"Are you broke, sir?"
"What?"
Jerrod blinks his eyes as he doesn't get to where that question came from and asks again.
"What was it?"
"Did you go bankrupt, sir?"
Jerrod was nervous about nothing. He didn't know where the question came from, but at least he was relieved that Larissa was not confronting him yet.
"Do I look like one? W-why do you think so?" Jerrod replied awkwardly.
He thought maybe his daily purchases in the convenience store made them think he could no longer afford decent food.
"You're not, sir?" Larissa asked again. She placed two pieces of bacon on Jerrod's plate and even chopped the pork for him. She's worried that her inquiries will give Jerrod indigestion based on his uncomfortable expression. She only realized that her question was quite insensitive. She only asked about it out of concern and was wondering if she could help Jerrod.
Though it's already been decades since they first met, it didn't change the fact that she once admired Jerrod. She wanted the person she looked up to be better.
"Do you think my father's company will go bankrupt that easily?" Jerrod felt funny for keeping responding to Larissa's question with another question, and then Larissa would answer him with another question, too. He feels like they are not going anywhere.
"It's your father's company. How about you?"
"Me?"
Jerrod was stunned. No one around him thought that his father's wealth was a separate thing from his own wealth. It was like a given that everything that his parents owned would be his, too.
Although he really had assets of his own now, his parents' name was hard not to associate with him.
"I am doing fine. My father won't bother me much about taking over his company. I actually don't want to manage such a huge company. I found a company that has good people and a good environment, so I am not broke." Jerrod shared. He thought maybe Larissa was just trying to get to know him or wanting to know news about him because of how long they hadn't seen each other since the confession.
Of course, he didn't say everything about him and only gave a few details to let Larissa know that he was not broke.
"That's good to hear, sir. Then why do you buy food from our store?" Larissa continues to question him, but their conversation is a bit more casual now. She ate her dinner casually while she waited for Jerrod's response.
Jerrod stares at Larissa for a moment. He stared at the woman who he was scared of. He admits that Larissa is indeed alluringly beautiful, but he couldn't help but compare her to the ghost in his cabinet.
Larissa's blue eyes sparkled in the same way as the ghost's luminescent eyes in the dark. The same goes with her pale white skin; she would be mistaken for a ghost because her skin appears to be bloodless. The only thing that made him wonder was how her skin turned so white when, as far as he could remember, Larissa's skin was darker back when they were still in high school.
It only proves that a lot of things happened in ten years that they both have nothing to do with each other, but why does he still need to look back and be tormented just because of a ten-year-old mistake?
Jerrod sighed. Nothing makes sense to him, and he just resumes to respond to Larissa's question. "It's just my first time eating convenience store food. I don't eat based on the price. I eat what I enjoy." he shared.
Larissa nodded her head while she put her spoon on her plate. She stopped asking more questions, as she was not sure if it was okay to ask the next thing she was worried about.
Seeing her stop talking made Jerrod focus on his food. He didn't have the appetite to eat after what happened, yet he forced himself to eat to not appear rude.
"Hmm, how about your health? Are you suffering from an illness, sir?" Larissa suddenly spoke again, which made Jerrod choke on the meat he had just put in his mouth. Larissa hurriedly gave him water, and Jerrod couldn't focus on how Larissa's face folded from concern because he couldn't stop coughing from the meat that was stuck in his throat.
"Cough! Cough! Illness? Cough! I am not sick! Cough! I am healthy!"
The way he coughed contradicted what he was saying, but Jerrod was actually saying the truth. He is an insomniac, but his body is completely healthy.
"Maybe Migs was right," Larissa thought internally, while she tapped Jerrod's back. "If the bankruptcy was not true, then being terminally ill was true. He doesn't look healthy either."
Larissa closely observes Jerrod.
Jerrod's fair skin that looked pale because of the lightning in her house and the dark circle under his eyes made Larissa convinced that Jerrod might suffer from an illness that he could not speak about, which led Larissa to misunderstand and overreact.
"If you have a health issue, sir, you should stop eating convenience store food. It will make your health worse." Larissa advised.
Jerrod couldn't believe what he heard, and he drank water directly from the pitcher to push down the meat that was making his throat suffer. He gasped and calmed himself before he looked straight at Larissa's blue eyes.
With his teary eyes because of being choked to death, he sternly informed Larissa, "I am totally healthy! There is nothing wrong with me."
Larissa smiled, but that smile doesn't look like someone who takes his words seriously.
Jerrod flinched after Larissa suddenly touched the corner of his eyes, wiping off the tiny bead of tears from choking, and softly told him, "Okay, sir. You are healthy, I heard you."