There was a brief pause on the other end of the line. "Wait... seriously?" Carly asked. "He offered to leave his own temporary home just to make your boyfriend comfortable?"
"Yes! Don’t you see how insidious that is?!" Mika’s voice rose in pitch, her fiery red hair shaking as she gestured wildly to the empty room. "He wants me to say yes! He wants me to kick him out into the cold so he can run to his grandfather, Julius Adelaide, and play the abused, mistreated fiancé. It’s a trap, Carly. He’s trying to make me look like a tyrannical monster so my grandfather will force the marriage pact to punish me!"
Carly let out a soft, thoughtful hum. "I mean... or maybe he’s just really nice? And a little bit of an airhead? From what you told me about the peanut butter, he doesn’t exactly sound like a genius mastermind, Mika."
"That is exactly what he wants you to think!" Mika snapped, her paranoia feeding on her frustration. "He is a master manipulator. No one is that obedient. No one sleeps on bare wooden slats with a pillow made of sweaters and says ’thank you, it’s very spacious’ unless they have a twisted, hidden agenda. I’m telling you, he’s trying to break me."
"Well, if he’s trying to break you, it sounds like it’s working," Carly pointed out mischievously. "You sound highly stressed, boss. Why don’t you just take him up on it? Let him go look at the birds since he’s the one who offered it anyway."
"No. If I let him leave, I lose," Mika declared, her pride flaring. "I’m not letting him play the martyr. If he wants to live here, he’s going to live by my rules, but I’m not going to give him the satisfaction of throwing him out. I’m going to make him break first. He has to be the one to beg to leave."
"Right. Good luck with that," Carly sighed, though her voice carried a smirk. "Just try not to commit any felonies before our shoot tomorrow, okay? I don’t want to have to reschedule."
Mika hung up without saying goodbye, tossing her phone onto the counter. She stared down the long hallway toward Arlen’s door.
Inside the barren room, completely oblivious to the conspiracy theories being spun about him, Arlen sat cross-legged on his mattress-less bed frame. He had finished his dry slice of bread and was now carefully aligning his cheap convenience store snacks on the single wooden chair, arranging them by height.
"Tallest to shortest," he murmured softly to himself, his vacant eye reflecting the morning light piercing through the window. "Like a little staircase."
Mika’s heels clicked sharply against the polished floorboards as she marched down the hallway. Her conversation with Carly had only solidified her resolve. She wasn’t going to let this boy play the victim. If he wanted to act like a brainless, obedient servant to win her grandfather’s favor, she would treat him like one until his pampered, billionaire-heir resolve finally shattered.
She threw the guest room door open without knocking.
Arlen was currently kneeling on the floor, placing a small packet of salted crackers next to a slightly taller box of cheap biscuits. He didn’t startle at her sudden, aggressive entrance. He simply paused, his hand hovering over the plastic wrapper, and slowly tilted his head up to look at her.
"Ms. Mika," he greeted softly, his voice airy and calm.
"Get up," she commanded, crossing her arms tightly over her chest. "Since you’re so eager to be accommodating, you’re going to start earning your keep. I don’t harbor freeloaders in my penthouse, arranged marriage trial or not."
Arlen stood up with his usual effortless grace, brushing off the front of his light gray shirt. He didn’t look annoyed or questioned her sudden demand. "Okay. What should I do?"
Mika pointed a sharp, manicured finger out toward the expansive, floor-to-ceiling glass balcony doors at the far end of the living room. "The balcony glass is smudged from the rain. I want it spotless. And because you are strictly banned from using my expensive cleaning supplies, you’ll have to use this."
She reached behind her back and tossed a stiff, rough, heavily worn dish towel at his chest. "Use tap water from your bathroom. No soap. I want it dry-buffed until I can see my reflection in it. Do you understand?"
It was a tedious, exhausting task designed to make his delicate hands raw and his back ache. She waited for the protest, the sigh of frustration, or the subtle eye roll that would prove he was just pretending to be docile.
