Love and Beasts

Chapter 42

The next day Izabela before starting her work rushed to manager's office to explain the situation from the day prior. Luckily, the man seemed to understand it since the workload wasn't that much packed and James explained her situation to him, while taking some of her work and doing it on her behalf. She was surprised about this arrangement but didn't comply.

When she left the manager's office, she headed in direction of her office, wondering about her grandmother's weird reaction to her becoming blood donor for Claire. "Why did she do it?" She said to herself thinking no one is currently in the corridor. "Who did what?" At these words the girl jumped up and turned around to be met with a certain pair of light green eyes. "Gee, Akira! Don't sneak on me like that! Almost had a heart attack because of you." Hearing this the male smiled sheepishly. "Sorry, didn't mean to scare you like that. Is there something on your mind that got you absent minded?" "It's nothing big. Just my grandma, that's all." "Why, did something unexpected happen?" "Sort of. But probably she had a valid reason to react like this. By the way, how have you been these days?" As she said that, she stopped in her tracks and embraced the man, making him flustered by her sudden affection towards him.

"Rather good. But around 6 pm I'm heading to the airport." He said hugging her back. "Why is that? Could it be you're going on some business trip or what?" She asked curiously. The man smiled at how she liked to question people about their whereabouts, but not pressurizing them to do so. "No, I'm not going anywhere. It's just, my old friend and his wife will be arriving here soon from Japan." "For real?! That's amazing! But wait, are they the same as you? Are they also beasts?" "No, they are both humans, just like you." He smiled, while squishing her cheek that reminded him of his grandmother's homemade mochi. "Then do they know about your identity as a beast?" "Yes. At least my friend does only, unless he told his wife about it. Even if he did, I wouldn't mind if she knew about that, since she's more reliable than him." "That sounds really nice. Could it be you have invited them over or they simply decided to visit you?" The man at this question thought a bit for a while. "They said that they would like to visit me and in case my living situation here would be terrible, try to persuade and drag me back to Japan." "Then that means that they're great people, since they care so much about your wellbeing." "They are." With these words, his mind wandered back to his teenager years spent in the Land of Cherry Blossom, with Riku and sometimes Akane. "Since work has been hectic these days, I haven't been keeping in touch with them frequently. That's why they got worried and decided to pay me a visit."

As he was speaking, he allowed himself to prop his chin down on the girl's head, since their height difference between them allowed him to do so. "So when are they gonna be here?" She asked, not entirely convinced to let Akira use her as a support. This reminded her that she's still shorter than both Akira and Michael, which gave the other male an opportunity to tease her a bit. Michael often did so, whenever they were together. But she didn't complain, since it wasn't entirely bad in her opinion and it was simply the truth. Akira looked at her from above and then lifted his arm to check the watch on his wrist. "I think around 5 pm or so. It depends on how long their departure will take. Say, do you wanna meet them?" "Meet them?" "Yeah! My friend already knows about you and me, so he wanted to meet you real bad. Not to mention, I have to prove him that I'm treating you normally." "Pfft, what do you mean 'normally'? Could it be he thought that you're gonna creep me out by how much you say you like my scent on the first meeting?" She blurted out, laughing at her own words.

But unlike her, Akira momentarily was at loss of words and looked her deep in the eye. Izabela only wondered what's going on, since she has never seen him make that much serious face. "Are you a witch or something?" At these words the girl shoved the male frantically and grabbed him by his shirt, making sure he looked at her on the same eye level. "Du hast mich Hexe genannt?!" (You called me witch?!) When Akira heard her speak in language different than English, he momentarily realized that he has just stepped on a landmine and that he angered her. "No, no! I don't understand whatever you have just said, but I guess you're angry at me. I mean that you have guessed just right. You had a good, very authentic guess that is literally the reason behind my return to States." He answered, scratching the back of his neck with an awkward smile on his face, hoping the girl will calm down. "I didn't mean to offend you."