Rose
“You're right, Paul”, Dimitri mumbled.
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Then he wrapped the scarf around my neck again and stood up.
“I'm – rhrm” He cleared his throat. “Gonna go get some drinks.”
He didn't look anybody in the eyes, in fact he looked at his feet. Dimitri scratched his head and fled out of the room and into the kitchen.
Paul ran after his uncle with an angry expression. Well, that could get interesting, I thought with a little smile on my face.
“Roza?”, Olena mumbled. “You want to explain what, well, that was?”
She gestured to my neck with her hand looking a little lost. I would have smiled, if this wasn't so embarrassing for me right now. So instead I blushed furiously and avoided her eyes. I began fidgeting with my hands in my lap, thinking of an excuse but I came up with … nothing.
“Well”, I said. “That was – I mean Dimitri – He – No, I – Well, we -”
“What the hell?!”, growled Dimitri from the kitchen.
We all turned our heads and looked to the kitchen entrance. Dimitri's growl was soon followed by a high pitched squeak and Paul running out of the kitchen and up the staircase. I frowned and watched Paul running, his arms up in the air, his mouth wide open and screaming at the top of his lungs. Seconds later Dimitri came barging out of the kitchen running after his niece, the difference was that Dimitri's stomach was wet with a red substance and he looked royally pissed.
“Dimka!”, his sister Sonya shouted. “What happened?”
Dimitri glared at her and stopped short.
“This little shit threw his disgusting juice at me!”, Dimitri growled.
And without another word or a second glance he bolted upstairs shouting Paul's name, probably wanting to murder the little boy.
“Keep your hands off of my son!”, Karolina screamed and chased after her brother.
“Ha!”, Dimitri laughed. “No way!”
While Karolina, Dimitri and Paul did God knows what upstairs, Viktoria, Sonya, Olena and I stayed downstairs, not saying anything.
"Is it always like this?", I asked with a little smile on my face.
"Most of the time, yeah", Vika giggled and shrugged.
"How about those drinks?", Olena asked.
She and I went into the kitchen. There was juice on the floor and a little on the countertop. Olena giggled beside me and shook her head.
"I'm going to clean that up", she smiled.
"Oh no, you don't", I shook my head.
Olena frowned at me, already holding papertowels in her hands.
"You're our guest Olena, you won't clean up for us", I shook my head and took the paper towels from her hands.
Olena looked at me a little funny. I'm not sure how to discribe it but she looked amused, a little hurt and ... proud? I wasn't sure, it was a weird mix, but it still looked like all these emotion bottled up in one glance. In the end she just smiled and nodded a little and I began cleaning up, while Olena went through the cupboards and searched for a few glasses.
Dimitri
“Paul!”, I growled.
“Seriously Dimitri, stop it!”, Karolina growled right back. “You even glance at my son in the wrong way and I will punish you, understand?”
“Karo, you're my sister and I love you but he -”
“Is your nephew and a little child!”, she interrupted me.
And the thing was: She was right. But I was still pissed at Paul, no matter what! Because of his stupid little “love at first sight” and spending little time with my wife, he thinks he can tell me what to do?! She was my wife and – Woah, what the hell? Was I really jealous of my little nephew?
“You know what? Forget it”, I mumbled and turned around.
I went into the bedroom in search of a clean shirt. While I changed, I thought about the scene in the living room. Maybe I shouldn't have left Rose alone in there? Oh well, now it was too late anyways, I thought shrugging. I was wondering how Rose handled the situation and if we ruined her chances with my mother, but I didn't really think so.
Sighing I went downstairs again and found pure chaos! Smoke was coming out of the kitchen, Paul was crying and in the arms of his mum, my mum and Rose were trying to get the smoke away with … towels?
“What the hell is going on in here?”, I shouted.
The women in the room turned around and saw me storming down the stairs.
“We don't know”, my mum screamed.
The smoke was hurting my eyes and they started to water a bit. I couldn't see where the smoke was coming from, or what the cause of it was. The towel swinging my mum and Rose did only made it worse, because the smoke didn't get back into the kitchen, but faster around the living room, making everything looking gray and dizzy.
“Okay, everybody get out of here!”, I shouted.
