Hermes | Book 1

: 13 :

To the man who cannot see,
Light and Darkness are just the same.

Chapter 13

 
RHEA AND RONAN watched amusedly as Hermes shovelled another helping of lasagna into his plate with his mouth still full.

"I take it that you enjoyed it?" Rhea said grinning at the same time her mother worriedly asked, "Has Asta been starving you?"

Hermes nodded distractedly, focusing on clearing his plate to accommodate the next helping.

"You enjoyed it or that Asta has been starving you?" Julianna asked slowly, shushing Asta with a single glare when she opened her mouth to protest on the prospect of starving Hermes.

He looked up from his plate and finding Asta's gaze already interlocked with his, gave her his best smirk (the one that could trigger any sort of fist fight in history for as long as he remembered).

His messages to her was clear: at the moment he had a clear upper hand.

She knew very well that he knew that she wouldn't dare talk back against Julianna and her family. Hermes wasn't very clear on how Asta was a part of the equation, but he knew that she had played some very important role and to quote the girl, Rhea, she had 'left abruptly one day without any warning'.

Asta poked at her lasagna (her second helping; Hermes was glad to know that she had also fallen hard for the lasagna's sly seduction to the taste buds) and then brought some to her mouth.   

Chewing slowly she gave him a pointed look as if to say, go on, and then looked away to admire the wall behind him.

Swallowing, he said with an easy grin, "Asta hasn't been starving me ma'am. I nodded to say that the food is absolutely delectable."

"That's good to know," Ronan said, dumping a helping of the food into his plate as well. "Asta can survive without food for Zeus knows how long and she tends to forget that others can't survive like her."

"That was one time, Ronan. Are you still holding that against me?" Asta asked placidly, pointing a food stained fork in his direction as if to impale him with it.

"I am a growing boy!" He exclaimed, raising his hands prove his point.

"You're twenty five," she muttered.

Ronan ignored her.

"You see these?" He flexed his muscles. "These need nourishment, unlike your puny nonexistent ones."

"You'll know how puny my muscles are when you get your crooked nose bashed into your face." Asta said monotonously with an impressive poker face.

Immediately Ronan's hand went to his nose. "My nose is not crooked," he said defensively.

"So you think," said Asta idly forking her lasagna. "Hasn't any of those girls you run after told you? Wait, for that one of the girls have to go out with you, right?" Her tone remained impassive but there was a malicious glitter in her eyes. "Say, when was the last time you went out with a girl?" Her voice was straddling ice cold humour. 

The table was uncomfortably humid with tension; Hermes slowly took another discreet bite of his food and watched.

Julianna and Rhea hardly looked affected, Ronan looked very much riled up and Asta as usual looked like she was taking a leisurely stroll in the park with a blank paper for a face.

Ronan opened his mouth to retaliate but Asta was much faster, "It was Maia in seventh grade, wasn't it?"

"Don't talk about Maia," Ronan said through clenched teeth.