Unexpected Creature

6: "I love you, Clementine!"

Clementine placed her elbows on the table as she cupped her face with an interested smirk on her face while she watched her older sister receive the award on stage. She was curious on how she would do the acceptance speech since it was her first time to receive an award on stage and give an acceptance speech. Seville, on the other hand, looked at Clementine with squinting eyes and looked at Cara, who was looking at Clementine in the eyes as well, then he repeated the same action to try to understand what her sisters were communicating about with their gazes. Eventually, Seville gave up since he had always had a hard time in understand girls, which was the main reason why he was still single in the age of 21.

“In behalf of Mr. Tyson Zalekun, I would like to thank everyone who became the reason why Zale won this award. Zale used to be a small local wine business back when Mr. Tyson Zalekun was still in his 20s but because of his great talent and efforts, Zale became a worldwide brand that even the richest and most popular people fell in love with the wines.” Cara started off smoothly as she held onto the golden trophy while taking glances on each corner of the place as she spoke. Tyson was certainly proud of his daughter as he would not stop slowly clapping. “As Zale’s executive director and Mr. Tyson Zalekun’s daughter, I am genuinely proud that this award was given to us. I may not have my own company like my little sister but I am a hundred times positive that her company would completely be over when I take over Zale or make my own company. But of course, as an older sister, I should let my little sister enjoy the love she’s receiving for now that’s why I’m just lying low as an executive director of Zale.”

Clementine raised her eyebrows as she leaned back on her chair and crossed her arms tightly on her chest while glaring at her older sister, who was wearing a hubristic smirk on her face. Seville’s mouth shaped to an ‘O’ as he looked at his sister next to him to see her reaction while their parents did the same. The people around them began to whisper to each other as they shared to each other about how they were starting to notice that the sisters were obviously rivals. To keep her decency, Clementine just kept her mouth shut as she glared directly to her eyes while relaxing on her seat. If looks could kill, Clementine would have been bribing every witness in the venue to not speak her name negatively by now.

“I love you, Clementine! Once again, thank you for this amazing award!” Cara sweetly said, making Seville laugh and Clementine scrunch her whole face in disgust.

When Cara returned to their table, she gave the trophy to Tyson with an innocent smile on her face though Tyson and Charli were wearing a serious facial expression for the whole time. Every family member went back to what they had been doing as the event went on though the other people could not move on from the sisters’ indirect argument of boastfulness. Tyson and Charli knew that what the two sisters just did would certainly be a hot issue on social media the next day. Actually, what the parents were mainly worried about is their companies’ reputation. They thought about how people might think that their businesses were only for the competition of the two sisters.

The awarding ceremony went on for nearly three hours that made Seville and Clementine want to go home so badly though they were not allowed to leave when the event was still ongoing since it would be disrespectful in their perspective. When the host finally said ‘good night’, Seville and Clementine were the first people to stand up from their seats with the rest following with a round of applause. A lively song began to play from the huge speakers as Seville stretched his arms upwards and felt excited to go home.

“Father, mother, I’ll be going home—,”

“Not so fast, young woman. We’re going to have a serious talk with you and your sister because of your childish behaviors earlier so you’re going home with us,” Tyson said seriously.

“Eh?! What you’re thinking is more childish, though!” Clementine whined, making Charli give her a glare. She got taken aback at how intimidating her mother looked so she sucked in her lips and just continued to whine quietly and followed her parents.

“Oh, nice! Cle is sleeping over!” Seville said with excitement, making Clementine lightly smack his head. “Ow!”

“It’s not called sleeping over if I also lived there,” Clementine responded.

“You don’t live in the mansion anymore, though,” Seville made a mocking face to Clementine when she just responded with a glare.

“Stop acting like kids and get in the car,” Tyson said when Sean, their family driver, parked their black limousine in front of them outside the venue.

Clementine continued to sulk as she got in the limousine with the rest of her family following. She loathed being in the same space as Cara so it killed her even more when she had to sit in the same car for a few more minutes while Cara had a mutual feeling as her. Nobody had spoken for the whole ride though the gunshots from Seville’s phone filled the car’s silence.

