Chapter 38: And what if something happened to you

​A faint smoke had filled the room and the hall. The second that smoke hit Himanshu’s nose, his coughing kept getting worse. Covering his nose with his hand, he stepped into the kitchen.

​Burnt food was splattered all around the stove like mud. The pot had turned completely black, just like coal. It was impossible to even figure out what she had actually cooked in it. It looked like everything was just dumped into a single pot all at once.

​But Himanshu was way more worried about the gas being left on rather than this messy garbage. When his eyes finally fell on the gas knob, his stuck breath returned to normal. Luckily, the Demon had probably used her phone for the right thing this time.

​Keeping his nose and mouth covered with his hand, he tried to look inside the burnt pot. But he couldn’t see anything other than an empty spoon. Looking around, almost everything in the kitchen was scattered here and there. Seeing the open spice boxes on the side, he guessed that she had probably put the right spices at least. Making the Demon add spices yesterday actually came in handy. But even after searching the whole kitchen, he couldn’t find that ’cooked’ food anywhere.

​Just as he turned around with heavy steps to go to the hall and ask... his feet stopped.

​The Demon was standing at the dining table, scooping that food onto a plate. The food looked black, green, and yellow, with unpeeled onions, whole uncut potatoes, and some weird things floating in it that couldn’t even be identified. A toxic, poisonous smell was rising from it.

​Himanshu narrowed his eyes to get a better look. A fly buzzing right above the food suddenly dropped straight onto the table. After twitching for a few seconds, its wings stopped completely.

​And right then, clinking the spoon against the plate, the Demon’s voice came.

​"We’re even. You fed me yesterday, I’m feeding you today."

​She served that literal poison (food) onto a second plate for herself too.

​"I made it exactly like yesterday..." the Demon said, staring at her plate, "don’t know why it smells so weird though."

​"Because it’s completely burnt." Himanshu walked up, picked up the food from her plate, and dumped it right back into the pot.

​"Who even asked you to cook?" He slammed both his hands hard on the dining table. "If the gas was left on even a little bit, do you have any idea what kind of disaster could’ve happened?"

​"Yeah, I know. Saw it on the phone," the Demon replied in a flat voice, without even looking at Himanshu.

​Seeing this attitude, Himanshu’s hands resting on the table started clenching into fists.

​"Then why did you have to do it alone?"

​The Demon fixed her cold red gaze straight onto Himanshu’s eyes. A second later, crossing her arms over her chest, she said, "I’m not some little kid who needs permission for every single thing."

​"And anyway," the Demon continued, "if your house got wrecked, I would’ve paid you back for it eventually."

​The moment he heard this line, a different kind of heat rushed through Himanshu’s body. His breaths got heavy and long. Gritting his teeth, he walked straight towards the Demon sitting on the chair. A chair kept in the middle hit his elbow and crashed hard onto the floor. The loud thud of the chair echoed through the entire hall.

​But Himanshu didn’t stop. His eyebrows were furrowed tight. He went straight and stood right in front of the Demon. He slammed one hand on the table again and placed the other on the armrest of the Demon’s chair, trapping her between his arms.

​"And what if something happened to you... then what? "Tell me, then what?! Who takes responsibility for you? If something happened to you, what was I supposed to tell my mom? She left you in my care! And... and what would I even tell myself?"

​The next moment, only Himanshu’s heavy panting could be heard in the entire hall.

​The Demon just quietly kept staring at his angry, intense eyes. The words coming to her mind just stayed stuck on her tongue. Her arms crossed over her chest slowly started loosening up.

​A few seconds later, Himanshu pulled his gaze away from the Demon’s face. He removed his hand from her chair and turned around. He picked up the fallen chair and put it back in its place. He gathered the courage to turn his neck and look at the Demon once, but the very next second, without looking at her, he turned straight towards the kitchen.

​A little while later, washing his hands in the sink, he walked out of the kitchen wiping his wet hands with a towel. Cleaning his fingers, his eyes fell on the Demon sitting at the dining table.

​She was still sitting on that same chair, completely quiet. Her gaze was just fixed on one spot on the table. She had one leg crossed over the other and was constantly shaking it. The moment she saw Himanshu coming out, she abruptly stopped shaking her leg and just kept looking at him with quiet eyes.

​Without looking into her eyes, Himanshu picked up the pot of burnt food kept on the dining table. Just as he stepped toward the kitchen to throw it away, a voice from behind stopped him in his tracks. There was a weird confusion in the Demon’s red eyes, and she was clenching her fists to hide her trembling hands.

​"Don’t know why... but my teeth are grinding. I just feel like ripping your clothes off... and tearing into your neck, your shoulders, and your chest with my teeth... until I make you bleed."

​Holding the pot with his trembling hands, Himanshu slowly turns around. Out of pure fear, his tongue sticks to the roof of his mouth, and he barely manages to swallow the spit stuck in his throat. H