Gandy walked toward Rimby. He could imagine how long she must have been waiting for him to come back.
As the distance between them grew shorter, Gandy could clearly see the sour expression on Rimby's face.
"Sorry, darling~ You must have been waiting forever. I've been wanting to get back to you for a while now. Mahir kept me talking for way too long." Gandy gently scratched his temple.
"Mahir? Yira's husband, right?" Rimby asked to confirm.
Gandy nodded. "Of course. Who else in this family has that name? Since he's the host, I had no choice but to humor him until he was satisfied."
"Oh, right. Who were you talking to earlier? From a distance, I saw a woman come up to you," Gandy added, asking the question.
For now, Rimby couldn't vent her frustration about the drink at Gandy.
All she could do was sigh.
"Yira suddenly sat down beside me and started talking about the progress of my pregnancy. She stayed here for quite a while. Definitely not as long as you did, though." Rimby managed to get in a little jab at her husband.
Gandy laughed awkwardly.
"Did Yira say anything rude to you?" Gandy honestly wondered what kind of things Yira had said to Rimby.
Yira was one of the family members whose name had once sparked a fight between Gandy and his younger sister, Sera.
Gandy was a little worried that Rimby might have been too candid with Yira.
"Nothing rude. Just a few generic questions and statements about having children—the same ones I've heard over and over again." Rimby answered calmly.
Gandy offered Rimby a glass of something to drink. "Did she say anything that left you speechless?"
Rimby accepted the drink and took a gulp first. That fairly serious conversation had made her thirsty rather quickly.
Rimby continued, "No. Quite the opposite. I responded to everything Yira said very carefully."
"Oh, I see...." Gandy murmured.
"Some of her comments were sarcastic, meant to provoke me. But I'm not that easy to shake." Rimby felt proud whenever she thought about all her responses earlier.
Gandy also told Rimby that Yira's husband, Mahir, had asked him the same question: "When are you two having kids?"
But as men who weren't fond of long-winded chatter, they had quickly moved on to other topics.
"You should know this, darling. Yira is one of the people who once created a misunderstanding between Sera and me," Gandy explained.
Rimby paused mid-sip.
"Really?"
Gandy nodded firmly.
"Yes. She's one of the people in my extended family I find suspicious. To be honest, ever since that incident, Sera and I haven't been able to trust each other the way siblings used to."
Rimby cut in, "But Sera looked perfectly normal when she was talking to you earlier. She didn't seem like someone who was keeping her distance from you."
"That's just how it looked. But just so you know, the two of us don't share stories like siblings anymore. She feels more like an ordinary family member now. It doesn't feel like we're related by blood," Gandy said.
Rimby began thinking deeply. "Hmph! On the surface, Yira seems to have a positive aura in other people's eyes. It was obvious from the way she smiled so much while talking to me earlier."
"Anyone would immediately get a good impression of Yira if she treated them that warmly," she added.
"That's exactly what makes her dangerous," Gandy explained.
Little by little, Rimby was beginning to understand the dark side of the relationship between Gandy and his extended family.
One by one, their true personalities were being revealed.