Ink x Honey

Chapter Two

The new year came with unstopping rain. I lie upon the blue-and-gold sofa in the living-room alone, contemplating my whole life as I did every passing second.

"For fuck's sake!" I shouted at the ceiling.

From the kitchen, my butler came in a rush. "Suck a toe!" he hissed. "It's the fifth time today!"

"Do you know how to kill a snail, Wilson?"

"No, but I do know how to kill an unemployed faggot who curses around for a living."

"Wilson, how dare you?"

"Tell me where I'm wrong, my dear sir. I dare you."

"I do not associate myself with those queers!"

"I've never seen you with a lady."

"You've never seen me with a man either!"

"Putting that aside. You asked me about snail-demolishing."

"And you assaulted me in response."

"Surely, it will be an easy task for me, but the time I require to massacre the snail would depend on its size, my sir."

"Oh, nevermind. I already forgot about her anyway." Him, I corrected myself in silence.

I dismissed Wilson before he attacked me with further questions, and pondered some more.

Two years had passed since that day. It was more than enough to call that day a past of mine. A past of mine which I shared with him. Our past. God damn it!

It was not only that I had mistaken him as a girl that drove me insane, but the fact that I had told him my home address. Knowing this, I could not get a single peaceful sleep since that day two years ago. I had been living restlessly since then.

It really felt as if there existed a snail somewhere out there making its slow yet sure way to my residence, and by the time that snail reaches me, its frail touch will be enough to turn me dead.

"This is awful! Utterly unsettling!"

Wilson then came in with a cup of hot tea I did not order him to make. I sat up and touched the blue porcelain cup to bring warmth upon my frozen soul. He turned on the TV. Another news of missing people found dead appeared on the screen. I sipped my tea elegantly.

"The victims were all the same," said Wilson as he observed the news, "low life thugs with no place to stay. They're better off dead."

"Yes, they have no place in this world." The image of that boy made a home in my mind without my consent. I found it rather upsetting. "Whoever the mastermind is behind these cases, they did the right thing. They did what the police couldn't."

At that exact moment, the security intercom set off a loud beep. I dashed to the front door, where the monitor was, and there I saw before the entrance gates of my house, was a familiar figure soaking from head to toe.

I had wished for my eyes to deceive me, but the alarm would never ring unless there really was someone at the gates.

My time has come! I exclaimed in silence. The snail is here to bring me straight to my demise.

But if my memory serves me right, did anything happen between us on that night? Was there a fight? Was there a tension other than the moment I transparently mistook him as a girl?

Before I ran off at the crack of dawn, before we both leaped into the realm of temporal dreams, was there wrath? Grudge? Resentment?

"Bring that person in, Wilson," I instructed my butler.