They all looked at me, like I've lost it. The thing was: We couldn't take control over this stupid fire and I wanted all of them to be save, so they needed to get out of here!
“Out! Now!”, I roared.
Instantly the women in the room began moving. Nobody took anything with them – thank God – and just ran to the elevator.
“No, don't use the elevator, take the stairs”, Rose said and ushered my family out of our flat.
They all nodded, looking a little dazed. It seemed like all they could so was function, nothing else. The problem was that Rose didn't, she stayed behind and came back for me.
“What the hell are you doing?”, I asked her. “Leave! Now!”
“No way am I leaving without you!”, she snapped. “You don't even know where the extinguisher is!”
“We have one of those?”, I joked and grinned down at her.
“See!”, Rose said, but smiled a little.
Probably not the right time to joke, but who cares?
“No mum, really, Rose and I are fine, it's okay. Don't worry about it”, I assured my mum.
My mum sighed again, probably still not convinced.
“Just stay home and I'll call you back tomorrow, okay?”, I asked.
She agreed reluctantly and ended the call. I heaved a heavy sigh and ran a hand through my hair. This night couldn't have gone any worse.
“Hey”, I heard Rose's voice behind me.
I turned around and saw her approaching me. We stood in the lobby of the building, still waiting for the firemen to tell us what caused the fire and to let us back in. Rose had gone out and grabbed us some coffee to keep us awake, it was already 1 AM.
“Are they home?”, Rose asked and gave me my coffee.
“Thanks”, I smiled. “And yes, they are. My mum worries way too much, but I think for now she is convinced that we're okay.”
Rose nodded and we both sat down on one of the couches in the lobby side by side.
“What the hell happened up there?”, I asked Rose.
“I have no idea”, Rose replied, shaking her head no. “Olena and I were in the kitchen, getting a few drinks ready and the moment we stepped out of the kitchen we just heard a loud 'Bang' and smoke was erupting from the kitchen. I have no idea what happened, Olena and I just grabbed the first things we found and tried to … I don't even know what we tried to do, we just did something, I guess.”
“It looked pretty hilarious”, I chuckled.
“It's not funny!”, Rose protested laughing and hit me lightly.
“Oh, but it was”, I nodded enthusiastic.
We both smiled at each other and kept joking. It was easy to talk to her, even in a situation like this. She was just someone you could talk to, no matter what about, she either listened when she needed to or gave advised when wanted.
For another two hours Rose and I stayed on that couch, just talking and laughing about nonsense. She told me about her and asked a lot about me, we talked about our likes and disliked, our family, all that crap you talk about, when you have nothing better to do or to entertain you with.
“Belikov!”, a voice roared through the lobby, which was ridiculous, because Rose and I were the only ones this late at night in the lobby, except for the employes.
“Well, we aren't them”, Rose replied sarcastically and rolled her eyes at the fireman.
The man glared at her, but still came over. He had a clipboard in his hands and gruff look. Well, someone was grumpy.
“Dimitri and Rosemarie Belikov?”, he asked.
“That's us”, I replied and stood up, shaking his hand.
“ID?”, he asked.
“Seriously?”, Rose asked. “We're the only ones here, you saw us when you arrived, there are pictures of him in our flat and you know him from every God damn magazine there is in this city!”
“Rose, calm down”, I tried to sooth her and put an arm around her.
I drew small circles on her hip bone and felt her relaxing under my touch. With my other hand I grabbed my wallet from the back pocket of my jeans and showed the man my ID. It was ridiculous because he obviously knew who we were, but I just wanted this to end and get into bed.
“Okay”, he grumbled and gave me my ID back. “Follow me.”
We went upstairs and the fireman who introduced himself as Peter showed us the outcome of the fire. Almost the whole kitchen burned down, the walls and parts of the ceiling were pitch black. It looked some picture out of a movie. Rose beside me gasped.
“Holy Shit, what the hell happened in here?”, she asked shocked.
Rose looked with wide eyes and hands over her mouth around the room. She looked like she couldn't believe what was in front of her.
“Can we use the rest of our apartment again?”, I asked Peter.
“Sure”, he nodded.
“Okay, thanks”, I nodded in return and turned to Rose, grabbing her shoulders. “You should go upstairs and get some sleep, Roza, it's been a long night.”
