This time it was Dav's turn. He read out his task.

“Hide and seek? Come on...” Kai stretched lazily and ran out of the living room faster than anyone else.

“We're only hiding on the ground floor,” Dav barely had time to say after him.

Cirkul walked over to me and wrapped the chain around his fist so it wouldn't get in the way under our feet.

“Let's go, I know where he won't find us,” he grabbed my elbow and pulled me towards the exit.

“I have heard everything. Is that a challenge?” Asanor said. He seemed excited.

We walked to the farthest wing of the mansion, where I'd never been before. Grant quietly opened the door and we found ourselves in a huge, dark study.

“Who is there?” Gisborne, who seemed to have dozed peacefully in his chair before we arrived, asked sharply.

“Grandpa, I'm sorry to bother you,” the guy said, leading me purposefully to the long desk by the window.

Five minutes passed, then we heard someone laughing loudly somewhere at the back of the house. It sounded as if Kai had been found. There was a knock on the study door and then his older brother appeared.

“Good evening,” the young man entered and nodded to his relative.

“Greetings, Dav,” Gisborne said with a smile. “How are you? What brings you to me?”

“It's nothing. I just wanted to see how you were. Are you well?”

“Yes, it couldn't be better,” the grandfather followed his grandson's movements around the room, hiding a smile in his moustache. “And what about you? Any news?”

“Nothing yet. We're on holiday.”

“All right. Rest while you can. It's a rare opportunity.”

“Okay, I'll go,” the young man didn't seem to have found what he was looking for.

“Go, go. Give my regards to your brothers. They should at least come and see me.”

“Grandpa, have you seen Grant and Siri?” Dav asked on his way out.

“No, I haven't.”

I breathed a sigh of relief, the tension of fear of being found instantly gone. My legs were stiff and I was desperate to stretch them.

Grant's nose was almost on my neck, tickling me with his breath, making me want to move away, but there wasn't enough room.

“Wait,” the grandfather stopped his grandson. “Could you pass me the letter, please? It's in the desk drawer.”

Butterflies of worry fluttered in my stomach, but there was nowhere to run. First the boots appeared in front of us, then Dav bent down and looked under the table.

“There you are,” he smiled with all thirty-two teeth.

“Grandfather, why did you give us away to him?” Grant asked indignantly, crawling out from under the table.

Asanor Senior just grinned.

“You have to hide in places where there are no other people, so they don't give you away. A lesson for the future. Are you playing hide and seek?” asked the man with the stick.

“No, playing forfeits. That was one of the tasks.”

“Oh... once upon a time, your fathers and I used to play this game in the evenings,” Gisborne's eyes flickered with nostalgia.

I tried to picture the ever-serious and frowning president Rizor and the equally intimidating Minister doing their tasks in forfeits. Nothing came to mind.

“Can I join you?”

We just looked at each other dazedly and nodded. With Gisborne, the game was about to take a very different form.

Since Taehee was found first, she had to sing a children's song for forfeit. But Kai, who was next to her, was out of luck.

“Give the third person on your left a relaxing heel massage,” Dav read in a voice that wasn't his own.

“Oh, how timely I've come,” Gisborne beamed.

Grandpa Asanor's socks were adorable, with cross-embroidered reindeer faces. We even got the robot-worshipper to record a video for the story.

“Call a random phone number and wish them Happy Independence Day/Solar Solstice Day/Sofa Protection Day. Volunteer.”

“Let me play here,” Grandpa Asanor volunteered. “Who should I call?”

The housemaid had brought an old landline, so Grant flicked through the contacts and dialled the first number he could find. We put it on speakerphone.

The eldest of our company cleared his throat as the dial tone went on, and as soon as the other side answered, he said in a thin voice, “Hello, good man, we congratulate you on the Day of the Jerboa. On such a beautiful holiday, may your friends not disappoint you, may your destiny not shrink, and may the invisible fetters of life not appear. I wish you with all my soul to become a politician! I wish you lots of money. I wish Miss Unica to fall in love with you and adore you!”

