Kris stood up and nodded. Lena went to her room to answer the phone. It was her father.
"Dad?"
"Are you still at the party?"
"No, I am already home."
"Did Elder Zhao like the gifts?"
"He did. How is grandpa?"
"He is fine. Your grandma is just overreacting. You should come to visit again longer next time."
"I"ll be sure too."
"Don"t stay up late just because you are not working for the next few days. And make sure you eat well."
"Yeah."
"And don"t you dare have boys over."
Lena laughed. "I wouldn"t dare to."
Lena hung up and she walked to out to see Kris peacefully sitting on her sofa. His eyes were closed. He was probably letting the medicine kick in before he leaves. Lena went to grab her laptop and the sim card. She also brought out a piece of device that James told her will read the sim card. She put them all on the living room table and sat on the ground.
"Are you still alive?" She whispered.
Kris opened his eyes. He stared at her sitting on the ground and her workplace set up in the living area. "What are you doing?"
Lena held up the sim card. "Tracing the caller ID she called. My guts feelings are telling me it is something important."
"And because of your gut feelings, you sneaked into the room to just steal that?"
Lena nodded. She put the sim card into the device and connected the device to her laptop via USB. After a few seconds, a browser popped out. She scrolled until she found the latest number that Madam Yang received or called from.
Kris s.h.i.+fted closer to see what she was doing. After getting the number, Lena logged into one of Gary"s programmed system to trace caller ID. She input the number in and hit enter. The number is then scanned to match a location or person. This was going to take awhile. Lena walked up and went to get a drink of water.
She noticed that Kris did not put away the medicine bottle. She grabbed that and put it back on the cabinet. She grabbed a gla.s.s cup out and took a drink. Lena then remembered that she had still to put the unknown pills in a small zip bag. She went to get it and noticed that it was different.
The medicine bottle was closed and the pill she took out was not on the counter anymore. Then a thought struck Lena. Lena grabbed the bottle and stared at Kris from afar.
"It couldn"t be… he did not just…" Lena walked to him. "Kris?"
"Hmm?" He looked up to her. Lena tried to see if he looked different. The only thing she noticed was that he did not look so sick.
"What medicine did you take?"
"The one you said that you took out." Kris was confused.
"Yeah, but where?" Lena told Kris to follow her. She pointed him to location number one and location number two. "Which one."
"The second one."
Lena slammed the medicine bottle on the counter and pointed a finger at him. "This is why you are banned from my home! You are cursed! Do you not read before taking something?? Pfft… so much for your keen eyes."
Kris picked up the bottle of the a.s.sumed medicine he took. The bottle had nothing on it. He opened the bottle and took out a white pill. One side has an A on it and the other had a heart imprinted on it. Somehow, it looked familiar to him. "What is this?"
"I don"t know…" Lena shrugged.
Lena left him. She grabbed her cellphone from the living room table and went to her room. She locked the door.
"Hey! What are you doing?" Kris called outside the door.
"I am calling Collin. I am locking myself in here so you don"t attack me."
"What did you think I took? An aphrodisiac drug?"
"That"s what I would a.s.sume."
"Lena, that kind of stuff doesn"t work for me." Kris laughed.
"I don"t believe you."
"Open the door. Look, I am perfectly fine. If the drug was an aphrodisiac drug, it would be in effect now."
Lena slightly opened the door but she had her electric pen hidden behind her back. The was open just so one of her eyes could take a look at Kris. He was still wearing his navy suit from this morning.
"Are you feeling hot?" Lena asked.
"No."
Lena opened the door completely and stared at Kris. He did look absolutely fine. His face was not red nor was he sweating. "Why does that kind of stuff doesn"t work on you?"
"A person who can"t feel love won"t have the desire to love."
"Does this have to do with your...condition?"
Kris turned back and walked to the sofa. He sat down and did not reply. Lena walked over and sat on the floor in front of her laptop.
"You know… you always ignore me whenever I ask about that. You still haven"t explained much from last time too. I know that you won"t talk about it." Lena pointed out.
Kris looked at her. Lena was sitting crisscrossed on the carpet. She was wearing a sky blue tank top and a nice cotton short. Her hair was still down. "I don"t trust you enough." He answered.
This time, Lena looked at him. "Well, I trust you."
Kris let out a small chuckle. "As your teacher, I will tell you not to trust people too easily."
"As your student, I want to trust you." Lena smiled. "I will be the first one to trust you then, between us."
She stared back at the laptop screen, and it was still running the phone number in the database. Lena took out her sketch pad and start sketching. Every so often, she would glance at Kris to see what he was doing.
"Is he not going to leave yet? Will I have to feed him dinner… I am hungry." Lena was thinking if she should cook now or wait for Kris to leave.
She put down her sketchpad. "Are you going to leave soon?"
Kris opened his eyes again. "Yeah… Can I use your bathroom first?"
"Number one or number two?" Lena asked. It was important!
Kris rolled his eyes. He got up and head to the bathroom.
"d.a.m.n him! He better not number two… I am cooking soon!" Lena went back to sketching. Lena got her outline done. She glanced up from her work and Kris was not on the sofa. Lena got up and looked out to see if he had left yet. His shoes were still in the hallway.
Lena went to the bathroom. She tried the door and it was locked. "Kris?"
No response. She tried to call him again. Lena pounded on the door. "Are you okay? Say something." She put her ear on the door. She heard a slight groan.
"Ugh!" She went to her room to grab the bathroom key. "Hang on, I am opening the door. You better have your pants on!" The door opened and Lena saw Kris groaning on the floor.