I have not yet determined a name for this

~Chapter Ten~

Even as my eyes adjusted, all I could focus on was Sun's frilly little collar as it somehow darkened in color, shaking lightly alongside his transforming body. I decided to cease all movement and stay quiet, hoping that Moon might not even notice he was carrying me and instinctively drop me upon his arrival.

As his head clicked and whirred, two familiar pinpoints of bright red shining above me, I stifled my breathing, leaving me with just the roaring of my heart in my ears as I awaited judgment. He was still gripping me tightly even as silence overtook the room.

I waited. He tilted his head slowly downwards, directing his brightly lit pupils towards me. It was too late; I instinctively met his gaze, unease scattered across my features. There was absolutely no way out of this one.

"Well, well..." came an utterly horrifying croak, so much worse up close and personal like this. And to think I'd just barely gotten that awful voice out of my mind, if only thanks to Sundrop. "What do we have here...?"

"A complete and total accident, actually," I quickly and anxiously replied, my voice louder than intended in my state of distress. "I was actually just about to leave, but the lights shut off and the doors locked—"

A gross, dark chuckle. "Naughty girl," Moon cooed, lowering his face towards mine. "You were trying to stay past your bedtime again, weren't you?"

I wriggled in his arms in protest. "No, I really wasn't! Not this time, at least! I just wanted to say goodbye to Sun before I left!"

"Goodbye...to Sun," he murmured, his demented gaze searing through my flesh. "Are you so...obsessed with him to do so? Naughty girls shouldn't stay up past their bedtime..."

God, did his programming demand he say that every five seconds or something? There's no way he just picked that one up on his own. I was openly cringing at his words. "I'm not obsessed," I insisted, but I looked and sounded like a bad liar; my cheeks were already heating up at the accusation. "I'm just—we've gotten close, okay? I like him a lot, and I like spending time with him—" My words were sharply cut off as Moon squeezed me tighter, prompting me to release a light wheeze instead.

"What's so...enticing about him...?" he questioned, though it almost sounded rhetorical. "You're not a naughty little child...but a grown...woman. You're not who he was designed for..."

Wow, I absolutely hated how he said woman. I internally wished he'd never call me that again, actually. Unfortunately, my air intake was already a little restricted, and I wasn't about to voice such a complaint. "You're right," I mumbled, taking short, shallow breaths. "I don't know, I just—I don't think he was even designed well for his audience, y'know—kids don't even like him that much." I didn't know what exactly I was aiming for with this line of conversation, but I knew I needed to stall.

Moon's head clicked as it slowly rotated along its axis, then snapped back to its original position with one sharp, swift movement. "Children...don't like HIM?" he hissed, and my breaths instinctively picked up a little. "No, no...children LOVE Sundrop. Everybody LOVES Sundrop...just like you. You LOVE Sundrop too..."

I didn't know what to say; I was clearly pissing the guy off as it was, and if he squeezed me any tighter, I might just pass out or something. I was already in the beginning stages of hyperventilation. "It's not like—it's not like that," I wheezed, trying to word my responses carefully, but unable to think much with the limited oxygen making it to my brain. "You could be loved too." That was what he wanted, right? It was starting to sound like he was jealous, or something, at least from what my clouded mind could make of his words. I had absolutely no idea what was going on anymore.