V

“Damn! My nose can not take it anymore! I gotta have a taste!” Oriana shouted as she emerged from the stairs, freshly showered and sprinted into the kitchen where Emerald was currently making dinner.

“Please Mera. I'm practically salivating like a canine,” she begged as she clasped her hands together as though in prayer while giving Emerald a look that was supposed to be a puppy dog eyes look but was rather a look that made her appear as though she were having a hard time defecating.

Emerald only rolled her eyes and continued humming to the music playing from the headphones around her ears. She cleared the kitchen island of the mess she had made while mixing before carrying the used bowl, spatula and other utensils and placing them in the sink to begin washing.

“Mera. . . Come on,” Oriana whined again but was only ignored in return.

Emerald heard a groan and moments later, from her peripheral vision, she saw a hand extending towards the bowl where she had mixed the batter but before the hand could accomplish its mission, she swiftly picked up the rubber spatula and whacked the extended hand.

Oriana let out a yelp as she retracted her hand and jumped back, making Emerald smirk in satisfaction.

“Hey! What was that for? And how the hell did you do that so fast? Are you some kind of female version of Kid Danger? What's with the super fast reflexes?” She rambled as she glared at Emerald while rubbing her whacked hand soothingly.

Emerald pulled down the headphones, making them sit on her neck before replying,

“First, you licking from the bowl is just gross. If you want to do something like that, make sure you're the one cooking and not me,” She glanced at Oriana to see her lips turn into a pout before she sucked her teeth and looked down at her hand which was starting to redden. She looked back up at Emerald and glared at her, causing Emerald to snicker.

She knew that Oriana couldn't cook to save her life. If water could burn while boiling, Oriana would cause water to burn. That was how bad she was. She even got kicked out of the Home Economics department, precisely the Food and Nutrition class because she had almost set the entire kitchen on fire from making an omelette.

“Secondly, I'm not some ‘Kid Danger’ or whatever. It's just the effect of my Jiu-Jitsu and karate classes back in high school and lastly, dinner's almost ready. Just a few more minutes so calm your titties,” she concluded as she rinsed the lather off the utensils and placed them back in their original positions.

She turned around to see Oriana still caressing her hand with a little pout on her lips. She sighed and moved towards her. Holding her hand, she brought it to her lips and blew little breaths of air against her skin before rubbing it slightly, making Oriana let out a rather dramatic wince.

Emerald rolled her eyes and looked up at her friend, who was still wearing the small pout on her lips.

“It was a rubber spatula, Ori. Stop being so dramatic,” she commented.

“That didn't stop it from being painful,” Oriana retorted.

Emerald rolled her eyes before rubbing it again. Giving her hand a small peck, she lifted her face and dropped her hand.

“Well as much as I'd like to kiss away the pain, I have to take a shower. I feel sweaty and sticky and I smell awfully delicious,” she sniffed her shirt before letting go with a gag and grimace.

Oriana giggled at her friend's antics.

“You smell luscious,” she giggled again, making Emerald's lips turn into a smile. She gave her friend a peck on the cheek before heading towards her room to take a shower.

Smelling like the food she just made didn't sit well with her so she would always take a shower after cooking but apparently Oriana loved it. She would always say if there was a perfume made out of food essence, she wouldn't hesitate to purchase thousands of them because she loved smelling like ambrosial delicacies. To her, it would make men literally salivate at the mere scent of you.

Typical Ori.

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“Mera! Come see what's going on!” Emerald heard Oriana shout as she stepped down the last stair, freshly showered and in her silky singlet and shorts pyjamas. She rounded the corner into the kitchen to see Oriana looking anxiously at the oven, whose timer was letting out a beeping sound.

She was biting her nails and jumping from one foot to another. She spotted Emerald walk into the kitchen and she hurriedly ran to her. She was acting like a kid, who didn't know what an oven was.

“I think it's done,” she said.

“You think?” Emerald walked to the oven and turned it off before opening it to let out the heavenly aroma and soon enough the aroma diffused round the entire kitchen.

She wore her blue coloured oven mitts and brought out the tray containing the mouthwatering dish before removing one of the mitts.

“You know you could have just turned it off instead of shouting my name, right?” She retorted as she reached for the pizza cutter in the upper cupboard above the sink.

Hearing no reply, she turned around and saw that Oriana's eyes were glued to the mozzarelly delicacy placed on the kitchen island. Her lips were slightly parted as she licked her lips before gulping. Emerald rolled her eyes before walking over to the dish rack to grab two plates.

“And risk burning down the house? Never,” Oriana replied absentmindedly as she kept staring at the food.

“Over exaggeration,” Emerald mused.

“Seems like you've already forgotten how I almost burnt down our apartment back in college. You know everything I touch in the kitchen literally bursts into flames,” she answered.

Emerald was surprised that her friend could manage to reply her without forgetting what was being discussed seeing as she had the attention span of a chipmunk.