“What? No, I'm fi-” A huge yawn interrupted her and I raised a challenging eyebrow.
“Goodnight, Roza”, I smiled and kissed her forehead.
“Fine”, she grumbled and pouted really cute. “But you're telling me everything in the morning.”
“I will”, I chuckled and reluctantly she left.
Peter began telling me what happened and what caused the fire. Apparently there has been some kind of problem the gas line, there was a tiny whole and because of … something it exploded. This 'something' has been in our oven and in connection with the gas, we had the big explosion, the fire and everything. Peter told me that if our oven hadn't been one of the expensive ones, the explosion could have been much worse. To top it of, he told me the fire alarms in the our apartments were broken, someone disconnected all the alarms from the thing that realized there was smoke, to the thing that caused the alarm to go off. All in all: the explosion was a set up and someone tried to hurt or even kill me.
“I want a check up of the whole apartment”, I told Peter. “I don't care how much it costs, do it tomorrow while my wife and I are out of the house.”
Peter nodded once and wrote something down on his clipboard.
“And my wife? She doesn't need to know about this, we clear?”
Again he nodded and left me alone in my ruined kitchen. Not that I used it very often, but still … Someone broke into this apartment and set up and explosion to hurt me! Who the hell would do that? Who did I make this angry with myself? Who would risk hurting Rose in the process, my friends or ma family? Who could do such a thing? Who?
“So what did Peter say caused the fire?”, I asked Dimitri.
We were almost at the school gates, holding hands and walking while some paparazzi's waited just around the corner for our arrival. Dimitri squeezed my hand and I looked up into his eyes. He smiled reassuringly and kissed my forehead.
“Everything is alright, don't worry. He said it was because of some old pipes. It's going to be repaired as soon as we get home.”
“Good”, I smiled back.
We rounded the corner and the paparazzi's bombarded us with flashlights and questions. If you weren't the center of attention, it could have been funny, but being in the middle of it, it sucked! Dimitri put his arm around me, shielding me off of most of the cameras. It almost seemed like a second nature for him, at least in public.
Dimitri and I kept ignoring the questions that were thrown at us and made our way to the school gates and inside. Instantly, Dimitri took a step back and I frowned at him.
“I need to be somewhere, see you at home.”
And he was gone, I couldn't even utter a word before he turned around and was gone. What the hell just happened?, I asked myself. I shook my head and made my way to my locker to grab a few books I needed. My locker was still pretty empty, but I didn't really plan on changing that or decorating it. My first lesson would start in more than half an hour – Dimitri and I always came early in hope to avoid most of the press – and I decided to get to class early and read a book while I waited. I hadn't time to read in a while and I kind of missed it. While I was walking through the halls I didn't look up, because I didn't really think someone beside me would be here this early, but I was mistaken when I bumped into the someone and we both fell down on the ground.
“Damn”, I muttered and rubbed my head.
I heard a groan from the other person and looked up. What I saw shocked me. It was someone I knew from my old school and that was something I thought wouldn't even be possible! It was a boy, exactly 13 days older than me. He was taller than me, everybody was! His hair was reddish and he had bright baby blue eyes and a lot of cute freckles.
“Mason!”, I grinned happily.
Startled with my outburst, Mason looked up and his eyes widened. He definitely recognized me and I thought that he – like me – would be happy, but he wasn't. His shocked eyes turned blank and he got up, I followed suit and went in for a hug, a bit confused about his behavior, but still happy to see him. Mason took a step back and glared at me.
“Don't touch me”, he said.
He had one of my books and slammed it into my chest, walking a way with long strides. He knocked the breath out of me and my breathing hitched for a second. That hurt! What the hell was wrong with Mason? I thought we were friends! Well, at least we have been at our school …
“Mason!”, I shouted after him. “Mason! Wait!”
He didn't, just kept walking and pretending like he couldn't hear me.
“Mase!”
He disappeared behind a corner and I was left alone in the hallway. What the hell just happened? I couldn't remember one single reason why Mason would behave like this towards me. I have never done anything to him, we even stayed in contact after he left my school. He broke of contact after a while, I didn't, so he couldn't blame me. So why was he this … cold towards me? Why?
“You're right, Paul”, Dimitri mumbled.
