Alluring Masquerade

          Hira and Kael were witting directly parallel to each other in the hallway, like potential employers waiting to be seen for their job interview. It felt oddly like that to Hira. It was the same awkward and anxiousness in the pit of her belly, making her fidgety, jumpy and alert. Nervousness had took over her body like fire fuelled on oil. She was bus fidgeting with the hem of her frock when she caught Kael making faces at her. Frowning in confusion, she mouthed back, "What are you doing?"

          He looked physically annoyed. The dark eyebrows screwed together seriously and his mouth set in straight line. He shook his head, giving up. Moving seats from opposite her, he sat next her, and whispered, "Don't let her get you nervous," he hissed.

          "Easy for you to say, you've lived with her all your life," she whispered back.

          "And yet that woman repulses me," he said, half to himself.

          She elbowed him in the ribs without mercy. Twice.

          "Ah!" he yelled, moving a seat away from her on the triple seated sofa. "What did you-!" he lowered his voice in case his mother overheard from outside inside the study-room, "Why did you do that for?"

          "She is your mother," she replied incredulously.

          "I know she is," he said, recovering. "There's more to her than you know. She can be very dangerous."

          And, as if on cue, his mother appeared on the other side of him and smiled. But there was no warmness in it. "Come in," she said, moving aside to let Hira inside. "I have been meaning to have a talk with you. Kael, I want you to stay outside. Girl-talk!" She winked, and then the door closed before either of the youngsters could object.

          Mrs. Xavier stood with her back towards Hira for a long moment before she turned around, advancing towards the nervous girl, and enjoying seeing the scared look on her face. "Sit!" she order, pointing towards the chair next to the desk.

          Hira silently obeyed without a second look and sat down.

          The room had a cool temperature that made it look foreboding and ... haunting. It matched Kael's mother perfectly. The books lined exactly and neatly, shadowed in some places since the lights weren't turned on. The only light from the night sky was available and it illuminated the nervous girl.

          "So, dear," Mrs. Xavier said, slowly, pacing towards her own seat behind the desk. She was now a mere shadow against the moonlight.

          "Y-Yes?" Hira said.

          "Did I ask you to speak?"

          Hira shook her head and cleared her throat. She forced herself to push the uneasiness away this instant. She's trying to intimidate me, she thought to herself. I have to let her know that she can't make me feel insecure. I am a strong, confident woman-

          Mrs. Xavier clapped thrice loudly, and at once, the lights blinked on.

          It took Hira a couple of minutes to get used to the brightness and blinked several times. I wonder why she waited to do that until now? she thought sarcastically.

          There was a knock on another door to the elder lady's left and a middle aged man walked in, holding a paper folder that was bound with a string. He had greying hair that was brushed neatly, looking very business-like. He was wearing a formal office suit with shiny black shoes. "The file, madam," he announced, and then clasped his hands behind his back and waited.

          The file, Hira observed, had the infamous, capital word 'CONFIDENTIAL' imprinted on it in red ink. She watched Kael's mother open it up and sat quietly for only half a minute, before she put it down.

          "Tell me, Miss Kaif, do you think I'm stupid?" Mrs. Xaviour asked.

          This caught Hira off guard. "E-Excuse me?" she asked, hoping she had misheard.

          Mrs. Xavier laughed in her throat as she rested against the back of the seat, crossed on leg of her other while her hands clasped together professionally. Her smiled was icier than the icicle shaped, diamond pendant she wore. "I don't like repeating myself, but for the likes of you, I'll make an acceptation just this once. Do. You. Think. I. Am. STUPID?!" She has screamed the last word out so loud that the huge windows could have shattered from the force.

          Hira winced. That's it. She's craazy! Who does that? 

          "You think you are so cunning, don't you?" Mrs. Xavier asked, nodding her head slowly as if everything was making sense to her. "And you are." Laughing, she threw the open file at the young girl, telling her to take a look at it.

          Gingerly, the young girl touched the open file and pulled it from the bottom corner to herself. Her face went from confusion to shock. It was all there. Her life! Her whole family history and her own was recorded in that file now, trembling in her hands. "What is this?" she questioned.

          "Don't you dare use that tone with me, you little commoner," Mrs. Xavier shouted. Then she took a deep breath and sighed. She cocked her head to the side thoughtfully. "I know what you are up to." That smirk was back.

          "Mrs. Xavier," Hira said, "I don't understand all this. What does this mean? Why have you been collecting my personal life-"

          "Shut up!"

          "I have the right to ask!" Hira shouted back, but regretted it. The look she got from the angry woman sitting in front of her gave her goose-bumps.

          "No-one has ever used that tone with me, young lady," Mrs. Xavier announced, smacking her hands on the desk as she got up from her leather seat. Laughing a little, she looked away and then back. "Don't test me. Your behaviour just proves my theory. Or fact." She held up her index finger on the last word for emphasise. "Do you honestly, honestly think that my son would go for the likes of you?" More cackles. "He wouldn't spit on you if you were on fire! And neither would I."

          Something snapped within Hira. "How can you talk like that to your guest, Mrs. Xavier?" she asked, appalled and confused. "OK. You don't like me, I get that. But why are you talking in riddles like this? And could you please, for the love of God, explain why you have been spying and getting personal information about me and my family?" She pointed at a paragraph on the paper. "I mean,for crying out loud. Even I didn't know that I had fallen on my head back in year two in my primary school! So why? Why all this?! What have I done to you?"

          "SILENCE," Mrs. Xavier shouted, directing her palm at Hira. Her expression turned sour to grim. "You think you can work your seducing skills and take my son?! I know what you are after! You saw an opportunity to become a member of this family and ... our ... wealth. That is all you care about, isn't it? I knew it. I just knew it. If it's money that you wanted, why didn't you just beg?"

