My Secret Santa [✔️]

/ S I X T E E N T H / / C H A P T E R /

It's three in the morning and I am still not asleep. I cover myself in a blanket and pray that nothing will happen to me nor this apartment at 03:07 exact. I can't fall asleep for the life of me so, in the meantime, I decide to suffer the consequences of not being hard headed to my friend group. I don't want to deserve this but I do. If it was something I was incapable of handling my friends would have not put me in that position and neither would I. Plugging my AirPods into my ears, I listen to gospel music to ease my fear. I'm hoping this will clear my head for the night.

I don't understand what made me choose the Conjuring. Everyone said that it was the easiest horror movie to get through in comparison to the recent ones. Why didn't I stick to It? At least there I wouldn't have been the only to be as scared as I was. Not even Ocean's 11 could wash away the gory images playing in my mind.

Four in the morning. Silence crawls around the apartment. I exist the room and head towards the kitchen to have a change of environment. Not a single sound can escape my mouth as the walls are very thin. I spend most my time sitting by the kitchen counter, watching old Barbie movies in attempts to get rid of my paranoiac though that a doll is seeking to attack me.

Nearly five, I hear a door clank open. I am no longer in the kitchen. My first option is to get off the couch and go get some water so that I can fake a whole scenario to create an alibi, but I am tad bit too late for that plan to initiate. So I will go with my second option, the easiest idea plan: Fake sleeping. Seems easy enough except for the fact that whenever I close my eyes, I revert back to the scary bits and pieces of the Conjuring and I always end up giving in as soon as someone approaches my face and gets too close.

Before I can think twice, I see a dark figure walk by to pick a glass of water from the kitchen cabinet. From then on, I carefully adjust my position to look as if I were asleep while the person ignores my presence. Or at least I thought when I hear footsteps getting closer to the living room. My heart pounding as if I were undergoing a stroke, I made sure to not move an inch. The more my eyes stays shut, the more I remind myself why I couldn't fall asleep in the first place. That stupid movie was going to dictate my bed time for the next few weeks. Carefully, I squint my eyes open, keeping them a minimum wide to avoid suspicion.

"Sydney?" I hear a voice whisper.

Fuck. It's Satoru. He is the last person I would want to see. I'm still not over what happened last night. I don't blame him nor Sabrina, I'm just too jealous to face him at this moment. It's very immature of me. "Keep calm", I tell myself, trying to contain my heart rate.

Silence falls upon us. Is he gone already? No. I haven't heard any footsteps returning back and he doesn't seem like the type to tiptoe either. Seconds later, I felt a hand grip my lower back and an arm cupping my legs. This cannot be happening. He lifts me off the couch and quickly adjusts me gently to not "wake" me up before he leaves the room.

"Satoru?" I give in. We are too close to each other for me to not giggle or smile. I try with keeping the laughter but a little sound escapes my lips which in return, makes him quietly laugh.

"Did I wake you?" He whispers.

"Not at all, but I think I should be the one asking the questions. What are you doing?" I rub my eye to accentuate my lie.

"I was going to put you in the girl's room. I know sleeping on the couch isn't ideal," he awkwardly explains while still holding so close to his chest. I'm grateful that I was not wearing my silk shorts. Even if it's 20 degrees Celsius inside Sabrina's apartment, knowing that Satoru was going to be there, I was never going to show as much as I usually do.

"Agreed, but I wasn't sleeping."

"Oh really?" He scoffs as I were lying to him.

"I was resting my eyes for your information," a light giggle presses onto my lips.

"Then riddle me this. Why not 'rest your eyes' in Sabrina's room?"

"Because...Karina snores a lot. What about you? Do you just randomly pick up girls from couches in the middle of the night? Why are you here?"

"So getting a glass of water is no longer an option?" I can't read whether he is annoyed by my question or is joking. The lights were were all completely off in every single space of the condo.

"Don't think so," I neutralise my tone, still wary of what he was feeling.

"You're right. I couldn't fall-"

"Wait," I interrupt by covering his mouth with my finger. Ugh, why did I do that? "Before you start your little story time, can you put me down first?"

"Right," he says sounding as if he has forgotten.

Be so for real. He places me down back on to the spacious couch I was initially laying on. Satoru then lays himself right beside me. "Can I start?" He faces me, making me shift my eyes to stare at the ceiling.

"Mhm."

"I couldn't fall asleep and I figured that I would be disturbing the tiger if I decided to ur my phone with its bright light. I figured going to the living seems like the safest option. In case I were caught by someone I would use the excuse of being thirsty and getting something to drink," he briefly explains.

"Never in my life would I believe that someone who is capable of waking up due to dehydration would not have a water bottle next to their bed."

"That's a weird way of thinking since I am not in a familiar environment but I'll accept it."

"As you should," I smirked, slightly tilting my head to glance at him. "Funny enough, Sabrina keeps extra water bottles for Saige and I as we both don't drink tap water.