All At Stake

. . .

A few seconds of silence engulfed them both. Jin was still looking away from Zeirenne. Only one thing was in his mind: He wanted her close, but couldn't bear to see her suffer from the cold. He turned his head to face her.

"This won't work. You have to get insi-"

Dug dug.

As her head fell on his shoulder, his heart skipped a beat. He was left gasping for the cold air and his throat went dry. His whole body froze for a few seconds before his mind braved his thumping heart. He looked over his shoulder to gaze into her sleeping face that was slightly flushed from the cold. Unlike his that was reddened by the closure.

He raised an arm to wrap around her shoulder and his fingers tucked a few loose streaks of hair that was covering her face.

"Can I be selfish for a few seconds?"

With closed eyes, he leaned in to plant a kiss on her forehead before pulling her even closer.

"Then we'll stay like this for a few minutes. Have a nice sleep, My Princess."

As he held her in his arms, the snowflakes came falling down to bless the entire world with its purity. It was a winter wonderland of love. He took her clenched hand and there was moisture from the melted snow.

"You didn't even get to make a wish," he chuckled while rubbing her palms with his thumb. He too, didn't have anything to wish for right at that moment. With a soft smile on his face, anyone would know this moment was all he ever wanted.

. . .

That morning, Zeirenne opened her eyes to stare into an exquisitely patterned ceiling. For a few seconds, she found herself lost in the golden streaks of lines delicately handcrafted on her bed poles. After a few blinks, she sat up straight. She was in her bed!

"What? Why am I here?"

She tapped her head to let some memories out. All she could remember was tucking herself in the blanket with Jin... and that was when she fell asleep.

"Wait... did he-?..." she gasped before slamming her fist on the sheets, "He stepped inside my room?!"

A knock on the door interrupted her tantrums. She fixed herself and her gaze before jumping out of the bed to greet the person outside. "Oh, good morning, Mr. Willy."

"Good morning to you too, Miss Lin. You've been summoned by Miura-dono."

Zeirenne nodded her head, "Okay. I'll come down in a bit."

When she finished her morning routine, she headed for the dining hall. She was expecting another starvation torture but two burly man grabbed her arms even before she could set foot on the hall.

"What now?" she hissed.

The guards dragged her around different corners before they reached a set of stairways leading to the hotel's basement, "Great. Another underground pursuit."

On the last step, a familiar setup greeted her.

"Let's pick up where we left off," Miura Takumi said, "The good old, Sun Rise Mall."

Zeirenne scrunched her nose, "Oh man, I thought we were over this."

"Not a chance, Miss Lin. I tend to finish what I started," Miura Takumi said before weighing himself down on the couch. He took a bowl of unpeeled grapes that caused Zeirenne to arch her eyebrows.

Just beside him was Dr. Gomez (a.k.a Jin) whom she fought glares with, and Willy who was in the middle of peeling off a bunch of her third favorite fruit. She had to look away.

"Now... There's been some changes," Miura Takumi said, "Honestly, your little psychological attack worked on me, you vixen. I lost all my appetite, and ALMOST decided to forego this blood-bath." He shrugged his shoulders. "But now, I found my way back. To keep things more interesting, and gain back the bloody appetite I lost, I turned everything up a notch."

In a single snap of his fingers, a wiry sound started booming. Zeirenne pulled herself away from the loud sound that was coming from the far side of the room. When the metallic garage-door-looking panel was all the way up, a familiar set greeted her.

There was a small table on the center of the display. Almost invisible to the eye, lasers were surrounding the said enclosure, and in front of her, Miura Takumi was flaunting his devilish grin. But she knew better.

In those confident eyes, she saw uncertainty.

The morning after the Annual Doomsday Gala, Miura Takumi spun around the remnants of the 'burglary' that happened inside their "impenetrable" Blue Room—asthey've always thought until a masked lady proved them wrong.

He tried painting the actual scenario that the cameras couldn't capture. Keeping everything into account, he scrutinized the whole setup to find a very impossible entrance.

"There's no way that could be possible," he whispered to himself while looking up to a narrow opening above the lasers. If someone could pull such a stunt off, they had to be someone athletic enough to surpass all the Olympic records.

For days, he pondered inside that Blue Room before accepting the one in a million possibility that someone was crazy (both mentally and physically) enough to pull such a trick off.

Keeping such an absurd possibility: how a masked lady leaped her way past a narrow opening, he deduced one thing.