“True,” she replied as she put the metallic utensil into the hot and cheesy viand, cutting it into even triangles.

“What do you call this even?” Oriana asked.

“Margherita pizza.”

“Italian?”

“Hmm mm. . .” she nodded. “Luca taught me a few years back in college, together with a couple more dishes.”

She placed three slices each in both plates, leaving four more in the tray.  She looked up and made contact with Oriana's bogus puppy dog eyes, making her roll her eyes as she placed an extra slice on her plate, causing her to grin widely, before putting the remnant in a package and placing it in the refrigerator.

She opened the bottom part of the refrigerator which was stocked with drinks. She pulled out two bottles of Coca–cola and shut the fridge before turning back to toss one into Ori's hands, of which she had trouble catching.

They grabbed their meals and headed for the living room. While Emerald had the decency to place hers in a tray with some cutlery and a glass cup, Oriana didn't bother with any of those as she tried to balance the dishes in her short arms before settling on the bright orange bean bag, which was completely contrasting the colour theme of the house, much to Emerald's dismay. It was the only thing sticking out like a sore thumb in the living room other than the red couches, grey walls and black furniture because Oriana hadn't wanted to live in such gloomy themed house.

Having to see such a bright colour everyday before and after work was disgruntling for Emerald but she had to endure it because the entire house, ranging from colour theme to designs and arrangements were in her taste. Well all except for Ori's territory.

Emerald balanced her tray on her lap and placed the glass cup on the coffee table beside the couch she sat on alongside the bottle of coke before wearing her glasses and flipping through the novel she had been trying to read since Friday, The Seeker. She had a novel to read at work and another to read at home and she had gone really far with the new one she had picked up at work today, Bound By The Erstwhile Chains.

“How was work today?” Oriana decided to ask, making Emerald stymie the groan that threatened to escape her lips as she finally found the mark she had made on the page she had been previously reading.

“Good,” she replied curtly, not deciding to ask about her friend's day because then it would turn into a full blown conversation and that was the last thing she currently needed. She just wanted to eat her dinner in peace and then enjoy a good book where she could escape from her reality for a while.

“Well, my day was quite amazing, thanks for asking,” she replied sarcastically as she passed a glare unto Emerald who only pursed her lips in reply as she looked down at her meal before picking up the fork and knife to begin eating.

“We've been trying to come up with an article that's groundbreaking enough for the public. The boss has been randomly deploying journalists and reporters around and beyond Manhattan for just about any juicy information they could attain. He's bent on gathering huge wads of cash to make up for the boring times of not being able to find tangible information for publication. I had to go as far as Battery Park on the Southern tip of Manhattan.

Can you believe it?! Battery Park!” She lamented as she unceremoniously stuffed her mouth with some Magherita before letting out a satisfied moan. She unscrewed the cap off the Coke bottle before taking huge gulps.

“But at least I'm still lucky, unlike Mykel. He was asked to parade the Fifth Avenue for five days straight,” she added with a giggle as she began scrolling through Netflix in search of a movie. She stole a glance at Emerald who was only quietly eating her meal with the fork and knife.

She grimaced at the sight. She didn't know how her friend was ok with having to eat only little bits of such celestial goodness one at a time. She was the ‘grab the food and stuff your face by hand’ type of girl unlike her friend, who was quite formal about almost everything.

“You still haven't told me about your day, Mera,” she tapped her index finger against her chin as she contemplated watching Wonder Woman of 1984 or The Croods but finally decided against it before scrolling through and stuffing her mouth again.

Emerald looked up at her persistent friend who was still stuffing her face and scrolling through Netflix. Why couldn't she just drift away from the topic like she does with the others? She needed her quality chipmunk attention span.

“Come on. I'm waiting,” but it looks like that wasn't kicking in tonight.

“You already asked and I told you it was good,” she replied vaguely as she cut through her pizza before forking it and placing it in her mouth.

“I know that but I need details, you know? I just gave you a detailed explanation of what has been going on at work while you only replied with a curt ‘good’,” she stopped scrolling and turned to face her friend, giving her half of her attention as the rest was drawn to the last two slices of pizza on her plate.

“Too detailed if you ask me and I already told you how you shouldn't tell me anything if you'd think it's unfair that I only reply with a vague response but you know that my work requires–”

“–immense privacy and confidentiality because that's what your sicko clients require of you and you can't violate such unanimity even if I'm your bestest friend and blah blah blah,” she interrupted as she rolled her eyes at Emerald's glare.

“You've said that a billion times already, Mera. I can read you better than I had predicted that Cynthia, the bimbo blonde back in the media class in Harvard, was going to be deflowered by a dildo and not the real stuff. And that's saying a lot coming from me,” she watched as her friend's lips momentarily twitched up in a scowl before her glare came over her face once again.