Arlen caught the rough towel against his chest. He looked down at the fabric, feeling its coarse texture, and then looked up at her with his wide, vacant left eye.
"No soap," he repeated, ensuring he understood the exact parameters of the command. "Only tap water and buffing."
"Exactly. Get to work. And remember-you are not to speak to me while you do it."
"Okay."
Arlen nodded obediently. He walked past her into his small bathroom, ran the rag under the tap, and wrung it out with slow, methodical precision.
Mika smirked, walking back into the living room and sitting on her plush designer sofa. She poured herself another glass of wine, preparing to watch him struggle. This would surely be the breaking point for a boy who had likely never held a cleaning rag in his entire life.
A moment later, Arlen emerged. He walked straight to the balcony doors, stepped outside into the cool morning air, and closed the glass door behind him.
Through the transparent pane, Mika watched him. Arlen raised the damp cloth and began to wipe the glass. He didn’t scrub frantically or look miserable. Instead, he worked with a bizarre, rhythmic focus. He wiped in perfect, slow circles, his body swaying slightly with the movement as if he were performing a silent, slow-motion dance.
At one point, a small sparrow landed on the balcony railing just a few feet away from him.
Arlen stopped wiping. He turned his head slowly, his thick bangs shifting, and stared at the bird. The sparrow chirped, tilting its head. Arlen slowly raised his hand-the one enveloped in the oversized gray sleeve-and gave the bird a tiny, polite wave.
The sparrow flew away. Arlen watched it go with a look of quiet, peaceful satisfaction, before turning back to the glass and resuming his circular wiping.
Mika stared at him through the glass, her wine glass hovering halfway to her lips. Her smirk slowly vanished, replaced by a deep, twitching frown of pure frustration.
*’He’s not suffering,’* she realized, her grip on the glass tightening. *’He’s actually enjoying himself.’*
She set her wine glass down on the coffee table with a sharp, echoing *clack*. Sliding the glass door open with an aggressive tug, she let the cool breeze rush into the warm living room.
"Are you cleaning or are you hosting a fairy tale audition out here?" Mika demanded, her voice sharp and mocking. "I told you to buff the glass, not make friends with the local pests."
Arlen paused, his hand stopping mid-circle. He turned his head slowly to look at her, his expression entirely vacant. He looked at the rough towel in his hand, then back at the glass.
"The bird was very polite," Arlen said softly, his deadpan voice barely carrying over the breeze. "He did not leave any smudges."
"I don’t care about the bird," Mika snapped, crossing her arms to shield herself from the chill. "I told you I wanted to see my reflection in this glass. It still looks streaky."
Arlen stepped closer to the pane, tilting his head as he examined his handiwork. He leaned in until his nose was nearly touching the glass, his breath fogging up the surface. He stared at the foggy patch, then looked through it at Mika.
"I can see you," he observed quietly. "But the reflection is a bit distorted. Your hair looks very wide from this angle."
Mika’s jaw tightened. "Are you calling my hair messy?"
"No," Arlen replied, entirely sincere. "It just looks like a bush that is currently on fire. It is very bright. Perhaps if I dry it more, the fire will look smaller."
He looked down at the rough dish towel. Because he had run it under the tap, the fabric was damp all over, making it impossible to truly dry-buff the glass. Arlen pondered this dilemma for a brief, silent moment. Then, with a nod of sudden realization, he pulled his hand back into the long, oversized sleeve of his gray shirt.
Using the soft, dry fabric of his sleeve, he began to vigorously rub the glass pane.
Mika’s eyes went wide. She stared at his arm, then at the fabric of his shirt. "What are you doing? Is that... is that cashmere?"
"I do not know," Arlen murmured, his shoulder working in a rhythmic circle as he buffed the glass with his sleeve. "It is gray. It is very comfortable. It works much better than the rough cloth."
"Stop that!" Mika yelled, grabbing his wrist to pull his hand away from the window. "Are you insane? That shirt probably costs more than a month of some people’s rent, and you’re using it as a squeegee?!"