“Finally, home!” Seville exclaimed as he got off the car when they had already arrived at their mansion. Clementine’s sulking face remained even after entering the mansion though she felt a bit of nostalgia when she took a step in the mansion where she used to live.

“Seville, go to your room.” Tyson said in a serious tone and since Seville had always been afraid of his father when he is angry, he immediately ran upstairs to his room. In the living room, Clementine sat down on the coffee chair while Cara sat on the coffee chair across her. Charli and Tyson took a seat on the white sofa in between the two as Tyson looked at them both. “I’m sending you both to our private island tomorrow and you’ll come back home after a month.”

“What?!” Clementine and Cara stood up from their seats simultaneously with wide eyes. Obviously, war would only happen on the island.

“It’s final. We finally realized that you two haven’t been getting along all this time. Me and your father do not want that, which leaves us no choice but to put you both on a private island so you two would get along. Since when, anyway?” Charli spoke with determination, making the two sisters slump back to their seats with a groan. They may be tough on the outside but they were always terrified whenever their mother speaks in a serious tone. “You’re not going to speak?”

“It’s been so long. We don’t remember when exactly,” Cara decided to speak as she crossed her arms across her chest tightly, making their two parents breathe out a sigh. They had always thought that they were getting along.

“Don’t even try to escape because we will have guards around the mansion and the island. It will just be useless,” Tyson said as he got up from his seat along with his wife. “It’s late but pack your things now then take a rest. Good night.”

“Goddammit,” Cara hissed in annoyance as she stormed off to her bedroom. Clementine mocked the way she cussed behind her back as she followed later to her bedroom.

As she stepped in her bedroom after a long while, Clementine felt home once again and was pleased that there were no changes in her bedroom even after two years. Since she wanted to pack her things and sleep immediately, she skipped the admiring-old-bedroom part and walked towards her walk-in closet to find all of her clothes that she left two years ago. Clementine felt relieved that her clothes seemed to just got washed yesterday as she took half of her clothes and threw them in her big grey luggage bag. She knew that all of her clothes looked stylish enough so she did not even have to choose. After she was done with the clothes, she left the walk-in closet and while going over her makeup table to grab some skincare products, she suddenly stepped on a book that was lying on the floor.

“What the hell? When was this even here?” Clementine picked up the book and sat on her bed to examine what book it was. “‘A Werewolf and Human Love Story’? This is definitely Seville’s type. Has he been hanging around in my bedroom ever since I left? Ugh, that little b***h. Anyway, let’s just see what this novel’s about.”

Clementine lied down her bed as she opened the thin book. The novel was obviously a short story by just looking at how thin the book was and it looked like it had been created a century ago because of its old texture though Clementine was too tired from packing and decided to take a break by reading the book, which she had zero interest in.

The story started with a human girl meeting a werewolf in the woods. She did not get killed because the werewolf instantly fell in love at first sight. The human girl was intrigued by the werewolf and started to go to the same woods everyday to meet him. One day, the people of the village, where the human girl lived in, found out that there was a werewolf in the woods so they went to the woods with torches and rakes to kill the werewolf. The girl tried to stop the villagers from going to the woods but they only ended up pushing her to the ground, making the werewolf who had been hiding angry as he attacked all of the villagers. Since the villagers were too many, the werewolf ended up powerless as he turned back to a human. The human girl ended up injured as well since she tried stopping them but only ended up getting beaten up along the werewolf. With tears in both of their eyes, they both died on the spot in each other’s arms, which ended the story.

“What the hell is this bullshit? Even Seville’s taste in books is shitty,” Clementine said as she closed the book.

Clementine started to feel sleepy as she yawned and placed the book on the side table. She planned on washing up after packing her stuff and before sleeping but she unusually got the urge to sleep already. It was as if her eyelids and whole body were as heavy as an anvil that she did not have any energy to get up. Without her knowing, darkness came to sight as she fell to dream land peacefully.