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Then he wrapped the scarf around my neck again and stood up.
“I'm – rhrm” He cleared his throat. “Gonna go get some drinks.”
He didn't look anybody in the eyes, in fact he looked at his feet. Dimitri scratched his head and fled out of the room and into the kitchen.
Paul ran after his uncle with an angry expression. Well, that could get interesting, I thought with a little smile on my face.
“Roza?”, Olena mumbled. “You want to explain what, well, that was?”
She gestured to my neck with her hand looking a little lost. I would have smiled, if this wasn't so embarrassing for me right now. So instead I blushed furiously and avoided her eyes. I began fidgeting with my hands in my lap, thinking of an excuse but I came up with … nothing.
“Well”, I said. “That was – I mean Dimitri – He – No, I – Well, we -”
“What the hell?!”, growled Dimitri from the kitchen.
We all turned our heads and looked to the kitchen entrance. Dimitri's growl was soon followed by a high pitched squeak and Paul running out of the kitchen and up the staircase. I frowned and watched Paul running, his arms up in the air, his mouth wide open and screaming at the top of his lungs. Seconds later Dimitri came barging out of the kitchen running after his niece, the difference was that Dimitri's stomach was wet with a red substance and he looked royally pissed.
“Dimka!”, his sister Sonya shouted. “What happened?”
Dimitri glared at her and stopped short.
“This little shit threw his disgusting juice at me!”, Dimitri growled.
And without another word or a second glance he bolted upstairs shouting Paul's name, probably wanting to murder the little boy.
“Keep your hands off of my son!”, Karolina screamed and chased after her brother.
“Ha!”, Dimitri laughed. “No way!”
While Karolina, Dimitri and Paul did God knows what upstairs, Viktoria, Sonya, Olena and I stayed downstairs, not saying anything.
"Is it always like this?", I asked with a little smile on my face.
"Most of the time, yeah", Vika giggled and shrugged.
"How about those drinks?", Olena asked.
She and I went into the kitchen. There was juice on the floor and a little on the countertop. Olena giggled beside me and shook her head.
"I'm going to clean that up", she smiled.
"Oh no, you don't", I shook my head.
Olena frowned at me, already holding papertowels in her hands.
"You're our guest Olena, you won't clean up for us", I shook my head and took the paper towels from her hands.
Olena looked at me a little funny. I'm not sure how to discribe it but she looked amused, a little hurt and ... proud? I wasn't sure, it was a weird mix, but it still looked like all these emotion bottled up in one glance. In the end she just smiled and nodded a little and I began cleaning up, while Olena went through the cupboards and searched for a few glasses.
-o-o-o- Thrown Into His World -o-o-o-
“Paul!”, I growled.
“Seriously Dimitri, stop it!”, Karolina growled right back. “You even glance at my son in the wrong way and I will punish you, understand?”
“Karo, you're my sister and I love you but he -”
“Is your nephew and a little child!”, she interrupted me.
And the thing was: She was right. But I was still pissed at Paul, no matter what! Because of his stupid little “love at first sight” and spending little time with my wife, he thinks he can tell me what to do?! She was my wife and – Woah, what the hell? Was I really jealous of my little nephew?
“You know what? Forget it”, I mumbled and turned around.
I went into the bedroom in search of a clean shirt. While I changed, I thought about the scene in the living room. Maybe I shouldn't have left Rose alone in there? Oh well, now it was too late anyways, I thought shrugging. I was wondering how Rose handled the situation and if we ruined her chances with my mother, but I didn't really think so.
Sighing I went downstairs again and found pure chaos! Smoke was coming out of the kitchen, Paul was crying and in the arms of his mum, my mum and Rose were trying to get the smoke away with … towels?
“What the hell is going on in here?”, I shouted.
The women in the room turned around and saw me storming down the stairs.
“We don't know”, my mum screamed.
The smoke was hurting my eyes and they started to water a bit. I couldn't see where the smoke was coming from, or what the cause of it was. The towel swinging my mum and Rose did only made it worse, because the smoke didn't get back into the kitchen, but faster around the living room, making everything looking gray and dizzy.
“Okay, everybody get out of here!”, I shouted.
They all looked at me, like I've lost it. The thing was: We couldn't take control over this stupid fire and I wanted all of them to be save, so they needed to get out of here!
