Chapter 31: Chapter 31: Crazy
"Archie, you scared me half to death!" Mika cried out, clutching her chest.
"Don’t change the subject. Tell me right now, who is he? And what, exactly, is your relationship with him?" ’Does she really think I’m that easy to fool? After seeing them like that? No way.’
Besides, based on that man’s attitude alone, he would never allow his sister to associate with someone like him.
Mika’s expression soured. "Archie, I already told you. We’re just roommates."
"Fine. If you’re just roommates, then tomorrow I’ll take you to find a new apartment." With a grim expression, Archie started to shut the door, intending to go to sleep.
"Archie, but... it’s perfectly fine for me to live here, isn’t it?" Mika grew anxious the moment she heard that; she had no doubt her brother would actually drag her out to find a new apartment tomorrow.
’Perfectly fine? She actually used those two words to describe this situation.’
Archie’s temper flared. "It is *not* fine! Mika, you’re a young woman! How can you be living with a man? Are you out of your mind?!"
The moment he finished speaking, Archie slammed the door shut with a resounding BANG.
Mika stood frozen in the doorway, staring blankly for a long time before she could process what had happened.
’Yeah, I must be out of my mind,’ she thought. ’Why else would I have come up with a lie like being roommates to fool him?’
’Does this mean I really have to go apartment hunting with him tomorrow?’
After shutting the door, Archie dug a charger out of his bag and plugged in his phone.
He hadn’t been back in thirteen years, and the first thing that happens is Mika making him this furious.
The image of that man still flashed in his mind. ’That guy... you can tell just by looking at him that he’s no ordinary person.’
’His outfit alone costs five or six hundred thousand, and with that face like he’s at a funeral, he’s clearly not someone you should mess with.’
’But how did Mika get tangled up with someone like that?’
When he was in the bathroom earlier, he could vaguely hear the two of them arguing outside, though he couldn’t make out what it was about.
He had to find out exactly who that man was and why he was living with Mika.
Not just anyone was worthy of being with his, Archie Summers’s, sister.
At this thought, a cruel, cold smile touched the corners of Archie’s lips, almost imperceptibly.
After he turned it on, his phone was immediately flooded with nineteen text messages. Before he could even read them, a call came in.
"Hello?" He frowned at the number on the screen before answering.
"Summers! You finally picked up! You were about to give me a heart attack!"
"My phone was dead. What’s up?"
"Something big happened! When I went to your house this afternoon to pick up your parents, the neighbors said they haven’t been home for over ten days. They said your parents probably went to Tridell to see their daughter."
"That’s impossible. I’m at my sister’s place right now, and I haven’t seen them."
The person on the other end of the line paused, then offered a bold guess. "Maybe... something happened to them?"
Hearing this, Archie’s expression instantly darkened. After a long silence, he finally spoke, his voice flat. "Okay. I understand." Then he hung up.
’Not home for over ten days? To see their daughter?’
He had been so worried something had happened to Mika that he’d come looking for her straight from the airport. He never imagined it was his parents who were already in trouble.
’Wait, that’s not right! If something happened to Mom and Dad, then what was that phone call I made after I got off the plane all about???’
——Countdown, Day Five!——
With her brother there, Mika barely slept a wink all night.
She finally managed to drift off just before dawn, but it felt like she’d barely closed her eyes when the sound of knocking jolted her awake.
Sporting dark circles under her eyes, she yelled resentfully at the door, "Archie, let me sleep a little longer!"