Stitched Together

Chapter 17: Ignorance Was Bliss

"Hm? Hello?" I call out only to hear my voice echo back at me. There's nothing here, just complete and utter darkness. My steps make no sound and I can't quite tell which way is up. Suddenly a figure appears in the distance. "Juuzou?" I call out, cautiously approaching him. He turns with a large smile on his face, blood splattered across his clothes. I stumble backwards in fear.

"Reina~" he sings, spinning his knife in his hand and coming closer. I turn to run but he jumps on me and I scream. "Reina!" My eyes snap open at the weight pressed against me. "Get up," Juuzou whines, flopped on top of me. He look at me and smiles, "Oh you are up." I open my mouth to yell at him as I wiggle from under him and prop myself up but he shoves something in my face. "Drink your coffee, you're always cranky in the morning." I look at the mug and back up to him and sigh, my nightmare fading from memory.

"Thanks," I mutter and sip it. He sits happily and stares at me with large eyes. "Can I help you?" I lower my cup and raise and eyebrow.

"You said we could go somewhere," he says excitedly. Oh right, I did say that didn't I. "I picked the place last time, so it's you're turn now."

"Yeah, I'm aware, I already know where we could go, but we'd have to take the train," I sigh and kick off the blankets. It's a bit too far for my liking to ride there on my bike with him.

"The train, really! Where are we going," he hops up cheerfully.

"Zoo," I yawn and stretch, scratching the back of my head. "Now I'm gonna-"

"The zoo!" He gasps, his eyes practically sparkling. I laugh and grab his shoulders. I spin him around and push him out the bed room.

"Yes, so if we're gonna go, I'm going to change," I chuckle and shut the door. I knew he would love it. I try to shake off every thing that happened yesterday. "Its a new day, yesterday doesn't matter," I mutter to myself and nod with determination. I reach for my usual outfit but stop. I'm not working today, so I really don't have to dress up. Instead I grab a pale blue off the shoulder top and a white skirt. I clip my hair back and twirl around. I take a deep breath and calm down as I check my phone for train times. "Alright Juuzou, the next train is in a half hour, we should get goin if we're gonna walk to the station," I announce as I enter the living room. He is upside down on the couch, fiddling with the stitches on his lip. He flips back to his feet and runs up to me.

"Okay!" He chimes in happily. "Wow, you're really cute today! The last time I saw you in something like that was when I met you," he runs a circle around me and says.

"T-thank you, so um, let's go now," I smile awkwardly and head to the door. He nods and skips after me. Its odd, he's always bubbly, but he's been relatively calmer than when I met him. Today though he's acting just like he did before. At least I'm more comfortable with him now, and his clinginess doesn't get on my nerves like it used to. I still feel uneasy overall, but I'm just going to have to trust that he won't do anything to me. We walk along the sidewalk in complete silence until Juuzou speaks up again.

"So what's it like being a ghoul?" He asks randomly. God he's still stuck on it. I put my finger up to my lips and shush him angrily.

"You can't just go saying that stuff out loud Juuzou!" I mutter quickly.

"What? I'm curious, I've never met one I haven't wanted to kill, so I might as well learn something," he giggles.

"Well there's nothing to learn, it's hard living like this, exceptionally hard if you're doing what I'm doing. You can't eat anything but... well, you know, and coffee of course. Everything else is super gross, and it makes us really sick of we don't get it out of our systems. And of course we're always getting hunted, so over all it's pretty sucky," I explain quietly.