"Oh, now she is sending you messages?"

Zaria crawled out of the bed she shared with Gu Cheng, not bothering to straighten the comforter that she was mussing in her haste. The sharp geometric lines of the pattern that covered it were broken and curved with the wrinkles. A small part of her brain acknowledged that she liked it better that way.

"I didn't give her my number."

"When I said I wanted you to talk to me more, I didn't mean I wanted you to include that woman."

Several days had passed since the misunderstanding that almost ended their relationship. Zaria couldn't believe that he was already thinking of leaving her again. Sure, things were a little rougher than she would like. Not being in danger all the time left a lot of attention that could be put toward little things that she had probably been ignoring.

Fairly often, they ended up alone together in the apartment. Rika was spending more time with Speaker Vlachos, and the teenagers were usually out somewhere exploring the city together. Whenever an update message came in from one of the boys, letting her know if they would be back for a meal, Gu Cheng was right there, trying to look over her shoulder. If she said she wanted to go out for a walk, he was asking who with. The morning before, when she stretched and smiled up on waking up, he asked who she was dreaming about. It was getting irritating. It wasn't like she was asking him why he wanted to go running alone in the morning, in the same place that woman took her runs. Each time, she managed to keep the words from coming out.

Gu Cheng did not respond. He rolled to the edge of the bed and stood up, grabbing his clothing for the day and carrying it to the bathroom so that he could change from his sweatsuit. Zaria watched his broad shoulders disappear into the other room, sighing loudly and turning back to the bed to remake it. Sleeping in her clothes for the next day did leave her a little more rumpled than she would like to appear in front of others, but there was no argument over who got to use the bathroom to get changed first.

She wondered if they would always dress in different rooms. In their present situation, especially with the arguing, it was important to keep the 'intimate' stimulus to a minimum. They were not in a good place to risk something happening because of a birth control failure. The arguing did seem to be helping in lowering the desire to do more than just kiss. Not that there had been much of that in the last few days.

Zaria walked out of the bedroom and made her way down the hall, bisecting the four rooms. On the same side as the master bedroom was the laundry area, and she stopped by to make sure that clothes had not been left in the washing machine again. It had not taken long for the learned behaviors of being responsible for their selves had begun to slip. The teenagers were quickly reverting back to the days when 'mom' took care of everything for them. Since Rika was spending most of her time out of the apartment with her new beau, being 'mom' had fallen to Zaria.

"20 years old, and I am a mom to two kids taller than me..."

Of course, clothing was sitting in the machine, forgotten. She sighed and moved it to the dryer and started the cycle. She couldn't bring herself to yell at the boys. It was wonderful that they had the opportunity to be kids again for a while, even if that meant she had to be more of an adult so that they were taken care of. She paused as she pressed the button for a mixed cycle.

Was she really 20 years old?Surely she was, when she was still in her own world, her birthday was only a couple of months away. Her brain knew that she had advanced another year, but she could think of when it had happened? It had to be around the time at the duke's manor. What a great birthday that would have been. She pulled out her phone from City C, checking the calendar. There was no point in using that particular app after the need to remember appointments were gone. The last item scheduled was...and then she left the next day...and...

"What are you doing?"

Gu Cheng stood in the doorway to the laundry area, his new running clothes making him look strong and virile.

"Going out running, then?" She looked back down at her phone, not wanting to deal with him looking so good just to go out and maybe see someone else.

"Yes. What are you doing?"

"It doesn't matter. It's past." She kept her phone in her hand and walked past him. In the living room, the phone was placed photo-cell up on the front window sill. The glass pane was good quality, but she could still feel a little chill standing so close to the glass and looking out.

"I'm leaving. Will you be here when I get back, or next door?"

Stolen story; please report.

Zaria sighed inwardly at the barely disguised anger in his voice. "I haven't been over there since the night I left the dinner early. If I am not here, then I will be going out for a walk."

Gu Cheng didn't say another word, but the way the door closed just a little too hard told her all she needed to know about his state of mind. For just a moment, she thought about checking his phone to see if he had been texting the Lykos woman. It felt wrong. Not just because she had sworn to herself that she would never do things like that when she started dating someone. If there was so much doubt about a person's fidelity, then she wouldn't be happy even if she found nothing. In her young and naive days, she imagined that if she had doubts, that would be in. Done. Kaput. Can't trust them, then dump them. No, it felt wrong because she was sure that he would not do something like cheating. It just wasn't something that the cold ceo from City C would do. So why did she have that strong urge to check up on him?

