Act 4, Chapter 1

"You have a lot of hostility for someone who's surrendered."

- Chrollo to Gon

While you were still half asleep, you were bothered by how unbelievably hard everything was and just as you were about to think about how impossible thag was, your eyes opened and widened.

You sat up straight in a second and not even a moment later your head started pounding painfully.

You narrowed your eyebrows in pain.

You wanted to touched the pain causing area with your hand, unfortunately it was your entire skull hurt.

With the palm of your hand you went in circular movements over your forehead but that didn't help.

You didn't know if it was the headache making you sick or getting up so quickly, but what you did know was that you needed  painkillers as soon as possible.

You stood up carefully, your head throbbing more and more, your eyebrows still narrowed.

As you were standing, you heard something rustling and falling to the ground, you looked down at your feet.

A suit jacket laid across your feet and on the floor, previously it must have acted as a blanket.

Your eyes darted to the chest and the items you and Abir took out yesterday and didn't put back in.

You found that you were correct in assuming that the suit jacket was from Chrollo's chest and even the coat with the cross stitched on it was lying in the area where your head was.

According to Abir, you had nothing to worry about during the day and even if you didn't feel particularly safe, you could still keep calm.

But when you thought about the coming sunset your heart started racing and your insides clenched.

You didn't know what you wanted to do with Chrollo's things now, nor what the best thing to do with them was.

But you wouldn't be able to take care of it right away.

You took the painkillers and when they started to work you took a shower and got ready for the day.

Just as you were about to sit down on the couch and, above all, wanted to process yesterday, the phone suddenly rang.

With an annoyed groan, you straightened up to picked it up from its docking station on the small table in the corner by the TV.

"Hello?" your voice sounded a bit hoarse from crying yesterday, you hadn't even thought of that which resulted in the person on the other phone probably thinking that you had been screaming the entire day before.

The person questioned your name and suddenly you suspected a doom to come.

"Yes, that's me.." you replied, putting a hand on your chest to somehow silence the weird feeling inside your stomach.

"I'm sorry to tell you this but..."

Your great-uncle died in his sleep last night and was found this morning.

You would have to drive there one last time today to pick up his things and sort out a few formalities that you had agreed to take care of.

Your parents would be coming over in a few days and you didn't want to send them back and forth unnecessarily because they still had to work, but you didn't want to cancel them either because Abir said everything was fine during the day.

Dodging them off would just make them suspect and question things.

You would also have to take care of getting a job, you didn't have much savings left.

It felt strange to park in the parking lot of the nursing home knowing that you would take the rest of a deceased person's belongings with you.

You hadn't cried for him at home, at least not yet.

It all felt unreal.

Everything that happened did just that and you weren't sure if you hadn't already gone insane to accept that a ghost lived with you in your house.

But maybe reality would just need to catch up to you at a later point in time and completely throw you off track.

Arrived at the reception you described what had happened and only a little later you were standing in the same room as you had been in a few days before and yesterday as well.

Only this time there was no greeting, no tea, and there was a medium-sized box on the bed.

Given its size, you expected it to be a bit heavier, so you almost threw the box over yourself when you lifted it off the bed with too much force.

You left the room with the box and exited the building before you sighed and dropped yourself into the driver's seat of your car and slammed the car door shut.

For a moment you just sat there without thinking of anything in particular or feeling anything in particular.

Should you be... sadder?

In the end you didn't know him, just like you didn't know your great aunt, but somehow you felt you owed him something.

You didn't even notice that you had firmly gripped the steering wheel with both of your hands.

You wanted to put the key in the ignition and your slightly damp hands almost stuck to the hot leather cover of the steering wheel.

You had to use a little more force to get your hands off of it which was unexpected and snapped you out of your thoughts.

Other relatives would take care of the funeral, so you had been told, the same relatives had taken care of your great-aunt's, but they were only on your great-uncle's side of the family.

Since they were a several hours' drive from here, they were rarely able to visit, despite the good bond they had with one another.

They would pay for all funeral expenses.

Although your mother was the closest relative on the family tree, those relatives made you feel like you were far away from the rest.

You were unsure if you wanted to go to his funeral.

He was the only one of the two that you spoke to personally and so you had some kind of connection with him, besides that he brought Abir and you together and he was the first to tell you what was happening in the house (albeit non-verbally), but then again, you didn't want to rank people's deaths and paying a final respect either.

You already felt guilty for not attending your great aunt's funeral and the least you could do for them both now was at to go to his funeral.

Even if you only showed up for the ceremony in the chapel, it really was the least.

You also wanted to avoid small talk with family you didn't even know, and do it as best you could.