CLICK. I groan and bury my face deeper into the pillows. CLICK CLICK. The hell is that? I think as I pull the pillow over my head.
"Oh, that's a good one." A whispered female voice reaches my ears, a quiet giggle following after. Then I understand. My body goes tense and I slowly remove the pillow from over my head, turning it to the side in order to see my door. My mother is standing there, holding the camera and looking down at the screen. I stare at her for a moment before speaking.
"Mother dearest.." Her head shoots up and her wide eyed gaze locks with my less then wide eyed one. CLICK. I hear as a sheepish smile appears on her face and then she's full out grinning like a madwoman and running down the stairs. I move to follow her but I can't because it's that moment that something locks around my waist and drags me across my bed.
"Just let her go lamer." A deep voice says as my body softly collides with something suspiciously like another body. Then the memories hit me. I smile ruefully and turn so I can face Seifer.
"Hey ass-hat, you feeling better?" I ask as I study his face. His eyes look a lot less tired than they did yesterday.
"That's most sleep I've gotten all week." He answers back after a yawn.
"Yeah, I can tell. What the hell have you been doing?" There's nothing like starting the morning off with a little interrogating. He stares at me blankly and I think that he won't answer but he finally does.
"I got tired of Emil making threats against you so I called a meeting. We've been planning. It's time to end this game of his." Seifer sounds confident and I can't help but feel a bit hopeful. It's a pain in the ass to not be able to leave your own house alone or stay in your house alone.
"When is it happening?" I ask, feeling a little swirl of nervousness brush the back of my mind. Gang wars are not the safest extracurricular activities on the planet. Well, wars in general are just unsafe. And I don't think any kind of war should be an extracurricular activity..
"Soon." He replies. I can feel my face drop into what is probably a spectacular bitch face. "I'll let you know when it's going down, but until then you really shouldn't worry about it." Seifer adds. My bitch face eases slightly, but I'm still not satisfied with that plan.
"Fine. I don't like it but fine." I say, feeling slightly defeated. I would have fought but Seifer seems hesitant to talk about it and if he really doesn't want me to know then he's not going to tell me anything more than he feels he should.
"It's best that I don't tell you too much. The more you know, the more of a threat you are." I blink up at him sarcastically. Or, well, as sarcastic as one can be with their face alone.
"Seriously? I'm already Emil's number one target. Telling me stuff isn't going to move me up the list any." I deadpan back, wiggling out of Seifer's hold so I can sit and look down at him.
"I wasn't talking about Emil, chickenwuss." He admits ashamedly. I stare at him in confusion. Who the hell is he talking about if it's not Emil? Is there someone else after me now too? Oh dear lord, please let thee not be another gang after me. "You really are slow, wow." Seifer sighs, turning so that he can sit up too. "My gang is affiliated with a couple other gangs. Those other gangs don't even trust me a lot of the time. If they find out that you know too, then they're going to be watching not only you, but me too. And I'm sorry, but I'm not a huge fan of being watched 24/7." He explains, so that my "slow" mind can grasp such a complex concept.
"I am not slow, ass-hat." I say defensively. He rolls his eyes at me so I punch him in the arm. "Shut up." I whine. Well, I don't whine per say but I.. Okay, yeah, I whine.
"I didn't even say anything." Seifer jokes, that cocky smirk of his settling onto his face. I try not to get distracted by how much I've missed the stupid look on his face. Like he's right or something.
"You were thinking. So shut up." I glare. He doesn't look any less interested in making fun of me. The asshole..
"Honestly, Hayner?" He asks, his eyebrow quirking up. I continue to glare at him, albeit a bit less out of defense and more because it's fun to pretend to be mad at him. And maybe the fact that he used my name is making my heart do weird things in my chest and it's making it hard to concentrate on glaring at him. I'm pretty sure he knows it too, because his self-satisfies smirk just gets freaking bigger like, no, that should not be possible.
"Keep smirking and I'm going to punch you in the face." I calmly inform Seifer. The smirk still does not falter in the least and I decided that it's time to be somewhere else. Preferably where ever my mother is, getting the camera before she can run away to send them to everyone we've ever met. I shudder at the thought and crawl off my bed.