She had to be left-oriented.

As he imagined the unbelievable flight inside his mind, the floor, the angle, and the curve outside the enclosure pointed to one clue. The masked lady used her left foot, and that had to be her dominant leg. Pulling such a stunt off using a dominant leg was crazy enough—there was no way he could convince himself that someone broke into their enclosure using her nondominant limbs.

If that was possible... he was sure it was not.

The same way he was sure Zeirenne was the masked lady the moment he met her. He expected she'd be left-oriented—which she was not. This observation alone sparked some thoughts, and for the first time in his life, he felt confusion... and fear.

"I think you know what you have to do," he told her, trying to read every curve her facial expressions pulled.

"And what exactly is that, Miura-san?"

"Quit acting innocent, Miss Lin. Or you won't be able to save a single life."

Zeirenne scoffed. She took a deep breath as preparation to some crappy words she had in queue.

"I'm sorry, Miura-san. Do I look like I care about all those people?" She rolled her eyes and twirled her fingers around her head like a crazy girl, "That plot of yours would've worked on me when you had... you know--my boyfriend inside that mall. But now? There's no way I'll bite your bait. I don't give a--," she bit her lips. So much for acting tough, she thought to herself before continuing, sorry for the word-- "damn on all those people."

Miura Takumi's eyebrow arched after witnessing the lamest act of "acting though" he'd ever witnessed. In the corner of his eye, he caught glimpse of the pesky doctor stifling his laughter.

"Right," Zeirenne repeated, a little bit more confident the second time, "I don't give a DAMN on all those people."

"Oh, really? You'd let all those people die inside your very own mall?"

Zeirenne's gasp reverberated around the room.

"Right, I know you own that mall. The way you briefed me about all those crazy fetishes the owner had was clue enough," Miura Takumi set the bowl of skinless grapes down. He clasped his hands on his knees before leaning forward for a better confrontation, "This festive explosion won't just kill hundreds of lives... I know it will bring down thousands."

Miura Takumi's laughter echoed around the room but Zeirenne chimed in, "Uhm. I'm not the best at math... but thousands? What do you mean?"

His plea of joy turned into a sigh of disbelief as a realization sunk in. The more he observed Zeirenne, the farther she strayed from his suspicions. All she ever did was put him on the verge of believing she was actually dumb. Only his instincts were keeping him anchored.

"You're a business person, I'm sure you know what I'm saying," Miura Takumi explained, "This incident can bring your entire company down if given enough publicity. I have enough strings on the news industry. I can drag this on for a long time and that will be enough torture for you. When your empire finally crumbles into dust, thousands of your employees will lose their jobs. Viola! What could be more exciting than letting thousands of people suffer?"

He brought his gaze up to see her puzzled expression—that was when he gave up on explaining, "You still don't understand. Do you?"

Zeirenne bit her lips before shaking her head, "Uhm no. But we can keep things simpler. Just tell me what you want me to do."

She followed Miura Takumi's finger pointed towards the laser trap.

"Show me how you did it," he said, sounding a bit unconvinced she COULD BE capable, "Break into that enclosure the same way you did a few weeks ago. By that small angled opening I've riddled myself with hundreds of times but still can't fathom how."

After his statement, a cold chill covered the entire room. Zeirenne brought her gaze towards Jin, only Jin Yang could be its source, and she was right. He was glaring down on her.

"You did such a dangerous thing?! How can you be so stubborn, Zeirenne Lynn?!" she imagined him nagging. To which she simply rolled her eyes on.

"That button... you just have to press that to detonate all the bombs around your silly prism-roofed mall. Easy, right?" Miura Takumi said, "Oh... and to keep things fair for your sprain, I brought down the entry point a little lower than last time."

"Okay? And when was this last time?"

"January 13, 2024. When you stole something you shouldn't have."

Zeirenne shook her head while surveying Miura Takumi from head to toe, "You seem like a fine man but now you seem a little bit... errr... delusional?" she expressed her mocking sympathy by wiping off some fake tears, "I'm sorry Miura-san but for the last time... I'll have to tell you. I AM NOT THAT PERSON. Whoever she may be... I am NOT her. So will you please stop acting crazy? It's literally creeping me out."

"Then be creeped out. Watch every drop of blood splatter on the screens while you sit here doing nothing."

Miura Takumi snapped his fingers and Willy stopped what he was doing to step forward and heed his master's order.

"Start the show, Willy."

. . .