“Dad, is that you?” came the familiar voice of Rizor Circul from the phone. “You are not allowed to drink, have you been mixing pills with whisky again?”

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

We all had eyes the size of the plate Grant had just drunk. The guy rushed over and cut the connection. We all burst out laughing.

“Ugh,” Gisborne exhaled as he wiped his sweaty face with his handkerchief. “I haven't had this much fun in a long time. Have you got anything to wet my throat with?”

We respectfully offered him Midi's smoothie. Surprisingly, Asanor liked this ‘cool drink’.

“Delicious,” he said. He wiped his moustache and asked for more.

We hadn't laughed like that for a long time. I looked through the tears of laughter at Taehee, who smiled warmly at everyone, at Kai, who made the universe laugh with his very existence, at Dav, who, it turned out, could do more than just sit there with a sad expression on his face, at Gisborne, who was a really nice grandfather. I looked at Grant, his eyes shining with serenity.

‘Remember this day, Siri. Remember this day. Today you lived without regrets, you didn't worry about anything. You didn't think about the future, you didn't think about the past, you lived in the present. Enjoying every minute of it. Remember that. Because today you really lived. Because there will never be another day like it...’

“To tell a funny life story,” Dav's voice interrupted my thoughts.

The lot fell to Gisborne.

“Me again? Well...” the grandfather rubbed his nose and cleared his throat. “This story happened when I was little, and my father told it to me later. When I was a child, we lived in one of the suburbs on the outskirts of the city. It was a turbulent time, a lot of people were robbed. Our neighbour was murdered, stabbed in his sleep at home, and they said he was moaning and bleeding before he died. A lot of people were scared at that time. Yes…”

We looked at each other because the story didn't seem funny yet. But I had long noticed that Gisborne had a peculiar sense of humour.

“My mother was frying pancakes in the kitchen, opened the windows to let the heat out, and heard someone moaning in the garden. It was late autumn, it was getting dark early and she couldn't see much in the dark, just hear the barely audible moaning. She immediately thought someone had been killed again, closed the windows and, leaving me asleep, locked the house and ran to the end of the street – not everyone had a telephone in those days. She asked a neighbour to call the police and returned, frightened by the sound of howling in the garden. My father had just come home from work when the police met him on the porch. They went into the garden together to see who was moaning,” the grandfather said, grinning into his moustache. “And they came back laughing their heads off. Later, when the police had left, my father told my mother... Our garden adjoined another garden with a cottage on another road, parallel with our own. And at the fence separating our garden from the neighbour's, they found a drunk man moaning in his voice. And what did you think? Autumn, evening, the yard is cold, a drunken man is sitting at the fence moaning to the whole world. His wife refused to let the drunken man go home, and he wanted to go to the toilet, but it was cold outside, so he sat by the fence and waited for his wife to have mercy. That's the story...”

We burst out laughing for the second time that day, tears in our eyes. Gisborne chuckled as he watched us try to stop ourselves laughing and sipped his herbal smoothie.

“Grandpa, you've never told us this story before...” Kai said offended. “Why only now?”

“Consider it waiting for the right moment,” Asanor grinned.

“Miss Midea asked me to inform you that dinner will be served in ten minutes,” the robot-worshipper entered the room.

“Okay, then maybe one last forfeit?” Kai asked.

Everyone nodded in agreement. This time it was my turn and the younger Asanor's.

“You must sit facing each other and look each other in the eye without looking away,” Dav instructed us. “I will read you the questions and you must answer them honestly, one by one.”

“I think I've heard of it. ‘Forty-four questions of sincerity’. They say that if you look at a person and give truthful answers, you'll fall in love,” Taehee told us.

I laughed with Kai, assessing the chances of falling in love on the way. No, he wasn't my type at all. No one would ever top Krile, my heart was already set on him. Something similar was written on Asanor's face, but we decided to answer the questions for the sake of interest.