“Out! Now!”, I roared.
Instantly the women in the room began moving. Nobody took anything with them – thank God – and just ran to the elevator.
“No, don't use the elevator, take the stairs”, Rose said and ushered my family out of our flat.
They all nodded, looking a little dazed. It seemed like all they could so was function, nothing else. The problem was that Rose didn't, she stayed behind and came back for me.
“What the hell are you doing?”, I asked her. “Leave! Now!”
“No way am I leaving without you!”, she snapped. “You don't even know where the extinguisher is!”
“We have one of those?”, I joked and grinned down at her.
“See!”, Rose said, but smiled a little.
Probably not the right time to joke, but who cares?
-o-o-o- Thrown Into His World -o-o-o-
“No mum, really, Rose and I are fine, it's okay. Don't worry about it”, I assured my mum.
My mum sighed again, probably still not convinced.
“Just stay home and I'll call you back tomorrow, okay?”, I asked.
She agreed reluctantly and ended the call. I heaved a heavy sigh and ran a hand through my hair. This night couldn't have gone any worse.
“Hey”, I heard Rose's voice behind me.
I turned around and saw her approaching me. We stood in the lobby of the building, still waiting for the firemen to tell us what caused the fire and to let us back in. Rose had gone out and grabbed us some coffee to keep us awake, it was already 1 AM.
“Are they home?”, Rose asked and gave me my coffee.
“Thanks”, I smiled. “And yes, they are. My mum worries way too much, but I think for now she is convinced that we're okay.”
Rose nodded and we both sat down on one of the couches in the lobby side by side.
“What the hell happened up there?”, I asked Rose.
“I have no idea”, Rose replied, shaking her head no. “Olena and I were in the kitchen, getting a few drinks ready and the moment we stepped out of the kitchen we just heard a loud 'Bang' and smoke was erupting from the kitchen. I have no idea what happened, Olena and I just grabbed the first things we found and tried to … I don't even know what we tried to do, we just did something, I guess.”
“It looked pretty hilarious”, I chuckled.
“It's not funny!”, Rose protested laughing and hit me lightly.
“Oh, but it was”, I nodded enthusiastic.
We both smiled at each other and kept joking. It was easy to talk to her, even in a situation like this. She was just someone you could talk to, no matter what about, she either listened when she needed to or gave advised when wanted.
For another two hours Rose and I stayed on that couch, just talking and laughing about nonsense. She told me about her and asked a lot about me, we talked about our likes and disliked, our family, all that crap you talk about, when you have nothing better to do or to entertain you with.
“Belikov!”, a voice roared through the lobby, which was ridiculous, because Rose and I were the only ones this late at night in the lobby, except for the employes.
“Well, we aren't them”, Rose replied sarcastically and rolled her eyes at the fireman.
The man glared at her, but still came over. He had a clipboard in his hands and gruff look. Well, someone was grumpy.
“Dimitri and Rosemarie Belikov?”, he asked.
“That's us”, I replied and stood up, shaking his hand.
“ID?”, he asked.
“Seriously?”, Rose asked. “We're the only ones here, you saw us when you arrived, there are pictures of him in our flat and you know him from every God damn magazine there is in this city!”
“Rose, calm down”, I tried to sooth her and put an arm around her.
I drew small circles on her hip bone and felt her relaxing under my touch. With my other hand I grabbed my wallet from the back pocket of my jeans and showed the man my ID. It was ridiculous because he obviously knew who we were, but I just wanted this to end and get into bed.
“Okay”, he grumbled and gave me my ID back. “Follow me.”
We went upstairs and the fireman who introduced himself as Peter showed us the outcome of the fire. Almost the whole kitchen burned down, the walls and parts of the ceiling were pitch black. It looked some picture out of a movie. Rose beside me gasped.
“Holy Shit, what the hell happened in here?”, she asked shocked.
Rose looked with wide eyes and hands over her mouth around the room. She looked like she couldn't believe what was in front of her.
“Can we use the rest of our apartment again?”, I asked Peter.
“Sure”, he nodded.
“Okay, thanks”, I nodded in return and turned to Rose, grabbing her shoulders. “You should go upstairs and get some sleep, Roza, it's been a long night.”
