CHAPTER 10

ASSUMPTIONS

Much later that afternoon, Shadow decided to visit Rouge at her house after work. Rouge was in the kitchen making dinner. She looked up from her cooking when she saw Shadow walking into the kitchen. "So", she began. "How was your first day?"

He paused for a moment. He wanted to tell her that everything had went well for him. However, he couldn't get rid of the fact that he and Lien-Da had kissed He wanted to tell her that Lien-Da had kissed him but he knew how she had already felt about her and he didn't want to cause anymore tension than there already was. Besides, he had told her that he was in love with Rouge. In his eyes, he didn't do anything wrong. He decided to keep his mouth shut about it and pretend like it never happened. "It was fine", he spoke blankly.

She noticed that his answer was short and bland. She knew something exciting had happened to him. "Oh? Nothing interesting happened?"

He shook his head, "Not really. Everyone welcomed me and stuff. We just went over a lot of paperwork. It was pretty boring most of the day", he explained.

"Yeah? It sounds like you had a blast ", she added sarcastically.

"Heh, you bet."

Her eyes wandered over and she saw him place down a green pack of cigarettes and a gold pack of cigarettes on the counter. She arched an eyebrow at the sight of the gold pack and turned to Shadow with a puzzling look on her face. "I didn't know you smoked lights…"

His eyes caught sight of the gold pack of cigarettes as well. He took them off of the counter and held them in his hand. "Oh these? They're not mine. I'm holding them for Lien-Da."

Her heart skipped a beat as she heard the echidna woman's name. So many things raced through her mind. 'Why the hell does he have Lien-Da's cigarettes?' Her hands shook slightly as she started to become nervous. She cleared her voice to make sure she didn't sound upset. "Lien-Da's? You too are getting pretty close aren't you?"

He placed the cigarettes back in his coat pocket and shrugged his shoulders. He pulled out his cell phone and began texting to avoid looking at her while he had an uneasy expression. "Yeah she's pretty cool."

"…Why do you have her cigarettes?"

He knew after saying that, she figured that he and Lien-Da were doing something underhanded behind her back. "She wanted me to hold them for her."

"And she couldn't hold her own damn cigarettes?"

Now he could clearly tell that her jealousy was kicking in. "Calm down. She forgot them so I'm going to give them to her tomorrow."

It sounded like a reasonable enough excuse to let him off of the hook so she tried to forget about it. "…I see." She then saw him beginning to text on his phone again. She had noticed that he had rarely put his phone down since he had came over and she thought it was suspicious. She couldn't help but to get more and more curious about it. "You've barely put your phone down since you got here. Who are you texting anyway?"

He didn't look away from his phone as he replied to her. "…Lien-Da." He suddenly heard a slamming sound coming from her. He looked away from his phone and looked up at an angered Rouge.

"You have her fucking number?"

Just by the tone of her voice, he knew he was screwed. He just knew Rouge was going to fit when she found out that Lien-Da had given him her number. He had slowly became aggravated with her sudden change of attitude. She was clearly becoming jealous once again with Lien-Da. "Yes I do", he spoke as he began to explain to her. "We traded numbers. I even have Gin's. We all traded numbers in case something comes up."

She just knew he was texting her the entire time and all that time, the two couldn't be possibly talking about just work. "But you have been texting her the entire time!"

He shook his head as he disagreed with her. "I have been texting different people not just her. To be honest, she just sent me one message and she's just telling me to come in a little earlier tomorrow because Gin wanted to have a meet with us."

She wanted to believe him but she didn't. "…That's bullshit, Shadow."

He couldn't believe it. She didn't believe anything he just said and it hurt him. Lien-Da had kissed him and he turned her down because he didn't actually want to cheat on Rouge. At that point, he was glad he didn't mention anything about the kiss or else she'd flip out over that as well. He couldn't help but to become angry with her. "You don't fucking believe me? Fine then!"

She watched him walk over to her and practically slammed his phone in the palm of her hand.

"Look through my messages and you tell me what we've been talking about! If that fucking makes you feel better than do it! Right in front of me!"

As she held the phone in her hand, she couldn't help but to feel suddenly guilty for assuming that Shadow was cheating on her. After realizing how upset Shadow was with her, she immediately wanted to take back everything she had said to him. She sighed sadly and gave the phone back to Shadow. "Shadow, I'm…"

"No! Don't even say it! You know I'm getting really sick of your shit, Rouge! I thought you trusted me but you don't trust me at all!"

She saw him walking towards the door She knew he was about to leave. "Shadow, wait…"

He flung the door open and turned to her angrily. "I'll come back when you stop acting like a fucking jealous psycho bitch!"

Tears swelled in her eyes from his angry and hurtful words.

"That's right!" He spat, "I said it! And I'm not even drunk this time!"

Tears streamed down her face when she saw him angrily slam the door shut on his way out.

In The Next Chapter...

Rouge: Shadow and I had a little disagreement...

Lien-Da: I'm sorry for what happened the other day...

Shadow: Just don't mention it...ever...

Gin: You ready for your first field mission, Shadow?