“What is your dream that hasn't come true yet?”

“Gatherings until morning with close friends at my house.”

(from Rina's interview for ‘Home Fairy’ website)

A tall girl with short bright yellow hair stood on the threshold, and next to her, to Rina's displeasure, was a curly-haired, handsome guy. Unlike the girl, who nervously shifted her long legs and fidgeted with the edge of a black blouse, the guy held himself confidently.

“Vika?” Rina asked sternly, and when the girl nodded, she motioned for her to pass.

“Wow!” the guy suddenly exclaimed, peering into Rina's face, and then smiled broadly. “It can't be! The missing singer herself! Like really?”

Vika quickly looked around, and the surprise in her eyes was replaced by joy.

“Is that true? Are you Rina? Has Nikolai found you?” she asked.

Rina didn’t answer, closed the door and, leaning her back against it, answered dryly:

“Nikolai is in that room. You can go through.”

Vika smiled awkwardly, apologizing for her lack of restraint, and went into the bedroom. The guy stayed in the hallway.

“It's awesome, what a turn!” he admired, and Rina mentally groaned.

Her incognito went to hell! It remains to grab things and run again… but where to?

“One more scream, and you will have a turn - to the door and to the street,” she snapped and went into the kitchen.

The guy stomped after me, I keep talking on the move:

“And you and I have already met! I interviewed you!”

The cup that Rina was about to wash slipped out of her hands and fell back into the sink. Fortunately, it didn't shatter into small pieces, but the handle broke off. Rina in her heart, masking her fright with anger, threw the cup into the bucket and abruptly turned to the unexpected guest.

“Wow! Don't glare at me!” He muttered hurriedly and raised his hands. “Yes, I'm a journalist, but I just bought Vika.”

“Is Vika your girlfriend?”

“No, but…” he was suddenly embarrassed and, catching his thoughts, introduced himself: “My name is Yura. Yuriy Vasilev. And I've actually interviewed you and been to many of your concerts.

Rina asked coldly. “And what?”

“Well... I thought it would be nice for you to know.”

“Is it nice to know that a journalist has broken into my house?”

“Listen! Did I say I came for an interview? I'm telling you, I gave Vika a ride! She was very scared, she was going to the devil knows where. Should I have left her? How did I know that the missing celebrity had settled in this shack?”

“This is not a shack, but a house! My house!” Rina was so angry that Yura backed away.

“Okay, okay! I'm sorry, really, I'm sorry! I'm too stunned to meet you. I didn't expect…”

“And now listen to you! If you talk about me somewhere, you will regret it greatly! This is my private life. And since I came here, it means I'm sick of people like you! Overly curious and chatty!”

With these words, Rina left the kitchen, went down to the yard and pulled the dried clothes off the rope. But Yura didn’t let her rest here either.

“Listen, let's make peace, huh? I didn't come here as a journalist. Although, I admit, I really wanted to find out where you disappeared. First of all, because I'm your fan. Secondly, to rub the nose of his boss, who fired me. I was the first to write about your breakup with your fiance, but the news was immediately deleted. And me - to the street. I suspect that it was not without Dimitri himself!”

Rina shuddered slightly, but after a short pause, she went back into the house. If her hands had not been busy with clothes, she would have slammed the door in front of Yura, who stuck his head in after her.

“So ‘Dimitri himself’?” Rina mimicked. “Are you such an important bird that he personally monitors whether the journalist Vasilev has written something about him?”

“Well, not that important… But I was fired right after I told the world about your breakup!”

“Maybe it's because you write lousy?” Rina didn’t start to be amused.

Yura swallowed this too, bent down to pick up the sock that had fallen from her hands and handed it to her.

“Why are you telling me this? Are you thinking of taking pity on me and making friends?” Rina asked, already feeling tired instead of anger.

“I would like to,” Yura answered innocently and smiled charmingly.

But Rina measured him with her eyes and said nothing.

When she entered the bedroom, she heard Nikolai angrily scolding the assistant for bringing someone unknown with her.

“Kolya, I didn't know that you found Rina!” Vika exclaimed. “And she didn't warn me that I had to come alone.”

Hearing the sound of footsteps, Vika looked around and guiltily looked away.

