"I'm busy." Snaps Ruspin, as I step into his study.

"I know." I say, still jittery from our last confrontation. "But I heard about the explosion and I was wondering if you needed assistance with anything."

"Not from you. It was your idea that caused this mess in the first place." he says, his brutality strikes me to the core.

Why did I expect anything different with regards to him? Regardless of my expectations, I refuse to allow his statement to stand, unmolested, "If my idea was this disastrous, why were you willing to go to the ends of the earth to obtain it?"

"I thought that you were intelligent enough to achieve excellence."

My mouth tumbles open at his blatant, yet frail lie. "You didn't even know it was me!"

"But once I did, that was my assumption." He counteracts.

Huffing, I storm up to him, ready to do physical violence, but what comes out of my mouth instead shocks me, "You're just pissed because I denied you."

"Notwithstanding, your lack of intelligence is appalling."

Glaring, I hiss, "No wonder I don't want to be with you."

"That's an excuse."

"A valid excuse." I say, "We won't work Ruspin, and if we keep at it as we are now, we won't even be fr- copines."

The silence that engulfs us, the most uncomfortable I've encountered.

"'Copines', can also denote a close female friend." He sneers. "A relationship only functions when the two parties involved share assets and work cohesively."

Sighing, I say, "We work cohesively, that's a given. But neither of us are willing to part with their secrets."

As with fold mountains, his face crumples and folds, even as he braces against the wall.

"This isn't exactly a traditional secret." He says, "I'm-"

"Hungry, I'm sure." Deadpans Annalise, who has slunk in without my noticing.

Ruspin glances at her, then back to me.

"I'm not hungry." He says to Annalise, "Inform my mother that Angelica and I shall have dinner in my room."

I'm grilling, wondering what this infamous, non-traditional secret is.

He shrugs and glides to the door. I glance beside me and there is his briefcase, the one with the file under my name. Both my fingers and mind itch to delve into it but it is his... inconvenient conscience!

Sighing, I close it and run after him.

He's vanished from the corridor of course. Then I remember that he told his mother that he and I would have dinner in his room.

Upon my arrival, I bang on the door, but of course he doesn't respond.

I try the nob, not willing to stand here like an idiot and it opens, revealing Ruspin, sitting in a typically Ruspin manner at his table.

Doesn't he hear at all?! Or is he just that dense?

I slam the case down beside him.

"You don't answer my calls." I say, "Not on the phone, and evidently not to your room either."

"I'm busy."

I scoff, "What do you do, wear ear plugs? I was literally banging down your door."

He doesn't respond. Classic.

"You can ignore me all you like, but they're bringing my food here." Thanks to him, I add mentally. Why force me to eat in his room when he just disregards me?

Should I just sit here on his bed, or is there some sort of etiquette to this.

Whilst sitting on his bed, wondering about etiquette, I remember his gift: the optical coupon. Just like he noticed my visual impairment, I've noticed his auditory one.

With persistent taps to his shoulder he finally regards me.

"I think you need a hearing aid." I say, which he obviously wasn't expecting as his mouth tumbles open, his work, for once, neglected.

"Now I understand if you can't recognise it yourself, but it's become evident to me." I say, "When you couldn't hear the water or the footsteps even though they were clear enough. You should really consider getting something for that, it could be dangerous, especially in your position."

He stares at me awhile longer.

« Je suis mute. Seulement prêté attention a ce, et tuas parfaite a moi. »

The sentence, as per everything in French, flies over my head, all but the mute part. "Mute... as in what?" it can't be mute, cause he talks some. But... shit.

"Deaf." I say, somewhat reluctantly.

The look on his face is enough to tell me that it's true.

No. But he's... him. The immovable man. The man who wants to be king and doesn't allow anyone to hinder him. But he knows how to talk, and talk well when he chooses to. If he's deaf, then how could he have learned to talk?

"That's my secret. I'm deaf." He says, cutting through my mental harangue.