MISHA
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Bram always liked that better than hiding.
I got up, "I'm on it," maybe I'll be able to put that old promise she made me to test, the night I was the boldest in my life and kissed her cheek. "You need to give at least five minutes to hide, because just to get to a good hiding spot it'll take time, Bram."
"I know, I know. Lessy will seek with me!"
She nodded excitedly and jumped from her seat, her ginger long curly hair moving with her, "We are definitely going to catch you all!"
"Hah, you never caught me!" I mocked. "You won't now."
They all rolled their eyes, "You definitely hid in one of the secret passages of my home back in Milan," Pieter growled. "That's the only freaking explanation. And let's hide in there here, yeah? We ain't putting our feet in those freaky hidden rooms and passages. Given how old this place is, it must be flooded with ghosts."
"Yes!" Bram growled. "It's a knew rule. No hiding there."
"Understood, Misha?" Anastasia growled and they all turned to me.
I rolled my eyes, "Sure. I didn't hide on them either way." I hid in her room instead.
It's not my fault if they never dared to go inside there. It was the best hiding spot ever. I've always did that when she wasn't around, because I was embarrassed of kissing her cheek the last time.
Not now.
I need to see her.
"Okay, we'll start to count," Alessia exclaimed excitedly.
"Run!" Bram shouted.
Before he finished the word I was out of there, feeling like a kid all over again as I ran for my life, using my long legs to my advantage as I went up to second floor, then to the northernmost door at the right side of the eternally long hallway. Though it wasn't hard to know what room was hers, since it was blasting Heartless by Kanye West in the highest volume from the edges of the double doors.
I didn't think, because if I did, I could chicken out. I just quickly opened the doors and ran inside, exasperatedly closing them behind me and locking it. And I froze when I found her with seemingly too lost in her own mind not to hear me coming in, her almost naked back to me, as she punched the punching bag that she managed to put there with her blood red boxing gloves on. Only in a thin carmine red bra, with small black shorts wrapping around her hips, and a pair of red sport shoes on. Legs, arms, abs, and waist showing.
But that was not what made me breathless.
No.
It was the red detailed eastern dragon tattoo covering most of her back.
Identical to the tattoo zio Chris had on his back in black. And I couldn't help but to notice how uncannily familiar the traces of the drawing were similar to all the many drawings I have in my safe. The drawings Emma gave me.
But I snapped out of my daze when she punched the punching sand bag so fucking hard, while letting out a frustrated scream that made me flinch, that it just flew to me, and I quickly held it with my arms. And that was when her green eyes finally saw me. Her eyes widened is shock and she froze.
I froze it too.
We stared at each other like this until the song changed to Haunting by Halsey, which was frighteningly befitting to how she's been haunting my mind, and my dreams since she fucking slapped my face.
"Shit," she cursed, still frozen.
"Quite the core strength you have there," I mocked, putting the punching bag at the side on the ground. And I couldn't help staring at her frontal body, at how the bra wasn't covering much of her round hard breasts, at her curves, at the deep crevices of her tiny waist, of how toned her abdomen is, which is crazy as she is a glutton, who eats like I do, and has not fat.
I mean, don't either, but still.
It's impressive, and hot.
And when I brought my eyes to her face again, her cheeks were burning,
"What the hell are you doing here, Misha?"
Did she just call me Misha?
It's been a while, huh?
"Taking you up on your promise, what else?" When she frowned, I took a look around her room, "I'm hiding. Maria had the idea to play hide and seek, so I'm hiding in your room. You promised me I could always do it, so I'm doing it. No one dares to come here."
There's everything in there, it's almost an apartment.
"You remembered that?" She gasped as if in dismay.
I turned my eyes to hers again, "I may not have photographic memory like you, Mia, but I remember all the promises I made and the promises made to me. My memory is good enough. When you were not around, I would always hide in your room. It made so I would always win the game, because no one ever comes to your room, just as you said back then."
Mia gulped, "You… you saw my back."
"I did."
She clenched her jaw, "Don't tell anyone. Only Leo and Luigi saw it. I haven't told mama yet. Or anyone else. I was not… expecting that you, of all, would come here and see me like this. You shouldn't be here, Misha!"
Well, she sound as angry as she did before. She sounds more… normal. If she was ever normal at all.
"Too bad, I don't do what I should."
In the sexiest way possible, Mia brought her gloved wrist to her lips and used her teeth to free her right hands from the boxing glove, as she held it under her arm, she used her now free hand to free her wrist of the other one. Then, she walked to a black puffed chair at the left corner of her room where there was a red towel laying on, put the gloves down, and picked the towel to dry the sweat on her forehead and neck. Putting on the chair again.
I watched her every move, as What You Need by Ashley Sienna played on her room, enchanted by how her body moved, and I found myself holding my breath when she turned her eyes to me again.
"No need to stand there like a statue, Misha. I made you a promise 10 years ago, didn't I? I keep all the promises I make. Our animosity aside, my room is yours to hide when you need," she told me, taking off her shoes and socks, and putting them aside, then walking to one of the three mini fridges in the room and picking two red bottles of red juice, then throwing one at me, which I held it.
"Pomegranate with strawberry juice?" I'm not surprised.
"It's my favorite," she rolled her shoulders.
I know.
Then she sat down on a wide table at the wall and began to close the note books over it, as well as some blank papers that seemed to be for drawing.
"Do you draw?" I found myself asking her.
"You do remember I'm a Mechanical Engineer, yeah?" She mocked.
"I don't mean like that. I mean normal drawing, like people," maybe I'm paranoid and crazy, but maybe, just maybe, Emma asked her to draw the drawings without her knowing for what it was. Just maybe. The similarity of the drawings with her tattoo are uncanny. "Who draw your tattoo?"
"I did," she purred, taking a sip of her drink. "I made drawings of papa's tattoo when he was still alive. He lived shirtless at home, and he allowed me to draw it when I asked. So, after he passed away, I did the tattoo from my drawing of his, but in red instead, with a friend of his that lived in Boston. Who did his back when papa was in Harvard, before MIT."
So, she can draw.
It could have been her.
"Mia, there's something I want to ask you!"
She arched her eyebrows, "Then ask, I'm not holding you."
Ain't she the sweetest?
"Did Emma asked you to make drawings for her years ago?"
But by how she stilled up and his gaze turned into a death glare, I think my question may have triggered all that anger again.