Delic purchased the apartment, and they both began to pack. Shitsuo doing most of Hibiya's packing of course. Delic did have to inform Izaya that another would be coming along, but Izaya did not seem too surprised that Hibiya had decided to join. He just had to make arrangements for two seats on the train. After packing, they had the three-hour long train ride before getting to Bridgeport. Hibiya fell asleep at one point on the ride, resting against Delic's shoulder. Not that Delic minded, of course. He smiled gently at how cute Hibiya's innocent sleeping face was and enjoyed the warmth of her laying against him.
Then when they got there, on Sunday morning, they had to take a taxi to get to their new shared apartment. When they arrived at the apartment building, Hibiya immediately headed over to the elevator without waiting for Delic who had both of their suitcases. She just wanted to get there before her nerves set in and became apparent. Delic somehow managed to grab the newspaper on his way to the elevator. The reason they ended up still going up at the same time was because Hibiya had to wait for the elevator to get there. Their new apartment was on the fourth floor.
Hibiya had to deal with the first annoyance of the city early on when, while attempting to exit the elevator after reaching their floor, the elevator doors closed on her trapping her between the two doors. The doors were still attempting to close with her in the way. She struggled to get through, but the doors would not budge. She was more annoyed at the obstacle than anything, but the strong metal doors pushing into her body did hurt quiet a bit. Delic put his hands in between the doors and pushed them away from her body, which helped more than the struggling did. However, do her struggling so much combined with Delic leaning to put his strength into opening the doors, when the doors finally did open for them, the force of their previous attempts to escape caused them to lose their balance and fall forward into the hall when the support of the closed doors disappeared.
Delic landed hard on top of Hibiya, not having much of a chance to catch himself, and their suitcases slid into the hallway on either side of them. They both groaned from the unpleasant collision.
Hibiya was in a very bad mood now. This was not a great start to a move they were already nervous about, not that she would ever admit to that.
Under different circumstances, Delic might have taken advantage of the fact that he had ended up on top of Hibiya. However, knowing how painful getting stuck in the elevators must have been combined with himself falling on her, he decided his girlfriend's well being was more important. He pushed himself up while pulling Hibiya out of the way, so the doors wouldn't close on her feet. Then he knelt down and offered her his hand.
"Sorry about that, Chibiya. Are you alright?"
Hibiya huffed at such a dumb question but accepted his hand no less.
"Do I look like I'm okay?" After what just happened, she wasn't sure if she'd ever bring herself to try the elevator here again. Hopefully she hadn't developed some sort of ridiculous phobia of them. Even if it was warranted.
She stumbled as he helped her up but then groaned again because of her bruising sides. Delic gently ran his fingers against her sides, but immediately pulled away when she winced. He tried to think of some way he could make up to his girlfriend the unpleasant experience they had just gone through. He leaned in to whisper in her ear,
"Would you like me to carry you the rest of the way there?"
Hibiya sucked in a breath as his warm breath made her ear tingle. The offer was tempting, but she shook her head.
"N-no, uh, you are already carrying our luggage. I think I should be quite alright."
And without another word, she walked down the hallway to their new apartment, trying to hold her head high, not even checking to see if he was behind her.
She entered the apartment and began to look around at what was already there as she waited for him. It wasn't necessarily bad. Although, Hibiya herself had grown up in a mansion so it was difficult to compare anything to that. This was certainly the first time she would be living somewhere with so little room. Not that she required a lot of space, but it was more something that she was used to.
She supposed it had an appealing design to it. When you entered the apartment, you stepped into the kitchen first that was not separated by much from the rest of that apartment. There was a wall behind the stove and counter, but it did not completely separate the kitchen so sound from the other room could surely be heard. Hibiya was no expert on kitchen appliances, but she questioned the quality of the appliances currently in their kitchen. She would probably end up using these at some point, which she hadn't ever used before do to being doted on almost her entire life. Typically, their family servants would cook everything for them so there had been no need to learn how to cook on her own. Now though, it was likely she would have to learn.
The bathroom was the only room fully separated from the rest of the apartment. Thank goodness for that though. What was interesting about the design was that the walls closing off the bathroom were angled. Like a triangle in a way. It was different, that was for sure. The kitchen floor was also in a triangular/ pentagon shape where the black and white tiles end and transition to the light tan stripes of the wood floor in the rest of the apartment (aside from the purple tiled bathroom).
This big space could be a combination of a dining room and the bedroom, although no wall would separate the two. She supposed that would matter more if they had people over. She wasn't sure how often that would happen yet. It would probably be more of Delic's doing when people do come over.
She could somewhat overhear Delic enter the apartment. He dropped the luggage by the wall and panted from carrying their heavy luggage.
"The furniture should be up here soon."
Hibiya nodded, as she went to check out the rest of the apartment. Out of the corner of her eye, Hibiya noticed Delic leaning on the wall and reading a newspaper. She could just tell that the toilet, shower, and sink were cheap. She did not look forward to using those. When she came back out her eyes bulged.
In the center of the apartment, in the space between the kitchen and the bathroom was a simple yet nice bed for two. On the far wall by the bathroom was a nice yet simple black bookcase that already had books in it. And, on the other side of the apartment was a small dining table with two chairs. None of this was there earlier. Delic was still reading the newspaper.