“What? No, I'm fi-” A huge yawn interrupted her and I raised a challenging eyebrow.
“Goodnight, Roza”, I smiled and kissed her forehead.
“Fine”, she grumbled and pouted really cute. “But you're telling me everything in the morning.”
“I will”, I chuckled and reluctantly she left.
Peter began telling me what happened and what caused the fire. Apparently there has been some kind of problem the gas line, there was a tiny whole and because of … something it exploded. This 'something' has been in our oven and in connection with the gas, we had the big explosion, the fire and everything. Peter told me that if our oven hadn't been one of the expensive ones, the explosion could have been much worse. To top it of, he told me the fire alarms in the our apartments were broken, someone disconnected all the alarms from the thing that realized there was smoke, to the thing that caused the alarm to go off. All in all: the explosion was a set up and someone tried to hurt or even kill me.
“I want a check up of the whole apartment”, I told Peter. “I don't care how much it costs, do it tomorrow while my wife and I are out of the house.”
Peter nodded once and wrote something down on his clipboard.
“And my wife? She doesn't need to know about this, we clear?”
Again he nodded and left me alone in my ruined kitchen. Not that I used it very often, but still … Someone broke into this apartment and set up and explosion to hurt me! Who the hell would do that? Who did I make this angry with myself? Who would risk hurting Rose in the process, my friends or ma family? Who could do such a thing? Who?
-o-o-o- Thrown Into His World -o-o-o-
Rose
“So what did Peter say caused the fire?”, I asked Dimitri.
We were almost at the school gates, holding hands and walking while some paparazzi's waited just around the corner for our arrival. Dimitri squeezed my hand and I looked up into his eyes. He smiled reassuringly and kissed my forehead.
“Everything is alright, don't worry. He said it was because of some old pipes. It's going to be repaired as soon as we get home.”
“Good”, I smiled back.
We rounded the corner and the paparazzi's bombarded us with flashlights and questions. If you weren't the center of attention, it could have been funny, but being in the middle of it, it sucked! Dimitri put his arm around me, shielding me off of most of the cameras. It almost seemed like a second nature for him, at least in public.
Dimitri and I kept ignoring the questions that were thrown at us and made our way to the school gates and inside. Instantly, Dimitri took a step back and I frowned at him.
“I need to be somewhere, see you at home.”
And he was gone, I couldn't even utter a word before he turned around and was gone. What the hell just happened?, I asked myself. I shook my head and made my way to my locker to grab a few books I needed. My locker was still pretty empty, but I didn't really plan on changing that or decorating it. My first lesson would start in more than half an hour – Dimitri and I always came early in hope to avoid most of the press – and I decided to get to class early and read a book while I waited. I hadn't time to read in a while and I kind of missed it. While I was walking through the halls I didn't look up, because I didn't really think someone beside me would be here this early, but I was mistaken when I bumped into the someone and we both fell down on the ground.
“Damn”, I muttered and rubbed my head.
I heard a groan from the other person and looked up. What I saw shocked me. It was someone I knew from my old school and that was something I thought wouldn't even be possible! It was a boy, exactly 13 days older than me. He was taller than me, everybody was! His hair was reddish and he had bright baby blue eyes and a lot of cute freckles.
“Mason!”, I grinned happily.
Startled with my outburst, Mason looked up and his eyes widened. He definitely recognized me and I thought that he – like me – would be happy, but he wasn't. His shocked eyes turned blank and he got up, I followed suit and went in for a hug, a bit confused about his behavior, but still happy to see him. Mason took a step back and glared at me.
“Don't touch me”, he said.
He had one of my books and slammed it into my chest, walking a way with long strides. He knocked the breath out of me and my breathing hitched for a second. That hurt! What the hell was wrong with Mason? I thought we were friends! Well, at least we have been at our school …
“Mason!”, I shouted after him. “Mason! Wait!”
He didn't, just kept walking and pretending like he couldn't hear me.
“Mase!”
He disappeared behind a corner and I was left alone in the hallway. What the hell just happened? I couldn't remember one single reason why Mason would behave like this towards me. I have never done anything to him, we even stayed in contact after he left my school. He broke of contact after a while, I didn't, so he couldn't blame me. So why was he this … cold towards me? Why?
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