So just pull the trigger.

41. Do you want a drink?

Chris opened the handcuffs and Joni brought his hand close to his body. At some point, the music had ceased playing, but he hadn't even noticed it at first. Chris was beside him, his hand resting tenderly on his shoulder. "Are you okay?" The man asked.

The question was strange. Joni looked at his ex-boyfriend in confusion and the look on his face seemed genuinely worried. Joni didn't know what Chris assumed he would reply. "Did he ...?" Chris started. And Joni knew what Chris wanted to ask, still finding the question odd from his lips. Joni just shook his head.

"Good. Let me help you up," Chris said and offered his hand. Joni grabbed it. His body ached all over. Chris' other hand wrapped around his shoulders and as he got up, Joni gasped. A sharp pain shot up from his knee, the same knee that had been hurt earlier.

His every step ached, Chris supported him and eventually lifted him in his arms. Joni didn't argue and allowed the man to carry him. He didn't like the feeling of helplessness, but at the same time, he knew that this would be the wrong time to protest or refuse help. He thought anxiously about the condition of his knee; it was easier to try to focus on that relatively insignificant concern to distract himself from thinking about what had just happened.

Chris lowered him to the bed that was made in the living room and Joni bent down to feel his sore leg. His knee was a little swollen and he moaned; He could not run with this leg if the opportunity came. Chris knelt on the floor next to him.

"Let me take a look," the man said. Joni shuddered a little as Chris gently felt his knee. That sudden affection felt very strange after what he had just had to experience.

"No worries, I'll get something cold to place on it to make the swelling go down." Chris got up and walked to the kitchen corner. Joni followed the man with his eyes nervously.

Chris came back after taking something out of the freezer and wrapping it in a thin towel. "Press this against your knee." The man said, seeming surprisingly clear and sensible, given how much he must have had to drink earlier. Furthermore; Chris had just killed Aki!

On the other hand, Joni had to admit that he didn't understand what had happened. He knew it to be true and at the same time it felt like... he was looking at the whole situation from afar like it hadn't happened to him. Joni picked up the cold wrapper in silence and carefully placed it on his hurt knee.

The loud gunshot, he could still hear it ringing in his ears and it made it more real. He wouldn't have wanted to think! Yet Aki's voice... the man's heavy breathing and the words he had threatened him with. He felt strange gratitude that Chris had shot him, at the same time that feeling felt contradicting. Without Chris, he wouldn't even have been in this situation! Joni felt unwell, vulnerable in his nakedness and pulled the blanket tighter around himself.

He felt Chris' gaze, felt the man's presence. He heard footsteps pacing uneasily against the wooden floor. The sound of a lighter, followed by a smell of tobacco. Joni slowly turned his gaze and saw Chris sitting at the table. The man brushed his hair back with his free hand and glanced towards the door behind which Aki's body lay.

What would happen now was a riddle, Joni got the feeling that Chris didn't know either. This was hardly what Chris had planned to happen if the man had even had any plans besides his lust for revenge? Aki had probably planned most of this, Chris was too impulsive for it.

"Do you want a drink?" Chris suddenly asked as he poured whiskey into his glass. Joni shook his head. He first hoped Chris wouldn't drink either, but then came to think that if Chris would pass out again, he might be able to call for help.

Chris nodded, brought a cigarette to his lips, and sucked, blowing smoke out. The man looked pensive. Joni noticed how his hand was trembling, his clothes had blood splashes that Joni hadn't noticed at first.