Gokumonki won't stop snoring.
It's not as if I haven't already asked him nicely (I would consider a slap to the head "nicely" for this lump) and I'm already debating taking the less-than-nice approach, but to the right of me remains empty space, and I can't get to sleep like this, anyway.
I end up fifty feet away, perched upon the limb of a sturdy tree and watching the mist creeping from the surface of a pond. It's another cold morning, and up here, I can't help but catch a chill—as my body shakes, I look up at the sky and curse under my breath about the fact that I'm even up here to begin with, because it's finally hit me, what I'm doing.
I'm worrying.
This isn't the first time he's gone off on his own. He goes off like this often, and I haven't bothered to ask why. I already know. He dislikes sharing everything with anyone, and he enjoys keeping himself a mystery to others. Perhaps it is because he has an advantage over them—in withholding information, he safeguards the little bits of himself that he feels the need to protect. Whatever bits those might be, I've yet to know. I've spent more than a couple nights letting the most tender of facts slip past my lips into his ears and staring back at him through the silence, waiting for him to offer his voice to me.
He has lowered his head with knowing, hummed softly with understanding, placed his hand over mine in reassurance—but he has never trusted me.
It is so rare that I see him truly happy. He loves the wait and chase before the kill, to see his claws slicked with blood, and he relishes in acknowledgement of his work. Sometimes I see him smile when he takes a sip of really good green tea. Perhaps he is like me, and he has things he fights inside of himself through violence. Perhaps he just enjoys simple pleasures. Perhaps he is less complex than I think, or perhaps I have not yet read far enough.
I can't decide, and I can't see very well, either; my eyes are blurring, and I scrub at them defiantly.
The sky is lightening, but I can still hear the distant drone of Gokumonki. I am jealous of him, jealous that he can sleep so easily while I sit here and wait. Waiting is all I can do anymore other than following. I wait and follow, I follow and I wait.
I am wondering if he knows how long I have been waiting, how desperately I have been following.
I've been waiting for a while in this spot, and I've almost actually fallen asleep when I think I hear something. My eyes snap open, startled, and dart around.
But I don't need to see him to know he is here.
"You're late," I mutter, too tired to be amused that he has caught me yet again.
He glimmers to life in front of me, perfectly perched with all the elegance of an assassin of his caliber. "You've chosen a bad hiding spot."
"I'm not trying to hide from you." My own words taste more bitter than I thought they would as they come out. He appears understandably surprised. "I can't sleep like this."
"Why?" I can tell he is confused. It is not often that I confuse him. He is very perceptive, and there is little I ever have to explain to him. For some reason, this is the only thing he seems not to have caught on to.
"Because I hate you."
I can see his eyes narrowing, but that's all—I cannot tell if he is smiling or frowning. I can never see much past the slivers of reality that he allows me to glimpse.
"What do you hate me for?"
I am angry that he has to ask. I am angry that I can't stop myself from answering, because I am too angry to care.
"For making me need you."
He has stopped looking at my eyes—he is, instead, staring at the trails of liquid that roll down from them. His eyes have become even less telling, and like usual, I cannot tell at all what he is feeling.
Everything is silent for too many moments, and his gaze never returns to mine.
I don't know if he is searching for words, or if he plans not to say anything at all. I don't know anything. I never know, and perhaps I never will.
I slide both my legs from the limb and drop to the ground, pausing only long enough to wipe the tears from my cheeks in one quick motion.
I say, "Don't wake me up next time," and then I walk away to join Gokumonki.