“Nikolai, she really didn't know,” Rina sighed, folding his clothes on the nightstand. “And this guy, a journalist, gave her a ride.”

“A journalist!” Nikolai exclaimed and laughed at something. “This is already more like some kind of surrealism.”

“This is the same journalist and blogger we met in the park,” Vika began to explain hurriedly. “He came to talk to you in your absence and returned the next day…”

“We'll figure it out,” Nikolai grumbled and glanced at his jeans with a hint.

Rina wanted to remind him about bed rest, but decided that she no longer had the right to interfere, so she silently went out into the corridor. Vika followed her.

They found the journalist in the kitchen. Yura, running his fingers into the cap of curls, looked around curiously, but when Rina was about to say something caustic to him, he turned to her and exclaimed with sincere admiration:

“It's very cozy and beautiful here! Sorry about the shack. You have a great house!”

“I tried,” Rina answered with restraint, went to the window and, turning to the guests, leaned her back on the windowsill.

During a long pause, a fly could be heard buzzing behind the glass, but no one, not even the chatty Yura, tried to break the silence. Vika shamefacedly trampled and squinted to the side, embarrassed to sit down. Yura looked around the walls and closed lockers, but not out of curiosity, but as if trying to come up with the next remark. All his attempts to start a friendly conversation with Rina were shattered by her coldness. Rina herself was painfully thinking what to do. The darkness outside the window hid the outlines of the apple tree, and on the small piece of sky that could be seen, the first star shone like a coin. Rina didn’t dare to put all the ‘guests’ out the door, especially since she herself called Vika. And she was afraid that the journalist, once on the street, would talk about the ‘sensation’.

Nikolai saved them from prolonged awkwardness. He entered the kitchen, already dressed in a red T-shirt and black jeans, and Rina involuntarily held her gaze on him a little longer than was necessary. The T-shirt hugged his broad shoulders, and the red color suited him, the brunette, very well. Nikolai exuded calmness and confidence, and Rina involuntarily calmed down herself. He looked around the audience and greeted Yura with a nod.

“Here we meet again!” the journalist smiled broadly, but, glancing at Nikolai's bandaged arm, which he supported with a healthy one, sympathetically stretched out: “Yeah… How did this happen?”

“I had a bad swim. There was… something sharp under the water.”

“Do you know each other?” Rina asked, no longer surprised by anything.

“Kind of.”

Nikolai looked from Yura to Vika and back again and said sternly:

“I hope everyone understands that we are unexpected ‘guests’ in Rina's house. And that we can't tell anyone that we found her and where. And then…"

“What's that?” Yura squinted.

“And the fact that my left punch is also strong,” Nikolai calmly retorted.

“Kolya,” Vika quietly put him down.

But Yura was already boiling:

“Why are you treating me like a leper?! What is one, what is the other, what is the third! And all because I'm a journalist! Fired, by the way! So you can see how I call the editorial offices and call everyone. Damn you! I just decided to give her a ride,” with these words Yura nodded at the embarrassment to blush Vika. “That's it. Is a good deed punishable? Should I write you a receipt in blood that I'm not going to leak information about Rina?”

“Be quiet,” Nikolai stared at him and blocked the exit when Yura tried to leave the kitchen.

“Let me pass! You’re acting like a fucking bodyguard! I want to leave.”

“Wait, don't get excited. Sorry, I overreacted,” Nikolai slowed down, but cleared the way.

Yura, however, lingered.

“We need to decide what to do.”

“And what is there to decide?” Rina sighed and moved away from the window. “It's night outside. Two of you after a long journey. The third is generally prescribed bed rest. We'll settle in somehow. In the large room there is a sofa and a folding chair. In the small one there is only a bed. And she's already busy with the one who needs her most right now.”

“I can easily sleep even in the hallway on a rug!” Yura responded eagerly. “Or in the car.”

“It's better in the house,” Rina replied with a polite smile. “I'll find blankets, I hope it will be comfortable.”

“Just hand over the mobile phones to everyone!” Nikolai suddenly ordered. “Rina will hide them under a pillow at night.”

Vika gave him a puzzled look. Yura bristled at first, but when he saw that Nikolai and Rina exchanged glances with understanding smiles, he regarded everything as a joke.

