After setting her foot inside the house, the first thing that she did was to keep the package all safe.

Mike was surprised to see her arrive in the morning as she had texted him that she would come by evening. She did so, purposefully because she didn't want Vikram to know in any way that she was arriving earlier. She could have told Mike about it, but due to some itching reason, she didn't.

"Your flight got preponed or what?"

"Something like that", Akira said and smiled at him while he jumped at her bags and started searching through them for goodies.

"Hey Hey, that's so uncalled for. How can you touch my bag without my permission huh."

"You permission !!! My ass Akira", saying that Mike just gave a glare to her and continued his jaunt, rummaging through the pile of clothes.

"What the hell are you searching for?"

"Souvenirs dummy, what else", said Mike and continued flipping everything.

"You are not going to find anything in there Mike. I didn't have time to get you anything from the airport. I was just rushing back. It was raining and my cab got delayed, yadda yadda yadda".

Mike got up in a dejected mood and said,

"You don't love me anymore, right? Like, I don't even matter to you."

Saying that he pouted and went towards his room.

Akira followed him and sat next to him on his bed and said,

"What if I make it up to you? What if we go for a round of foosball, just like old times. I will give you 10 dollars if you win against me."

"Seriously Akira? 10 dollars? Am I like 12?"

"More like eleven !!!"

"Stranger things will happen, don't blame me then."

"Ok, 30 USD. That's the final quote."

"Raise the stakes. How come you are still so cheap even after becoming the CEO of such a big company? Make it big, else I am not coming."

"Uggghhhh.... this guy. Fine 100 USD. Deal?"

"Deal", said Mike and smiled looking at her and then came close to her and said,

"Don't back out and don't start crying after I beat you mercilessly."

"Oh please Mike, daydreaming isn't a good thing you know?", and saying that she threw a pillow at him.

He was loving those bright expressions on her sister's face.

He was honestly not interested in any souvenirs. He always just tried to engage with her in some banter or the other, to keep her mood alight. Even after one and a half year had passed, she still stayed all gloomy and shelled. And he wanted to change that.

"Fine, then we will go in the evening. I want to sleep for a while now", saying that Akira got up.

"Alright. By the way, Vikram had called in the morning and he wanted to take us for dinner together. So shall I call him and inform?"

Akira turned back towards Mike and said,

"I am not in a mood for any fancy dinner, especially not with him."

"What happened now?", Mike asked all curiously unable to understand, as to why she was suddenly detesting Vikram out of the blue.

It was then that Akira realized that she might slip some information by mistake, so she covered it up quickly and said,

"Because we are going to trick and surprise him instead. He has surprised us enough. Now it's my turn", said Akira and turned towards her bedroom to freshen up.

Mike couldn't figure out if her statement was generic or it had some hidden meaning to it because the way she spoke was weird and almost cryptic.

Shrugging off his thoughts he slumped on his bed and started flipping through the magazine.

Akira entered her room and saw multiple messages from David on her phone. She had been so caught up with everything that she hadn't even bothered to reply to him. Maybe one of the main reasons behind that was that she was still miffed with him.

So the first thing that she did was to call him up straight using her private number.

"Hello."

"Hello."

"May I know who is this?"

"No, you may not".

"Akira? Is that you?"

She took a deep breath feeling a bit happy from inside that he recognized her voice, and then she said,

"Yes, that's me."

"Finally you got time to call me? I had called you so many times. I was so worried about you. U literally have driven me nuts."

"Have I? And you were worried about me? Like really? Then what were you doing for the last year and a half? What were you doing when I was almost on the verge of dying David? Where had your so-called care disappeared?"

"I can explain Akira. If you give me a chance, I can seriously explain."

Exhaling deeply, she said,

"I do not need any explanation, David. I sincerely thought you were my man. I thought I could blindly trust you for real. And what did I get in return for this blind trust David? Lies, deceit and more lies?"

"I had to keep quiet Akira. Maybe someday you will understand my situation."

Even though Akira knew that whatever David had done was because his hands were tied, she still just wanted to vent out her frustration and anger that was building up inside of her. 

"Akira are you even listening?"

"Yes, I am".

"I promise you that I will never do anything to harm you like ever in my life. Hope you know that."

"I know that David. Raymond told me everything. I mean, not everything, but yeah, enough to know that you are not at fault."

David breathed a sigh of relief hearing her words.

All that he wanted was for her to trust him back. That's all.

"You don't know how good I am feeling after hearing these words of yours."

"Well, you will feel better when you hear what I have for you?"

"What do you mean?"

"Are you ready to rip someone apart?"