!"

"You are welcome." I carried her to the bed and put her down.

"Let's play something now." She suggested.

"What do you wanna play?"

"I don't know. You think."

"Hmm..." I remembered a game that I used to play with my school friends, we invented it ourselves and it was quite fun.

"How about we play 'New World'?"

"New World?" She cocked her head. "What's that?"

"It's a story game. There is a fix starting to the game after which we can make the story work as we wish. Let me explain."

"So, the story starts with a group of friends watching a news channel where the anchor talks about the latest discovery that if you dance in a specific way, you are teleported to a new world. So, we laugh among ourselves saying how stupid it is, like nothing of that kind is possible and then just for fun, we decide to do that and we are actually teleported to a new world. Then it's our task to find our way out of there while hiding and fighting our way through the dangerous aliens. What do you think?"

Alyona stared at me blankly making me sound like an idiot.

Then her eyes lit up and she clapped her hands. "Let's play!"

"You like it?"

"Yes!"

"Okay, but this game is played with at least three friends. We are only two."

"No problem. We will make it work as two."

I needed to have that level of positivity in my life. "Okay. Who's going to be the news anchor?"

"Me!" She raised her hands.

She climbed off the bed and took one of my makeup brushes with her to use it as a mic and started to say, "Breaking News! We...just got to know about this...new dance! If you dance like this..."

She placed the brush down and started to do a dance move in which she rolled her hips and spun around a few times.

"If you dance like this..." She picked up the mic again. "You will be sent to a new world! So take care!"

The scene ended and she quickly came to sit beside me and grabbed my teddy bear, declaring him as one of our friends.

Then we pretended to laugh at the news anchor. "What a lie", I said, laughing. "How could that be possible?"

"Yeah. But should we try it once? For fun?"

"We should, just to prove them wrong."

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KIAN

Armano: Check on Aly once you reach home. She's with Irene.

On not finding her in the nursery, I went in search of Irene.

Outside our room, I could hear Aly giggling.

Entering the room, I froze.

Irene and Aly were standing on the bed. Dancing. Their hips moved as they jumped around.

And then as Irene subtly gestured to her, they both stopped dancing and fell on the bed, lying in awkward positions.

What the fuck was going on?

A moment later, Irene slowly lifted herself up, scratching her head as she pretended to be groggy.

She shook Aly's shoulder. "Wake up. Look."

Aly woke up in the same manner and looked shocked. "Oh no, where are we?"

Where the fuck I am?

Then Aly looked at me and gasped. "Oh no! A monster!"

What the actual fuck?

Irene watched me with wide eyes and put Aly behind her. "Quick, hide!"

"Grab a weapon!" Aly shouted, taking a makeup brush in her hand, aimed it at me and threw it.

It fell a bit short of hitting me making Aly scream. "We are going to die!"

"What the fuck are you both playing?" I seethed.

Irene stifled her laugh and hugged Aly to her chest while Aly grabbed the teddy bear.

They both got off the bed as Irene told her, "We must find our way out of here. And find some weapons too."

"I know a place where we might have some weapons. Follow me."

"Be careful."

I still stood at the door, watching them play because I was fucking confused. I had never seen such a game before and we used to play a lot of games when we were kids.

Aly held Irene's hand and dragged her towards me and grabbed the brush from the floor using it as a gun as she started to fire at me.

Just for the sake of peace, I stepped away from the door to let them pass.

Irene glanced at me and broke the character, giving me a grin before following Aly out of the room.

Curious, I followed after them and Aly took her to her nursery where her box of toys was placed in a corner.

"There must be some weapons in there. We should look quickly." Irene pointed out.

And they both got to looking through the box.

A few seconds later they both pulled out the toy guns as Aly gave her a high five.

"The monster is here again!" Irene exclaimed glancing back at me. "Fire at him!"

I narrowed my eyes at her for calling me a monster and she found it amusing, chuckling for a second before going into character again.

They both started to fire at me.

I stalked towards them, grabbed Aly by the back of her dress and lifted her up in the air making her shriek. "The monster got me!"

"Don't worry, I will save you," Irene called out, firing at me.

Rolling my eyes, I took Aly with me and went out of the room.

Aly fake cried. "Aunty! The monster will eat me."

"You both are giving me a headache," I grumbled taking her to a random guest bedroom.

Aly scowled at me. "That was not in your dialogue."

"What game is this?"

"New World!" She grinned as I sat down on the bed, making her sit on my lap. "Aunty is the best."

Of course, it was her idea. She is more childish than Aly.

A minute later, Irene burst into the room, armed with two toy guns and her teddy bear tucked under her arm.

"You came to save me," Aly said dramatically, extending her hand towards her.

"Of course I did. I would never abandon you." Irene fired at me.

Sighing, I put Aly on the floor making her run towards Irene and hug her. "I was so scared."

"I am glad to have found you. Come, I have also found a way home. We can leave."

"Yay! Let's go home."

They both walked out of there holding hands.

When I followed after them a few minutes later, I found them in our room, once again lying on the bed in the same manner from earlier.

They woke up and hugged each other. "We are home!" Irene spoke, wiping away fake tears of happiness.

"Yes. Thank you for protecting me. I love you."

"Aww...I love you too." They pulled back from the hug.

Just then Armano and Mea arrived and stood beside me watching them both interact.

"What game is that?" Armano whispered to me.

"New World."

"What?"

Aly's eyes fell on her parents and she grinned. "Mommy! Daddy! We enjoyed so much today!"

Mea chuckled. "I can see. Thanks, Irene."

Irene smiled. "I had fun too."

"Let's go now", Armano told her.

She nodded and kissed Irene's cheek before jumping off the bed and coming over to us.

I took out the chocolate that I had inside my suit jacket and handed it to her making her gasp. "Thank you, Uncle!"

She lifted her hands up and I picked her up and she kissed my cheek too before Armano took her from me and the three of them went away.

Irene sat on the bed and looked at me with puppy eyes. "No chocolate for me?"

Rolling my eyes, I pulled out another chocolate and threw it at her which she caught.

She mimicked Aly. "Thank you, Uncle!"

When I scowled at her, she chuckled. "Oops. I mean hubby. Thank you, hubby."

It was supposed to sound cringe but it didn't. Not to me.