5. Messy Arsen

A week had passed since his encounter with Rose, yet Arsen still couldn’t forget her. Almost every night, he would visit his favorite bar or the places he’d once gone to with Rose, but he never managed to find her.

Leo still hadn’t given him any news, and that made him anxious. It was as if she were a ghost who came and went as she pleased. He had once prayed silently, hoping to be reunited with Rose wherever she might be. But his prayer went unanswered.

Perhaps he had committed many sins, so God was reluctant to grant his wish. Everyone who knew Arsen was shocked and puzzled by his disheveled and desperate appearance. After all, he had always looked neat and attractive before.

“So, you’re here after all. I’ve been looking for you at our usual spots for ages, but here you are holed up in your apartment in such a pitiful state,” Leo said upon finding Arsen staring blankly at the flat-screen TV in front of him, which was still on.

“Did you find her?” Arsen asked, ignoring Leo’s previous words.

“It’s incredibly difficult to track her down, even with the help of the most skilled people. I told you she’s a mystery, buddy. You’d better just forget about her,” Leo advised as he sat down next to him.

Arsen shook his head. “I’ll never be able to forget her.”

“Why can’t you actually forget her? Because you love her? There’s no such thing as love at first sight, buddy. What you’re feeling is just lust because of her beautiful face and body. Or maybe you’re just obsessed with her?” Leo asked with a puzzled look.

Leo felt sorry for Arsen, who just sat there in silence. He’d never seen Arsen so distraught and pitiful over a girl before—especially a mysterious and cruel girl like Rose.

“Arsen, trust me. If you’re meant to be together, you’ll meet again eventually. Come on, let’s go out and find some fun. It doesn’t matter where you want to go, as long as you can take your mind off Rose for a while,” Leo suggested.

“No, Leo. I don’t want to get worked up with my mood like this. Maybe another time,” Arsen refused without looking at Leo.

“Alright. Take care of yourself, buddy.” Leo didn’t want to say much to Arsen if he didn’t want to become the target of his friend’s anger. Once Arsen got angry, he was like a completely different person.

Leo decided to leave Arsen’s apartment and go see someone who had been staying at his place for the past two days. He saw the girl who had caused his best friend to be in such a mess, lounging on a recliner with a mask covering her face and two cucumber slices on her eyelids.

“Arsen is really a mess and looks so pitiful,” he said as he walked over to the fridge and grabbed a can of soda.

The girl, Rose, just sat there silently. Leo thought she was fast asleep, but her hand reaching out toward him made him snort. Even after all these years, he still hadn’t gotten used to Rose’s often unpredictable behavior.

“Just leave it,” she replied after taking a sip of the soda Leo had given her, without once taking her eyes off the cucumber slices.

Leo let out a long sigh. “I don’t know what you’ve done to him to make him so crazy about you.”

She giggled, tossing the two cucumber slices aside, then stood up from the chair. Her graceful steps led her to the sink in the bathroom to wash her face.

“I’m starting to worry about Arsen, Rose. You shouldn’t meddle too much in his life.”

“He’s just a lonely man who needs affection,” She replied as she dried her face with a towel, then examined her reflection in the mirror with a satisfied smile. “I’m really, really beautiful, aren’t I?”

“Rose.”

“Shh, don’t wake ‘him’ up. You don’t want your sexy buddy running away in fear and messing up all your plans, do you?”

Leo fell silent, watching her casually walk past him and lie down on his bed.

"You just need to stay quiet and watch what I’m going to do. He really is perfect for Claire."

"But he’s already obsessed with you. How could he possibly look at Claire after this?" Leo protested.

Rose laughed. Even her voice sounded so melodious to anyone who heard it. Little did they know, that behind that sweetness, lay a cunning and clever female fox capable of throwing anyone she wanted into disarray.

“Are you doubting me, Mr. Abraham?” Rose asked, raising one eyebrow and keeping a smile on her lips. “You haven’t forgotten who’s in charge here, have you?”

Leo swallowed hard. Of course he would never forget. The girl in front of him did look like one of those flirty girls seeking attention from weak men, who could only scream if she was getting hurt. But Leo would never say that about a girl like Rose.

A girl who was secretly deadly and worked behind the scenes for all the success of his mission and Brad’s, with her genius mind, as well as a manipulative nature that always succeeded in outwitting her opponents.

***

Claire Garcia Volkova, a 21-year-old girl with fair skin, had just stepped out of the College of Urban and Public Affairs building at Portland State University. Her stomach was absolutely growling after finishing the discussion in Mr. Thompson’s class.

Discussing criminal matters gave her a headache, and she regretted why she had chosen the Criminal Justice major in the first place. No, it wasn’t that she had chosen that major of her own free will. Suddenly, she found herself stuck in that major without knowing how it all began, and that truly baffled her to this very moment.

For whatever reason, Claire loved cooking. She had everything planned out to enter the culinary arts program and work as a chef at a five-star restaurant after graduation. But the moment she opened her eyes, everything suddenly felt foreign to her. She didn’t even recognize most of the students in her class. And she always failed to get out of that major without knowing why.

Right now, she was struggling to decide where to have lunch. Especially since all the buildings around her looked almost identical—four or five stories tall and dominated by glass.

She turned to her left and saw a tall building, once again dominated by glass, with “Portland State Bookstore” written on it. Many bicycles were parked along the side of the building, and four long green metal benches were situated next to it.

A dark green streetcar passed by on the right side of her faculty building and stopped there. The students, who had been sitting on the brick steps across from the tracks, rushed over to the streetcar and boarded it.

After the bus-like streetcar continued its journey along the dedicated tracks, she decided to head toward the Memorial Clock Tower, which was quite a distance from the tracks. She remembered Josh’s favorite café—the only friend she was close to—located in the same building as the Campus Recreation Center.

Just as she was about to reach the café, her shoulder suddenly bumped into someone quite hard because she hadn’t been paying attention to the path. She immediately stopped to apologize to the person she’d bumped into, but quickly changed her mind.

She saw that the person seemed angry, judging by his clenched jaw. The man she’d bumped into was a white man with black hair, wearing sunglasses, and sporting messy hair. A handsome man, in her opinion.

Just as Claire was about to walk away, the man suddenly took off his sunglasses. The glint in his blue eyes looked cold and piercing. But strangely, when those eyes met her brown ones, the cold, piercing gaze was gone. All that remained was a look that conveyed deep longing, yet there was also a wound there.

"Rose," the man murmured, his voice heavy with longing. "Where have you been all this time? I’ve looked for you everywhere, but you just vanished."