“If you could invite anyone to dinner (significant other, deceased relative, celebrity), who would you choose?” read Dav.

“Mum,” we said almost simultaneously, surprised at the coincidence, and then laughed.

Taehee even clapped for our unity.

“Okay, next question,” the host continued. “What would your ‘perfect day’ be?”

I let the guy speak, thinking about my answer.

“Get up early, have a delicious breakfast, go for a walk in the park, have an ice cream and watch the people go by. In the afternoon, head to the International Market to see an exhibition of the latest inventions. And in the evening, catch an open-air magic show. And it's better I don't do it alone.”

“You? Wake up early? You're never going to have a perfect day. It's just not possible,” Grant quipped.

Attention shifted to me. I raised my eyes to the ceiling, still unable to find the thoughts I wanted.

“Okay. Wake up, have breakfast, get in the car and drive freely, not following the route, and in the evening drive to some beautiful place, pitch a tent and watch the stars, warm yourself by the fire,” I held my breath for a moment as I really imagined this picture.

“If you're ever going to make your day, take me with you,” Gisborne asked.

“Sure,” I couldn't help smiling.

“Do you have any idea how you will die?”

“I guess if I don't die my own death, it will be a heroic end,” Kai laughed awkwardly and ran his fingers through his hair.

“I'll hire a hitman and take sleeping pills so I can be shot in my sleep,” I joked.

“So you think you're going to kill yourself?” Dav's eyes were deadly serious.

“Or they'll hire a hitman to kill me in my sleep.”

“I'll get a hitman to kill you,” Grant said. “Because you snore.”

I grinned and showed him my tongue. How could he lie so blatantly? I never snored.

“If you were to get married one day, where would you go on your honeymoon?”

“Okay, that's enough, let's go,” Circul suddenly grabbed my hand.

“Grant, what are you doing? It was fine,” Kai jumped up and tried to stop us.

“We're going, it's late and we have an invitation to the Minister of Culture's house tomorrow.”

“What about dinner?” I asked pathetically. If Midi was cooking tonight, I couldn't miss her culinary masterpieces.

“You'll have some for breakfast.”

“What's wrong with him?”

“Jealous. What can you take from him? He's young blood, and if you give him a reason, he'll be furious,” said the wise old Gisborne.

Grant just snorted at that remark and led me away with his head held proudly high.

And I resented the mean boy he'd just made himself out to be. He did what he wanted and never cared what anyone else thought.

All evening I ignored the existence of my partner in chain misery. I kept silent as if my life depended on it.

Finally, the young man couldn't stand it any longer, he came closer and looked at me: “Don't be silent on me.”

I rolled my eyes and turned away, staring down at my book again.

The book of fantasy stories was ripped from my hands. The pages were almost torn.

“You...”

“If you resent me, I'll tickle you,” he warned.

I exhaled quietly, burning my own anger into my heart. I crawled uncomplainingly under the covers, hugged my pillow and wished silently: “Good night.”

“And you sleep well,” he said in return.

I lay in the dark, staring at the wall and listening to Grant's steady breathing, reassuring myself that he would soon be asleep and I could sneak up to the windowsill, hide behind the curtains and read by the light of the street lamp until dawn.

I shouldn't have been angry with this life. It was almost perfect... except for the one guy who kept me from enjoying the last few weeks of my existence on earth.

But I was even glad that I had something to resent. I shouldn't have felt the deceptive touch of happiness, shouldn't have looked carelessly into the future, shouldn't have forgotten my purpose.

Grant's soft sniffling at my side reminded me of the reason I was still clutching the corners of my pillow, the reason I'd put up with his constant contemptuous tone as king of the world, the reason I was still alive.

Having Circul beside me was the key to my impending freedom. As long as I could reach out to him, as long as I could hear his taunts and look into his black eyes, I could carry out my revenge. Day by day I came closer to my goal. I came closer to killing. I came closer to my death.

And Grant was a promise and a reminder of the end of my destiny.