Act 4, Chapter 9

Your sleep was light so the feeling of the upholstery on the sofa sagging next to you was enough to wake you up to some degree.

Not much time had passed since you fell asleep but meanwhile it was dark outside, only the weak light of the kitchen gave your half-closed eyes enough light that you could see all the outlines in the living room.

Your neck was stiff and given how little time had passed since you fell asleep you were still quite drunk and not thinking straight.

You were unaware of the danger you were in.

As your current sleeping position was proving uncomfortable, you attempted to shift from your sitting position to a lying position, but your head fell against something hard yet soft.

Because that wasn't as uncomfortable as your previous position, you just stayed like that, you even found the cold that was spreading on your cheek quite comfortable.

A few moments passed before a hand landed on your head, stroking your hair up and down.

A cold emanated from the hand, which pleasantly cooled your head that already started to hurt a bit.

The touch was nice and so you leaned even further against the person next to you, your arm automatically swinging over the person's legs to gently hold them in place.

Your shoulder was now leaning against the person's chest, you felt the rise and fall, mimicking the breaths.

Despite the fact that you couldn't open your eyes because of tiredness, you couldn't fall asleep again either.

Everything was spinning and you felt like you were about to throw up.

The hand that was on your head laid gently and carefully on it, the cold cooled your head and after a few moments the dizziness subsided.

"You don't have to be afraid." the voice spoke suddenly, the sound almost echoed in the quiet house and you narrowed your eyebrows as if it would change the volume of the voice.

When you finally processed and understood the words you let out a questioning noise, your head still couldn't put one and one together.

And yet your drunken existence wanted to know who it didn't have to be afraid of.

Despite your "consult" ,there was still a few minutes of silence, minutes that felt like an eternity to you.

The chest you were leaning against continued to breathe, rising once more only to then fall again as if the person had the words stuck in their throat or didn't quite know how to say what they meant.

You were seconds from falling back asleep when the voice came again to speak.

"If I wanted to, you would be dead already, the light hasn't bothered me since yesterday.  Your fear that I could hurt you or even kill you is therefore irrational and even unfounded. It pains me even that you can't accept me and I feel I've acted in your interest for too long."

It was quiet for a moment before the voice spoke for the last time, a grin almost audible.

"You must understand that I, Chrollo Lucilfer, am a selfish person."

In your drunk and tired state you couldn't help falling asleep with those words.

As you slowly woke up and regained consciousness, the words Chrollo had said yesterday didn't come back to you but you remembered his touch.

Immediately you sat candle straight on the couch, the hard material of it made your back and neck ache over night.

Was that a dream or did it really happen?

You wanted to get up, practically jump up, but fell back onto the couch.

Your head hurt like hell and you felt incredibly sick, for a moment you even had a blacked vision.

After falling back onto the couch, you took your time getting back up.

You took deep, but careful, breaths before you slowly got up and walked towards the kitchen with  little shaky legs.

You needed a big gulp of water.

Arriving safely in the kitchen, you took a glass from the cupboard and filled it with water from the tap, emptying the glass in one go.

You stayed leaning against the sink for a while, when you felt better you made your way upstairs.

You had gripped the railing of the stairs with both hands in case you would lose your balance after, you weren't a hundred percent back on trsck after all.

Once at the top you went to the bathroom, showered and dried off before you left it again.

Your hair was still wet, dried only enough to stop dripping, and you only had a towel wrapped around you that covered only the bare necessities.

But your clothes that you had laid out on the bed were gone.

You went back to the bathroom, maybe you took them there with you and just forgot?

But they weren't there.

Back in the bedroom you lifted the sheets, still nothing.

You couldn't find anything under the bed either.

"Shit..." you cursed.

You hadn't gotten around to do the laundry before, or rahther you kept pushing that task away futther.

However, this behavior hit you mercilessly in the face because apart from what you had laid out, you had nothing clean to wear.

You didn't even have towels anymore, you only had a handful of them anyway to wrap yourself up.

You had already started half the washing, but it would certainly take another hour.

You were already debating with yourself whether you should just stop the laundry for a moment, get out a top and pants and just put them on.

Things weren't dry then, but if you sat down in the conservatory, they would be after half an hour, the way the sun was beating down on the small glass extension gave the room an incredible heat.

You were about to go downstairs when the door to the small closet upstairs slammed shut.

You were already turned towards the stairs when this happened, your back was to the door.

As your head turned in that direction you could only catch a shadow in the corner of your eye and how the thin door of the miniature room wobbled a bit.