“First of all Oriana, my clients are not sickos. They're just people who need someone to talk and open up to. Someone to guide them through the path of rectification and that's far from being sickos. So please refrain from calling them that,” she chastised harshly. That topic had stabbed a tree branch at her slumbering past.

“Secondly, I wasn't the one who forced you to tell me every single thing that happened in your workplace. I wasn't the one who told you to tell me how Carlos had written an entire 3000 worded article to propose to Sandra and I also wasn't the one who prompted the unnecessary information about how you suspect your HR manager is banging his personal assistant, now was I?” her voice rose with each word as she recounted, staring deeply into her friend's glaring eyes.

They continued to stare each other down as the silence stretched out between them, encompassing the entire duplex apartment they had earlier bought a year after college after they had been given a week's notice to vacate their old apartment, all thanks to Oriana who had made three attempts to burn down the house.

They had scored the duplex at a pretty affordable price and it was in perfect condition, containing everything they would need, ranging from household appliances to the required space in order not to invade each other's personal space, much to Emerald's taste. The furniture and decorations had all been replaced by Emerald and a few more things had been refurbished as well.

“I don't think they're banging each other, I know they are. I'm very certain,” she mumbled as she turned back to scrolling through Netflix to find the perfect movie, knowing that she couldn't win against Emerald especially when she had that scary face on.

Her friend was usually impassive about most things but whenever she was enraged, she looked like a lioness about to devour her prey even with her specs on and that was how she currently looked.

Emerald softened her expression and looked back at her plate guiltily. She couldn't blame Oriana for speaking like that. She knew how outspoken her friend was and how clueless she was about her past. They may be very close friends but Emerald was still a closed off person who wouldn't let even her best friend know anything of her past, which she was trying desperately to put behind her after all these years.

She was very passionate about her patients and would do anything to help them emotionally or psychologically. She looked back up at Ori who was trying hard not to look back at her friend and was getting frustrated at her luck in finding the right movie.

Emerald sighed and got up, carrying her plate which still had a pizza slice before walking over to Ori. She squatted down beside her and dropped the pizza on Ori's empty plate before placing an apologetic kiss on her right cheek while mumbling a guilt filled ‘I’m sorry.’

Oriana turned to look at her and she saw the sincere apology in her friend's eyes. Pulling her into a bear hug, she rubbed her back and also apologised for her incessant probing and harsh words.

They pulled away from each other and smiled, staring into each other's eyes for a few minutes before Emerald pecked her cheek again and stood up, grabbing her now empty plate from the floor.

“Good night, McStuffins,” she teased as she walked out of the living room with her book in hand, her empty dish and her bottle of half–filled coke, heading for the kitchen as she didn't wait to hear Ori's response.

She knew how much her friend hated that name which happened to be her middle name. Her parents had decided to let Jason — Oriana's older brother, who was at the time, a five year old kid who had a crazy crush on the cartoon character, Doc McStuffins — give Ori her middle name.

He had decided to give his baby sister his crush's name and their parents had found it cute, so they had kept it. Jason and her parents still didn't hesitate to tease her about it, Emerald included.

Trudging out of the kitchen after clearing the sink, she was ready to embrace the peace and quiet her room always supplied after a long day. She was ready to forget all that had happened today and just sink into the world of fantasy her books always provided. A world that didn't possess the pain of the past she constantly lived with.

Making sure the lock was in place, she plopped down on her bed, beneath the comforter without drawing the curtains to let the moonlight illuminate her room. She flipped on the switch of her bedside lamp and adjusted her glasses before opening the book.

As she attempted to begin reading, a certain image flashed through her mind. A certain chocolate brown–eyed devil seeped through her fantasy, burning her green eyes with his own penetrating gaze.

She shook her head, trying to get the image out of her mind but it didn't seem to work as her subconscious played the image of how he had continued to stare at her without saying anything or replying to any of her questions.

She had had patients that took about three to five sessions of not responding or opening up to her before they had finally poured it all out but none had been able to look into her eyes like this man had. They would all avoid her eyes, staring intently at the desk or anywhere but her but this man had stared only at her, seemingly not interested in anything else.

Her subconscious kept playing his image like a broken record from the mop of sleeked back sexy raven black hair on his head to the broad and drool worthy structure of his body beneath the exquisite suit that had adorned his body to the sole of his feet which had been clad in shiny, black and well polished shoes.

She let out a frustrated sigh after hundreds of failed attempts to get him out of her head, so she shut the book and tossed it unto her nightstand before removing her glasses. She switched off the lamp, casting herself into the darkness that wreathed her entire room, begging for the rays of the moonlight to fill them.

Settling well into the covers, she shut her eyes, attempting to go to sleep. Maybe that would at least clear the reenacting images of the chocolate brown–eyed man.

But oh boy, she had no idea what a world of limbo she was about to be plunged into.