𝓕ᵃᵗʰᵉʳ'ˢ 𝓟ᵉʳᶠᵉᶜᵗ 𝓛ⁱᵗᵗˡᵉ 𝓖ⁱʳˡ

IV | V

★・・・★

CHAPTER — V
part four

THE DAYLIGHT is slowly creeping into the sky, coating the room in a faint glow of orange and pink. The library is eerily silent. You like it like that, it is how it has grown to become your favorite place in the whole place. There are multiple libraries in the mansion, you now know. The one Toji has, which he also uses as his study, Nanami's, and this one, which is conveniently at your floor. It has got a decent collection of books - classics, which you love. You suspect that Toji recently bought some more, as you've stumbled upon new works you hadn't noticed before but wished to read. He does that a lot - reading your thoughts and then giving you whatever it is you want. He never takes credit for it either. Either way he most likely already knows that you know. And that you are very thankful (just in case he's probing your mind right now).

Life in the manor has been mostly uneventful recently. You've been recovering from your first night with Toji. Your limp is finally gone now and it's been three days.

Over the last few weeks, you've developed some sort of routine. You wake up at 6pm, shower and eat what normal humans would call dinner but really is breakfast to you. Then you hang around Nobara and Yuuji, on rare occasions, Megumi shows his face. You then try to make the days go by faster in any way you can, mostly by reading and writing, and at 6am, you go to sleep. You usually don't run into anyone in the manor after the sun goes up, which is the only time when you truly allow yourself to feel relaxed. Although you don't see them, you know that they're always keeping an eye on you, you somehow feel it.

On rare occasions, Nanami drops by, usually while you're eating but doesn't really say anything, simply looks at you. These days he looks even more tired than usual, so you can't help but worry. Is the situation really that dangerous outside of the borders ? Is he so exhausted because of you or is it simply related to their mafia activities ?

Maki is often absent, apparently she's responsible for controlling the transport of weapons in their little family... business along with Toge. For your own sanity, the less you know about what they do, the better you are, though you're not so clueless as to not know how mafias function. You guess there's a lot of killing, of drug dealing, and so on.

When you learned that Nobara was sent away on a mission as a punishment, you felt guilty. You still do. Nobara came back one day ago and then locked herself in her room, she wouldn't even eat. The only reason you know she know she came back was because you felt her presence in the manor.

She finally showed her face today at midnight, while you were eating lunch. She looked pretty gloom and solemn, she also didn't say a word. You tried to spark up a conversation by thanking her for what she did but she quickly dismissed it. You only learned later from Yuuji that for her mission this time she had been asked to torture the son of the boss of a rival gang of theirs, and she absolutely hated it, apparently she usually sticks to spying missions as she—

"I hate human blood." She had told you.

"But you're a vampire."

"Ironic isn't it ?" She had grinned, but it didn't look too joyous, "And torturing is too... messy. Drool, tears, blood, even sometimes piss. I hate it too."

You realized today that Nobara might be a bit of a clean freak.

After that, you didn't bring up the subject again, and neither did she.