"D-Delic? When did all of this furniture get here?"
Delic looked up from the newspaper, and his eyebrows raised when he noticed all the furniture now in their apartment.
"Hmm, not sure. Must have been while I was reading this."
"How could we possibly not notice furniture being moved into our apartment?"
Hibiya didn't think she was that distracted as she checked out the apartment. Not to mention, moving furniture should be loud. Delic shrugged, not seeming concerned. How could he brush off something that seemed so strange?
"Well, they did say the furniture would be here soon. That was rather fast though."
"They?"
"The company I bought the furniture from."
"Wait, this is all new?"
"Well yeah. Most of it at least" Delic folded the newspaper and placed it on the table.
"I've only had a single bed before, and I thought it would make more sense for us to share since we're living together now. I never really read much before, but I know that you do, so I bought this bookcase that already had books in it. The table and chairs I'd had before though."
"Wait a moment, you bought a bookcase that already had books in it?"
"Yeah. Apparently, that's pretty normal in this city."
This city seemed strange already.
"Oh, and I just got a job in the music business."
Hibiya raised a brow. "Already?"
"Yeah, I found it in the newspaper. It was easy actually. I got it right away, although I am starting at the bottom, so recording contracts probably won't be happening any time soon. But get this, my boss is pop icon Lola Belle!"
"Hmm, she does sound familiar."
"Oh, I'm sure she does. And she seemed to like me already."
"Well that's not that surprising," Hibiya mumbled.
"It's definitely a good sign though. Even if I am beginning at the bottom at first, it's still a start for something that could lead to something even greater. My boss being a pop icon is a good sign of the types of opportunities I can get here. Oh, by the way, I think I saw some people downstairs who may be wanting to greet the new neighbors. Maybe we should say hello." He seemed excited as he walked out of the apartment.
This was definitely the trip of a lifetime for Delic. She was happy for him. However, she wasn't quite sure what to do with herself.
"Hibiya! I can see that there's a pool!"
Hibiya headed out of the apartment as well to see what he was talking about. When Delic saw a person heading towards their apartment, he went back to stand in front of their front door to greet their possible new neighbor. Hibiya stood by him, though slightly behind.
The man heading towards them looked like a middle-aged man. He was slightly chubby, wearing a business suit, and wore a grumpy scowl on his face. He seemed to be scrutinizing Delic. Before Delic could say anything, he suddenly blurted out,
"What are you wearing!? Why are you wearing pink!? What is wrong with you!?"
Delic just gawked at the man, completely thrown off. Delic was wearing what he normally would wear as a host. A nice white suit with a pink undershirt, and pink sunglasses.
Nobody spoke for a moment. The man kept scowling at them. After a while with nobody saying anything, the man just turned around and walked away. Delic continued to stare at where the man was, a cross of offense and complete bewilderment on his face. Hibiya glanced there and at Delic before saying,
"What the heck was that?"
Delic gradually shook himself out of his bewilderment.
"I honestly have no idea." He walked forward and glanced over the rail to see the downstairs elevator.
"Well, there was a woman there earlier who seemed like a friendlier greeter. I don't know where she went though." And with that, he walked into the apartment, Hibiya close behind.
A/N: I tried posting a web URL for a pic for this chapter in the story, but wasn't able to on fanfiction. I'll try to find another way. For now, if you want to see it, check out this story on archive of our own, because on that site I am able to post images.
It's an image of the apartment they live in. I took a screenshot of the apartment my sims of them live in.
Okay, so getting stuck in the elevator doors is a thing I've seen in the game. At first I thought it was because, with my first sim in this game, they were living in a cheap apartment. However, I moved Delic and Hibiya into a bit nicer apartment than the first sim lived in, and still sometimes I'd see Hibiya get stuck in the elevator doors. I don't know why.
Also, as for the scene where the man yelled at Delic out of nowhere, yeah that did actually happen in the game.I had just moved my sims into the apartment, and usually when you start a new game there are a couple of sims in the game that show up to welcome you to the neighborhood. So, I had Delic stand out in front of their apartment to greet the other sims. And when this guy (whose name I can't remember) came up to Delic, I saw the interaction at the top of the screen 'be argued with'. (The actions a sim is doing or is being done to a sim typically is in top left corner of the screen in the game). I don't really know what he said, sims speak a made-up language called simlish, so you don't always know what they are saying. The guy was clearly yelling at/arguing with Delic for some reason, as the first time interacting with him. After he said that, the game said that Delic was feeling insulted (when Sims are socializing, there is typically a description of how the interaction is going. Like for this it said something about how the other sim could see that Delic was insulted). I didn't respond at all to the guy arguing with Delic, so then he just turned around and left.
I've played the Sims many times, and this was the first time I had ever seen that happen when I started a new game. I really don't know why that guy would have been rude to Delic as their first time talking with each other. I'm assuming it had to do with a negative personality trait the other had that I did not get the chance to learn, or something that I simply missed.
Anyways, since I'm using some things that take place in the game I'm playing in this story, I thought that random incident might be interesting enough to put in the story. Since I don't know what he said to Delic, I added what I thought could be one of the few reasons I could think of why someone would argue with him as their first interaction. I'm hoping it was interesting and enough of a, "Say what?" kinda moment. Maybe it was funny too?
