0.1 | No Exit from Deception ✓

0.17 | First Attempt At Heating Pasta

It was mid-afternoon and Joseph took a half day despite of ballooned workload and many more events to be timelined. Mrs. Warner, had no reason to stop him since he never asked for one in years.

With the sun struggling to shine through the multiple layers of foggy clouds, the place seemed abnormally deserted. Joseph assumed everyone to be at work as he ran his exhaustion-clogged eyes at the solemnly silent houses.

His legs throbbed on the hard pavement, and he wondered what Mrs Warner would have thought about his unprofessional departure. Nevertheless, he had much important work on his hands.

Today, I will teach her effective techniques to learn new words. Enhance her communication skills. Lessons on body language. Followed by her introduction in front of Sarah and Ansh, and give her remarks on her performance: He scrawled sloppily in a diary labeled as 'Work Plan' and placed the pen in between its pages.

"She is loaded with confidence in her arrogance, though. I should stop worrying now." He calmed himself down.

After entering through the gate and as per the natural phenomenon, he needed time to get used to the inside dimness. His vision started taking in things, and the first thing he saw was a puff of smoke reaching out for the smoke detector, triggering the alarm in the other second. Simultaneously, the whiff of scorched food entered his nose with a fundamental question and worry, what did just happen here?

He stood frozen like an icicle.

It was a real eye-opener scenario that called forth Joseph's mouth to ache as though it had been hanging down for quite some time. Plonking his briefcase along with his diary on the sofa near him, Joseph drew the curtains, not caring to mitigate his ravaging force onto the humble, soft curtains.

He fanned his face with one hand and sprinted toward the microwave that released black smoke from its corners and pushed the main switch with unskilled fingers, his coughing ensued the possibility of all his inside organs coming out.

Ruby, who was standing with her hands sticking out, gaping at the man, succumbed out of inattention. "Joseph I-I thought I should use it to save time." He scooted upstairs without sparing a look at the awestruck damsel.

She was scared to her bone, unable to move as if her feet got nailed to the floor. But a part of her made her feel somewhat relieved because he had vanished from her sight and now she could breathe normally.

The mere thought of meeting his eyes and facing him made her shudder internally. But amid the trouble caused, she found herself questioning, shouldn't he be here, checking on her if she was fine instead of dashing upstairs and forgetting the fact that she was also a human prone to getting hurt?

Nevertheless, she bent forward, wearing a glove in one hand as she carefully opened the microwave door.
"Aye-aye, skipping a one-time meal wouldn't have killed me? Or I could have simply lived on a coffee."

After a moment he returned -- hot on his heels.

He brought a stormy force along as he twirled her with the cushion of his palm. And her back eventually collided with the fridge. She squinted her eyes at him, as he stated gravely, "Who told you to use this, huh?"

"I-I was hungry," Ruby erred, glaring at the hotheaded Joseph who stamped his one hand near her face with a loud thump, even before she could complete the sentence. Trapping her and pressing a bunch of her hair strands unknowingly.

The more pressure he exerted on his hand, the more dreadfully his lips tightened, and the more painful it became for Ruby, who winced and tried rescuing her hair from underneath his inhuman hand.