Melt me

Chapter 30

Nazeera

I draw a cross in the middle square. Ella puts her circle in the box above mine. I scribble another in the corner and Ella blocks my three. So I prevent her from getting three at the top; she makes her circle in the box beside the middle one and realizes too late she allowed me to win. I smirk triumphantly and she huffs, flips the paper over and creates a new tic tac toe board.

"Ahem."
We look up at Haider who arches a brow at us. Valentina squints her eyes in the screen,
"What are you two doing?"

We're in a Supreme Commander meeting and well, we're bored. There's 4 Supremes in one room while Valentina, Nicolas and Lena are on call so neither Ella nor I have been paying much attention.

"Tic tac toe." I show off my victory and then promptly chuck the paper across the room into the trash.

"How delightful." Nicolas comments and continues talking about whatever he was thinking. We listen for a couple more minutes until Ella nudges my knee and mouths, "hangman?"
I nod and we start a new game.

Two hours later and the meeting concludes. I refill my coffee cup and journey back up the stairs to my room. I'm already socially drained and it's barely 9 am.

I see Kenji sitting shirtless on a chair with my laptop open on the table in front. He's concentrating immensely on the screen before lifting his gaze to grin at me.

"Hey habibti." He stands to set my mug on the table and hold my face, kissing me softly.
"How was the meeting?"

I scoff, "boring. There's nothing major going on."
Which is good I guess, it gives me one less thing to worry about. My eyes travel to the laptop and I ask,
"What are you up to?"

"Oh I was just going over the warehouse surveillance again." Kenji replies, rubbing the back of his neck.

I sigh and clasp his hands in mine. It's been about four days since Kenji interrogated that man and he's been tense the entire time. He's attempting to hide the unease but I can tell.

He's been overly cautious and almost never leaves me alone, opting to stay on lockdown in the house with me. Meanwhile continuously going over our knowledge and trying to work out something new. Whatever he saw that day must have been so horrid, to create such anxiety.

"Kenji, all we can do is wait for something to happen. Watching the surveillance over and over again isn't going to change anything."
I say delicately and he bites the inside of his cheek. Then he asks,

"Has Haider heard back from the coroner?"

I shake my head and Kenji exhales a sigh. He clenches his jaw, dropping his hands and running them through his raven strands.
"Jeez it's been days. Do I need to go see that dude myself?"

"It takes time. Especially in this case where we lack relevant insight." I place a calming hand on his arm as his stare is locked on Flynn who lays asleep on the bed.

I don't like our situation here at all but it's becoming even worse with Kenji's rising stress levels.
My guilt is somehow breaching immeasurable. This is why I didn't want to involve him; I didn't want to see him hurt or upset like this.

"It's better for you to focus on something else until we know more."
Kenji turns to me again and says nothing. His knuckles stroke my cheek tenderly, concentration shatterproof.

His dark eyes overflow with emotion that his mouth fails to convey. Fortunately, intertwined souls don't require verbal elucidations - I see right through his barriers.
Kenji's never been invisible to me.

I smile and circle my arms around him.
"I think we've been cooped up for too long. Let's go somewhere. Distract ourselves."
We both need a diversion from this mess.