They figured out who would sleep where pretty quickly. Rina gave up the sofa to the guest, Yura helped to spread out the chair, and he decided to settle down on the floor in the bedroom. Directing the fuss as a hostess, taking out pillows, blankets and sheets, Rina was already experiencing joy instead of irritation. Once upon a time, dreaming of her own house, she imagined how she would arrange parties for friends. At first she wanted noisy parties, then quiet bachelorette parties with tea, sweets and intimate conversations until morning. And now her dream has partially come true. Rina quickly earned her own housing, and she also made friends. Only now there was no time for house parties, her apartment was mostly empty, and life was spent in tours, hotels and studios.

“Shall I give you some pajamas?” Rina suggested to the guest.

Vika was tall, but also thin. The guest was suddenly embarrassed, but after a long pause, in which she seemed to be making a painful decision, she asked:

“Do you have long socks? My feet are constantly freezing.”

“Of course!” Rina was delighted.

After the organizational issues with the overnight stay and the queue for the bathroom settled down, everyone gathered in the kitchen. And again, Rina had the feeling that her old dream had come true. Even if unfamiliar people gathered in her house that evening, and the reason for their arrival was not festive, this did not detract from the joy. The guests also relaxed, the tension went away, and the atmosphere became kind and cozy - thanks, oddly enough, to Yura.

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

He unexpectedly volunteered to command in the kitchen, with Rina's permission, examined the refrigerator, the shelf with canned food and grunted with satisfaction. Then he announced that he cooks well, ‘ladies don’t complain’, and with his statement caused Vika an ironic smile. But soon, watching how deftly he was chopping vegetables, managing to prepare ingredients for some sauce in parallel and frying pieces of beef in a frying pan, Vika stopped grinning, now she cast intrigued glances at the guy, and then she joined in cooking altogether. Yura gave Rina a task, and she, slicing Bulgarian pepper into small cubes, tried to remember why this journalist seemed familiar to her. It wasn't about meeting him during the interview. Rina was sure that she had seen him quite recently: his hairstyle was too memorable. And Yura, taking her looks for sympathy, smiled more and more and poured out stories. The narrator from him also turned out to be excellent: even Nikolai, who at first followed him with a frown, laughed at some joke. Sliced vegetables were already being fried on the stove in a frying pan, beef was languishing on a slow fire in a cauldron. And Rina kept trying to remember where she and Yura could see each other.

“And who will wash the dishes?” Nikolai asked, watching a mountain of pots, bowls and plates grow in the sink, which the chef soiled with unprecedented generosity.

“Obviously not you,” Yura grinned, added vegetables to the beef and poured everything with fragrant sauce. “Considering your ‘bathing’ saved you from working as a dishwasher.”

With these words, he put another saucepan in the sink. Vika, who was wiping the cutting table, came over to put down the sponge. Seeing them together, Rina finally understood why Yura seemed so familiar to her. Wiping her hands with a towel, she opened the locker, took out an envelope and found Stas’ drawing.

“Come here!” she called Vika and Yura.

Nikolai remained standing near the window, watching everyone from the side.

“Awesome! Is it me and Vika?” Yura was surprised.

“Can I?” Vika asked already and stretched out her hand to the drawing. “Where did you get this?”

“An old man drew it. His name is Stas, he hardly speaks after an accident in his youth, but he draws with talent. And that's how he communicates and even predicts.”

“Wow,” Yura breathed out. “And what, I wonder, did he want to say with this drawing?”

“Did you depict what already happened? Even if not quite in this form,” suggested Vika and cast a questioning glance at Nikolai.

“I told Rina about our assignment. We just met Yura at an amusement park. He was there collecting photographic material for an article, and when Vika and I arrived, he was already resting under the fence.”

Vika snorted loudly, as if trying to hold back her laughter. Yura glanced at her resentfully and hurriedly added:

“I will clarify! And then Rina will still decide that I'm a drunkard. I really came to the park to take photos. After leaving the magazine, I decided to start a blog and write about abnormal places. An unemployed journalist needs to do something! So why not become a blogger!”

“Only your blog didn't last half a day,” Vika teased him and pulled down the leg of her pajama trousers that had slightly lifted up. “It was immediately blocked. But Nikolai and I managed to see the videos that Yura uploaded, so we invited him to the office.”