It felt wrong. Something felt off. No, it was that woman. It was jealousy, she admitted to herself. Those long limbs, perfect curves, and pouty, sensual lips. It was reasonable to have doubts if your man was served up someone like that as a dish. She looked down at her sleep clothes, wrinkled and baggy. Oh yeah, definitely sexy.

Zaria stopped, her hand reaching out for the tea pot to fill it up with boiling water. Why was she comparing herself to that woman? Why was she doubting Gu Cheng, who she trusted not to cheat? The feeling had been there since they arrived, that something was off, but it was all explained so easily as her newly acknowledged anxiety and dealing with the trauma from the recent past. But what if it wasn't? She should ask Yasuo, he would know. She smiled as she went back to filling up the pot. As old as she hypothesized he was, he could explain what was happening, why she and Gu Cheng couldn't trust each other anymore. Maybe it was because Gu Cheng had found his mate? Something about that, though...

The front door opened, and the three boys hurried in, shivering as they removed their shoes and then their coats.

"It's so cold outside today!" Hideki plopped into a chair on the other side of the island counter and grinned widely at Zaria. "It is so much colder here than it was in my world. I wonder where we are, if we are farther north!"

"I don't know." Zaria poured him a cup of tea as well and leaned on the counter while she sipped hers. The other boys had disappeared into the first bedroom, so she didn't bother pouring them any. "We've talked about the differences in rotation of the Earth across the universes. It could just be that this planet is farther along toward Winter. Or it could already be winter!"

"I still have trouble believing we are really in a different world, and I saw a Lykos in their furred form yesterday! So why is that I can believe the planet is turning differently." He laughed, delighted as he took a sip of the tea before asking for some sweetener.

"I haven't seen a Lykos not in human form yet," she responded as she got out the jar of honey and put some in her own cup before handing the jar over. "Did you want to join the other boys? You don't have to keep me company."

"No." He blushed and smiled shyly. "I think they really like each other, and it's great hanging out with them, but sometimes I feel like I should give them a little time to their selves. Oh!"

He rushed back to his coat and pulled out a thin, rolled up paper, and brought it back. The scroll shape was smoothed out to reveal a newsletter, only a couple of pages thick. "They have newspapers here, I found one in an Anis shop. Did you know that Anis means powerless? I mean, it is a shorter form of the word that means it. Apparently, English is derived almost entirely from Greek. The roman empire never grew. So that is why so many words seem like another language, they are! That seems kind of cruel to me, but nobody else thinks anything about it."

"It seems cruel to speak another language?"

"No," he said, laughing, his fingers wrapped around the porcelain to soak up the warmth. "It seems weird to call a whole race of humans powerless. It's like it's an insult."

"Yeah. People are weird."

Zaria moved around the counter so that she could read the newsletter along with Hideki. They took their time drinking their tea as they read up on the news of the city. On the first page, there was a segment on the world summit that was going to be taking place that week between the speakers of all the different areas and the three different subspecies. A line about 'unfortunate recent events' being a main topic of the summit took Zaria to page four, and an article buried under an ad for glow in the dark lipstick.

"Oh my, it looks like maybe it isn't all happiness all the time here. This article says that one of the things the summit is going to be addressing is accusations that the sanguine is hiding superpowers. Speaker Vlachos did mention that stories from my world have been leaking over, and the Anis are taking them too seriously."

"Did you Sanguine have super powers?"

"No, we didn't have Sanguine. A hole in this world inspired writers in mine, and then they added imagination to the facts. Some of it was believable, and fears of our world translated into the supernatural. Some was just odd, like sparkling... Wait, why does Cathy say 'Sparkle me' so much?"

Hideki snorted into his tea cup. "It's a swear here. Something from the species wars from the far past. It was the last time that explosives were used. They were outlawed after. Someone blew up a big factory that a bunch of Sanguine soldiers were hiding in. It turned out to be a fireworks warehouse. So Sparkle Me is like saying fuc-"

"Okay, I get it," Zaria interrupted with a laugh. "But it says here that there is a little group of Anis that are trying to start a rebellion? They kidnapped a woman who was married to a Sanguine and carrying his child. Without the constant support that Anis need to be able to carry a sanguine child, she dies, and they are blaming the husband. It sounds like their mission is to stop breeding between the different sub-species. I've read that in the history books before, date only your own kind."

Zaria threw down the sheet in disgust.