Seeing the woman run to her room like a frightened rabbit,Ryu smirked ruefully and looked around the house and soon realized both his comrades were missing.While he had been busy admiring an amazing pair of legs,Neil and Ru had moved to the kitchen and were happily sitting at the small table munching on some type of cookies.He looked around the kitchen amd for a moment was reminded of his mother.Though very different in style,it had a very cozy and homey feeling. He saw a small scarf in the corner with knitting needles still attached showing it to be a work in progress.It seemed this woman was something out of an old time novel with her hobbies being gardening and knitting and cooking..He would have considered these to be her forte if he had not seen the reports she prepared as Neil's a.s.sistant.Without any disc.r.a.pencies her reports were usually concise and accurate.Hmm he wondered what flaws she had...then smiled to himself.She did have a little flaw to mar this perfection..Her handwriting was not legible to anyone.He remembered that once he had asked for an urgent report from Neil and been told to wait 20 minutes to receive it as it needed to be typed..In a hurry he had asked for a hand written copy itself.The handwriting looked like there were ants crawling on paper.Not able to understand a single word,he wondered if his brother had played a prank on him..but then exactly after 20 minutes he had received a typed report and after comparing the two he had been able to at least read the ant like handwriting.

Today's visit was especially enlightening in 2 aspects..one that it seemed that he had always appreciated Neil's a.s.sistant's work and second was something that had been quietly bothering him..He had been worried about his brother being attracted to Al amd vice versa.The level of camaradarie and closeness between these two was outstanding.He had not wanted to interfere if there was even a hint of attraction between the two..but from what he had observed yesterday and today they were more like snarky siblings...

Shaken out of his musings by the sound of a loud burp,he was shocked to see that Neil had polished off what looked like an entire tin of cake.He shook his head at his brother's gluttonous ways and looked around some more not realising that his son was not there in the kitchen anymore.

Upstairs,just outside Al's room,Ru quietly knocked on the door asking to be let in.He had sneaked upstairs to talk to Alice privately and wanted to hurry up before his father and uncle realized that he was not in the kitchen and decided to come look for him.

Alicia opened the door to the insistent knocking and opened the door.Seeing the door open,Ru immediately pushed his way inside,closed the door and grabbing her arm dragged her to sit on the soft rocking chair in the corner of her room.He then climbed onto her lap and said in a sad voice ,"Alice,what do I do?Will you take me in if I am thrown out of my house?You said you will always love me so would it be alright to come live with you?I am really worried I don't want to go live somewhere else with no one to live me..please take me in..."

Alicia had not expected the always happy,carefree and mischevious Ru to have such thoughts out of nowhere.The kid had always been confident in his father's and uncles' love for him.What could have caused him to become so insecure??

"Aiya..Ru baby,of course you can cone live with me whenever you want.Though I thinkbthat will make your father very unhappy..So tell me why you want to come live with me and why are you worried??Alicia wanted to know the reason for this insecurity so she hurriedly a.s.sured him lest he feel more insecure.

Hearing her un-hesitating reply,Runwas satisfied and thought to himself "Aunty Su said I must not talk about this to big people and especially not father and uncle.She said I should talk to her if father ever decides to marry..But she comes in the afternoon which was so far away..also Little Alice is 'little' and not big..and she is my friend so she will definitely help me..."

Deciding to be honest Ru made an angry face and said, "My father is going to marry a witch!!"

Alicia"...."