“Was the blog deleted too?” Rina raised her eyebrows.

“Yeah. Such bad luck. I haven't had time to restore it yet. I wanted to talk about this anomalous zone again. I came to the office today, hoping that Vika's boss is in place. But I found only an alarmed Vika, who was going somewhere, and offered to give her a ride. So can you explain what it's about? What kind of task? What's going on anyway?”

“Have you turned on the recorder yet?” Nikolai forged his and smiled good-naturedly.

“To hell with the recorder! I'm burning with curiosity.”

“The meat is burning!” Rina caught herself and rushed to check on the stew.

“To hell with the meat! To hell with you! You're winding my guts up on your fist, tormentors! Not for a blog I want to know, I swear by my signature sauce! If necessary, I will sign a receipt for silence in blood!”

“And that's how to trust you after that?” Vika teased him. “‘Blood’! Tomato paste, I suppose? Kolya, you decide whether to tell him. You're the chief here.”

With that, she turned on the water and began to wash the dishes.

“In fact, let Rina decide,” Nikolai replied, and with a look as if he reminded her that he would not betray her personal secrets.

“I think we're all in the same boat,” Rina repeated his words, stirring the stew with a spatula.

“Okay. With Rina's permission, I'll tell you, but only to warn you what you're trying to get into. You say your blog was immediately blocked? Perhaps this is because publications on this topic are being tracked.”

“Who?” Yura asked quickly.

“I can't say who exactly. I don't know. Those who, for some reason, are very concerned about this topic, but they do not want to draw attention to it. The second option is to track your publications and delete them out of revenge for an objectionable article, interview, and so on. In this case, the channel will be blocked for you, even if you write a recipe for your signature sauce.”

“And this is a thought!” Yura scratched his head. “You can check! Write about the sauce…”

“You will not write anything anywhere from this house! Forgot?”

“Yes, I remember, I remember! But who can be interested in this park?”

“Not only him, but also similar anomalous zones. Repeat for Rina and me what happened to you there - in exchange for a story about our ‘adventures’.”

Yura's narration was interesting and mystical, but Rina was not surprised by anything in it. She stirred the meat and, listening, thought about the fact that there was a piece of paper with the coordinates of the park in the envelope. Did Gennadiy Sergeevich seriously expect that Rina would close all the portals? Did he know that she couldn’t do it in the current conditions?

“We think that you have ‘fallen’ into another parallel,” Nikolai said when Yura fell silent.

Rina put the spatula on the plate next to the stove and turned to the men. Vika had already wiped the dishes and was now setting the table. And there was a special sharpness in this inconsistency - talking about mystical parallels for ordinary household chores.

“I have no doubt that I have ‘failed’ somewhere! Before the trip, I read all the information about abnormal places. But I didn't expect such an amazing effect! And when I saw everything with my own eyes, at first I was not afraid, but delighted!”

“A journalist,” Vika snorted softly and put the plate on the table with such a careless crash that everyone looked at her. “I'm sorry,” she said, embarrassed. “I mean that for some journalists, curiosity dominates the instinct of self-preservation.”

“And didn't you follow me to the town and the park because of the notorious curiosity?” Nikolai asked.

Vika chuckled, but when she turned away to take the bread dish, she smiled.

“And I got a task - to calculate the places where a similar anomaly occurred,” Nikolai already began.

“How? And why?” Yura asked.

“Why is not a question for me. I'm just fulfilling an order. But what the client will do next, for example, with photos proving the infidelity of the spouse, that's not my business.”

“Consider yourself partially dissuaded,” Yura grinned. “And how did you calculate the anomalous zones?”

“Made with Vika measurements of temperature, electromagnetic field, humidity and so on. In general, nothing extraordinary. Partly physics, partly analytics. As a result, I got a list of several places whose parameters completely coincided. I sent this list to the customer. He went to one of the places himself and later confirmed everything with photos.”

“What was in those photos?” Yura asked, not paying attention to the fact that the table was already set and an appetizing aroma was rising over the plates of stew.

Nikolai opened a gallery on his smartphone and showed several pictures.

“So we are here now!” Yura exclaimed.

Nikolai grinned and put the phone on the table next to his plate.