          Hira just gasped and couldn't believe what she was hearing.

          Suddenly, stack of unfolded notes flew at her face, but it felt like a smack. A HARD smack. Hundreds of slaps all at once. The paper money floated around her haphazardly. She had covered her face to save protect it from anything hitting it, at first not knowing what had flew at her, but she realised how useless her defense against the attack was. Tears clung dangerously on her bottom lashes. Soon, they leaked, but she never let the aching sob escape past her vocal cords. She wouldn't give the evil woman any more satisfaction.

          "What are you waiting for?" the elder woman asked angrily. "Pick it all up. It's all yours. Just leave my son alone starting from today. You can even pay back all those loans your father left for your poor, poor family to take care of. This money will help you finish paying all your debts and fines and whatnot. Ha - ha. Aren't you happy? I can guarantee more. Just stay away from me and my son. Forget him. Look after your family. Make sure nothing happens to them. Now, you may go."

          Hira sucked in a deep breath and finally spoke her mind. "I don't need your filthy money, Mrs. Xavier," she cried, her voice growing strong from the sheer adrenaline spreading through her blood. "You can keep your money. I didn't come here to get my family insulted in such a degrading way. You could say anything to me, but there's always a limit. And you've crossed it. And I have had it! Goodbye!" She turned around and walked towards the door, only to freeze her hands around the doorknob when a reply shot at her.

          "Hira Kaif, I tried to help you the best I could, now you have invited something that you can never win against!" Mrs. Xavier shouted from across the room. The walls even seemed to rumble with her loud yet shrill voice threateningly. "Denying my help will get you and your family into real trouble, you hear me? I will destroy you if you don't stay away from Kael! That's a challenge!"

          Hira turned around briskly. "I welcome any challenge from the likes of you," she pointed, "and don't worry about me and my family. Worry about your son! You've made a mockery of being a mother. I hope you're happy!" And with that, she opened the huge double doors and exited to room promptly.

          She ignored the worried look on Kael's face and didn't bother to answer his questions either. They were only muffled sounds in her ears because she was too busy thinking of what had just occurred. She had never been in such a ... intense moment, let alone a fight. She wasn't the type to enjoy conflicts, unlike some people.

          Now there was something else to fret about. The threat and challenge from Mrs. Xavier. She had incurred the wrath of Kael's mother and put her family on the tracks, to be easily run over. She shouldn't have had taken his advice of his mother being dangerous lightly, because now she was in the kind of problem that she had no clue how to get out of. How could she? She had gotten herself into this mess herself. She was the one who could herself out of it. Hopefully.

          She was crying by the time she ran out of the study-room and into the business party. She couldn't go home herself, she was too far away and she had no idea how to get home. Feeling stupid, and realising how she must look like, she hurried away from the large throng of mingling figures and reached a garden. A beautiful garden, and yet, she found it to be laughing at her with the same smirk she had gotten from Kael's mother. But she gave up and went over to sit under a tree. Sniffling, still not trying to cry, she pulled her knees up to her chest enough to rest her elbows on them. She closed her eyes as she turned her face up towards the starry, dark sky.

          "Hira, why are you crying?" a worried voice interrupted her quiet sniffles. It was Zach, smiling sadly with two plates of sliced, iced chocolate cake in his hands.

          When she opened her eyes to look at the half shadowed figure, she felt like finally letting her sobs heard. But she covered her face behind her hands as her slumped shoulders danced sadly with her muffled cries. Arms embraced her from her left and she let herself slip away into the warm blanket, and cried like a baby. Her sobs weren't loud, nevertheless, he heard everyone of them and she didn't even care.

          He chuckled, and she could feel his chest vibrate against her. "Now what made my sweet Hira cry, huh?" he asked nicely, shifting his position so they could both lean back against the tree trunk. He stoked her curly hair gently.

          "N-No-thing," she gasped, calming down. She took out a clean tissue and cleaned herself up. She let out a quiet cry. "I must look like a right ugly state. Look!" she pointed at her face and looked up at him.

          He chuckled again, tilting his head this way and that as if studying her. "Hmm," he said, "You're right. You don't look in a proper state just yet."

          Her eye-brows turned upwards and her bottom lip wobbled as her eyes watered up again. "I do?" she asked like a child. "You think I'm ugly?"

          "I am afraid so," he replied, sighing. His famous sparkly smile came back to greet her with a mischievous glint in his eyes. He poked her nose, and said, "Now you look pretty."

          "W-What...?" she whispered. It took her a moment longer than usual to understand what he was doing. He was playing with her. She wiped her nose with the back of her right hand and saw icing cream.

          He wiped some more icing on her face, teasing her. "See?" he said. "Much prettier." He laughed, making her laugh, too.

          She got the chance to add some icing to his nose as well, and laughed gleefully. "Ha-ha! You never saw that coming! Ha-ha!" She watched him as he blew off the icing like as if it was the foam of soap. Or tried, because it hadn't budged. She laughed some more.

          He nodded his head, wiping her face with some off the clean paper napkin that was next to the cakes. "If you don't want to tell me, I understand."

          "You – thank you, Zach," she smiled, as he put down the used napkin.

          "Welcome," he said, and then he was pulling her towards him. He was moving closer and closer to her...

          Hira's heart rate sped and his arms wound around her waist and she felt the everlasting and lingering feeling of the 'butterflies' that everyone in love claimed to be talking about all the time. But the butterfly-feeling soon died down when she saw someone glowering at the two of them.

          Kael.

          Hira pushed herself away from Zach, her cheeks growing red like a tomato.