Empath

Chapter 10

Yui woke up with tears silently streaming down his face. He wished he wasn't able to remember that nightmare. It flashed through his head all too vividly as he sat there on the bed. A large man with dark hair and a beard had held him down as he struggled against his weight.

Yui ran his fingers through his own bleached hair and sighed. Why did he have a dream like that? What happened yesterday that would give him a nightmare about getting assaulted like that?

He looked to his right, where he thought Al would be laying, but he wasn't there. He turned to his left and looked at the floor. Al was sleeping in his usual spot: that uncomfortable-looking clump of blankets that he used as a bed. Yui had held his hand as they dozed off last night. But apparently at some point, Al had gotten up and retreated to the floor.

Yui wiped his tears away with the sleeve of his baggy pajama shirt. He'd been having a lot of nightmares lately, and he didn't know why. He figured it might be stress. He stepped carefully out of bed and looked down at his friend. Al was laying on his left side with his blankets falling off. His heavily bandaged arm was laying in front of him. Yui gingerly tugged at the blanket and covered Al's shoulder and wrist. It made him sad to see how much Al had suffered. Yui began to wonder if maybe he should take Al back to his desert home where he'll be safe and sheltered. He didn't want to torture Al by bringing him to his appointments. He could find a bodyguard somewhere else. If he looked online, he could probably find plenty that lived in the city. He pondered this as he went downstairs.

Yui found Anabelle reading a book on her couch in the living room. "Good morning, Ana," he said.

"Oh, good morning, Yui," she briefly looked up from her book and replied serenely.

Yui hadn't really thought of it before, but when he looked around the room, he realized... "You don't have a TV?"

"Oh, I do," she informed him. "Just in my bedroom. I like to create the illusion of a nineteenth century home in this room. Isn't it romantic this way?"

"Uh, sure," Yui said, but he didn't really get it. If he had a place like this, he'd want to invite friends over all the time to watch movies and play games on the living room television. He wondered what people did in a living room without a television, besides read. He didn't really like reading. He couldn't sit still and focus long enough for that.

"If you're looking for something to eat," Ana said, as she saw Yui walk into the kitchen, "there are eggs and bacon in the fridge."

"Oh, thanks a bunch," Yui said. He opened the fridge and realized... they weren't cooked yet. He had gotten his hopes up and assumed she had made breakfast for them. It's okay, Yui said to himself. I'm an adult. I can handle this. He rummaged under the cabinets and found a pan. You need oil to cook eggs, right? He asked himself. He looked around for the cooking oil, but couldn't find it. "Hey, Ana," he called into the other room. "Where's the oil?"

"In the cabinet above the stove, to your left," she directed.

He opened the cabinet and saw a variety of cooking oils. "Uh, do I use olive oil or vegetable oil?"

"That depends on what kind of flavor you want," Anabelle informed him. "The olive oil has a stronger flavor, but it has a lower burning temperature, so you have to keep an eye on it."

"I'll go with the veggie oil," he said, nervously. He pulled it out of the cabinet. He looked at the pan and fidgeted a bit in a way that looked like a nervous little tap dance on the kitchen floor. "How much do I use?"

Anabelle chuckled quietly and put her novel down on the sofa, with a bookmark in it. "I'll come help you," she said. She got up and walked into the kitchen.