“Gennadiy Sergeevich, my customer, sent the exact coordinates along with the pictures. I immediately left, but, unfortunately, Gennadiy Sergeevich had a heart attack, and by my arrival he had died.”

“How?!” Vika exclaimed and raised her hands to her face in horror. “Gennadiy Sergeevich died?!”

“Rina found him. She also took the phone when I, not yet knowing what had happened, called Gennadiy Sergeevich.”

Rina withstood Yura and Vika's glances directed at her and said something completely different from what was expected of her:

“The food is getting cold. Let's have dinner.”

“Wait, wait…” Yura muttered, running his palms into his curls and pulling his hair back. “Gennadiy Sergeevich… Gennadiy Sergeevich? Does he happen to have a funny dog? A nervous lefty who gets hysterical even at the sight of her own shadow?”

“There is. He took it quite recently and…”

“Oh my God, that's why Manya can't get through to him in any way! Oh gosh!”

“Which Manya?” Nikolai didn’t understand.

“My sister,” Yura rubbed his shoulders as if he suddenly felt cold, picked up his fork and put it back on the table.

“And what are we going to do with this greyhound now?” he muttered softly, as if to himself. “Manya, when she finds out, will devour me! At first she will be upset, because Gennadiy Sergeevich seemed to be going to ask her out on a date. And then it will devour. It's not enough for her to have Pencil, so now it's still Shusha!”

And since everyone expected explanations from him, he told how he ‘introduced’ ‘spies’ into the house of Rina's friends in the form of a stray dog Pencil and his sister Manya. This story did not annoy Rina, but made her laugh. Now the nosy journalist will have to sort out the situation with the orphaned Shusha! Therefore, when Yura shifted his gaze from Nikolai, who was looking at him with a stony expression on his face, to Vika, who was indignantly frowning and asked plaintively if anyone needed a dog, Rina laughed:

“It looks like you've already figured out who Shusha will stay with now. So much for the Law of Karma.”

“It's pissing me all over the apartment!” Yura exclaimed in resignation.

Rina just snorted:

“Pfr-r! You already know which dog handler to take Shusha to. By the way, get yourself a cooking blog. You cook delicious! I would’ve subscribed to you.”

“Really?” Yura beamed. “For the sake of such a subscriber, I will definitely start! Oh, can I ask you for an autograph?”

“Take another interview with her and take a selfie together,” Nikolai teased him.

“Okay, okay, I remember, Tyrannosaurus, what you said there about a left punch…” Yura nodded diligently and returned the conversation to the topic of interest to him: “We stopped at the fact that Rina found the body of Gennadiy Sergeevich…”

“Yes,” she didn't shirk. “Gennadiy Sergeevich, unfortunately, died in my yard. Nikolai has already told me how he ended up with me. Well, it also suddenly turned out that it was Gennadiy Sergeevich who helped me in my escape... for personal reasons, so to speak. Here…”

“And why did you decide to hide?” Yura immediately screwed in and even stopped chewing.

“I told you - for personal reasons!” Nikolai intervened.

“Got it! Blast the thunder of this Lebedev, if it's all his fault!”

“Yura!” Vika has already snapped at him.

“I'm silent, I'm silent!”

Rina sighed and, realizing that there were not enough connecting links in her story, told a ‘lite’ version of events: how she disappeared into the village and discovered that strange things were happening here. She mentioned Stas with his talent for predicting drawings. And she concluded everything with a story about what happened on the river. She kept silent only about the fact that she tried to close the portal.

“That's how it was?!” Yura exclaimed and turned his admiring gaze on Nikolai. “Here's a tornado of dead birds, a whirlpool and a clawed creature in the river?”

“I wonder what causes you more doubts - a tornado or a clawed creature?” Vika quipped. “Maybe you fell off the fence yourself in the park, and someone pulled you out of there?”

“Yes, I believe, I believe… But the situation is kind of crappy. Firstly, this strange customer. Not the customer, but the spider who wove the web. Nikolai was given an order. Rina was sent here for some reason. Get yourself a greyhound… And I no longer believe that he is so kind and took the dog from a relative! He insinuated himself into Volkov's confidence, knowing that he was a friend of the missing Rina, and incidentally slipped him the detective's phone. At the same time, he charmed my sister, fused her Shusha, came here and... died. Cool plan!”

“It is unlikely that Gennadiy Sergeevich deliberately insinuated himself into the confidence of your sister,” Nikolai shook his head. “He couldn't have known that you were planning to find Rina. I think he really liked Man… Mariana.”

“But all the same, he spun a lot of intrigues, don't you agree? The question is - what should we do now?”

Yura famously included himself in the investigation with the pronoun ‘we’. But this time no one made fun of him, on the contrary, everyone became serious. Vika was the first to break the suspended pause, addressing her boss:

“Really, Kolya? The customer died. You kind of completed his task - you found all the anomalous zones. And then what?”

“I don't know,” he admitted and winced painfully: either because he didn't like the question, or because his wounds were bothering him again.

Rina glanced at her watch and saw that it was already past midnight.

“Let's leave the conversations for tomorrow,” she came to Nikolai's rescue. “It was a difficult day for everyone. And he is generally prescribed bed rest.”

They quickly and together cleared the table, and soon the usual silence for Rina hung in the house.

In the same sleepy and soothing silence, Rina woke up. Outside the window, the early morning was timidly golden, and the edge of the perfectly blue sky was visible in the window. There was no darkness, clouds and a feeling of anxiety, as on the previous day. Rina reached for the phone and saw that it wasn't even seven yet. Every day she woke up earlier and was more cheerful than ever.

Trying not to wake Vika sleeping on the sofa, Rina went to the bathroom, but passing by the bedroom, she lingered a little near the closed door. There was no sound coming from there, so the men were also still asleep. Rina washed her face, braided her hair into two careless braids and went out on the porch to meet a new day, which, judging by the clear sky, promised a clear day.

To her surprise, she found Nikolai in the courtyard: with his back to the porch, he was talking on the phone and did not see Rina. Succumbing to an obscure temptation, she sat down on the steps, deciding to wait until he noticed her.

A ray of sunlight gilded his dark nape, slid along his tanned neck, when Nikolai, listening to what he was being told, slightly tilted his head. Rina rested her cheek on her palm and smiled faintly - not at the ray, but at her ephemeral dreams, like a morning haze.

“I don't know when I'll be back. Maybe today,” Nikolai said to someone and looked at the sky.

That was still clean, but a cloud seemed to have crept over Rina’s mood, returning her from innocent fantasies to everyday reality. Unwilling to part with dreams, as with a predawn dream, Rina glanced at Nikolai’s shoulders covered with a red T-shirt. The fact that she was looking at him furtively, risking being caught at any moment, was more exciting than adrenaline slides. And even though he was wearing a T-shirt now, it wasn't difficult for her to remember him half-naked.

“Yes, I'll come and call,” Nikolai promised, ending the conversation.

Rina still had a couple of moments to get up and leave unnoticed, but she remained sitting in place, hurriedly ‘stealing’ the last ‘touches’ with her eyes.

“I love you too…” he replied, and with this final phrase, all of Rina's bold fantasies shattered into many pieces.

Nikolai turned around and finally noticed her.

“Good morning,” he greeted after a short pause.

Instead of answering, Rina nodded and got to her feet, feeling her heart pounding - either because of the adrenaline ‘game’ in her mind, or from his phrase, which at once extinguished not even the mood, but the whole upcoming day.

“So, you really are an early bird,” Nikolai smiled, but in contrast to the smile he touched his right side.

“Does it hurt?” Rina immediately guessed the reason for his early rise.

“It will pass.

“Svetlana left the analgesics.”

“Later,” he excused himself, glanced casually at her bare legs and, raising his eyes to Rina, asked: “Are the others asleep?”

“Yes.”

For some reason, they both hesitated, as if they didn’t know whether to return to the house or stay in the yard. Rina blocked his passage, and Nikolai didn’t try to get around her. The conversation, never having started, hung in the air with an ellipsis, which could be interpreted as you like. Rina was the first to catch herself and said she would put the kettle on.

“More tea with sweets?”

“No, with sandwiches!” she snapped, and before she turned away, she managed to catch his slight smile - as if he had learned another secret about her.

Opening the door, Rina heard Nikolai's phone ring again.