"Hey, where are you going? Weren't you going to punch me in the face?" Seifer calls from the bed. I stop at the door and turn to him. He looks at me expectantly and I smile as sweetly as possible before flipping him the bird and walking out of the room. I can hear him chuckle all the way down the hall. I'm not sure if he's going to get up and follow me or not, but that doesn't really matter to me right now. What matters is the fact that my mother is standing at the bottom of the stairs, jacket half pulled on, camera in hand, staring at me like a deer in the headlights.
"Mom, don't you dare!" I yell as I start running down the stairs. She giggles and is out of the door before I'm even half way down the stairs. When I'm done flying down the stairs (more than likely missing the last half of them in an attempt to be faster), I scramble for the door and rip it open and stumble out onto the front steps. The only sign of my mother is the distant sound of manic giggles. I sigh and let my head drop in defeat. "Today is just not my day.." I mumble to myself as I rub the back of my head. Well, I guess that plan is a no-go.
"Hey lamer, you got anything to eat?" Seifer interrupts my pity party to ask. I turn and make my way back inside, closing the door and locking it just in case. Seifer just stands at the bottom of the stairs and waits for an answer.
"Don't you have your own house?" I ask skeptically. He laughs loudly and makes his way towards the kitchen.
"Wanna get rid of me so soon? You more of the stay the night, be gone by morning type of guys?" I fight the urge to laugh at his stupid jokes. They're not even that funny, and he's making fun of me. I shouldn't be laughing at that. So instead of laughing I push him into the kitchen on my way to the stairs.
"Yes, now go look for your own food and stop being a lazy ass. I'm going to take a shower."
"Good, you need one." He shoots back. I feel his eyes on my back as I start walking up the stairs towards the bathroom. I flip him off again and I can almost hear him roll his eyes. I roll my own in response and stop by my room to pick out some clothes. My eyes scan my nearly empty closet and it dawns on me that I should probably do my laundry. I grab a random shirt and some shorts and head off for the bathroom.
Once in the shower I let myself start to think. Just yesterday I was completely out of my mind with confusion. I spent the entirety of last week both fearing for my safety and my mother's safety. Honestly, if Emil really wanted me, I doubt the presence of my mother would stop him from trying. At every bang or clank my heart would start racing and I'd get ready to go protect my mom. That constant state of alert sure as hell doesn't make anyone more sane. That doubled with a constant stream of questioning thoughts does not make it easy to focus on much of anything, including showering and eating. In the beginning I thought that it'd go away once Seifer was back. I was so hopeful that everything would go back to normal when Seifer got back. And a lot of things did. The thoughts are almost all gone. There are no questions why he left. The light in the one little piece of my heart he resides in is finally sharp and clear. But no matter how many times I remind myself that he's here and that I'm safe, I can't shake the instinctual need to stay alert. If what I got from Seifer's explanation was the truth then things were about the change, and they were about to change soon. For the better, I remind myself. Emil will be gone and I'll be safe. Everyone I love will be safe. Things will go back to normal. Is that what you really want? The internal voice inquires. I stare at the white tile in front of me. Of course it's what I want. I tell the voice. Why wouldn't it be? It's not like Seifer is going to leave me afterwords. The reason he's here is not just to protect me. The voice doesn't speak against me and I let myself momentarily bask in my triumph. Nothing all that bad has happened, so it should be simple to forget that this even happened. But maybe not all of it. After all, Emil is the reason that Seifer is here with me right now. I feel a new sense of hope run through my veins and I turn the water off.
"Better not leave the asshole alone for too long." I tell myself as I hope out of the tub and dry off as quickly as I can manage. I haphazardly start pulling my clothes on as I make my way for the hall. I hop out of the door, pulling my shorts on and trying to get the shirt to slid over my head at the same time. I feel like I'm doing a pretty good job at it but by the sound of the deep chuckles bouncing off the walls around me I must look like an idiot.
"You in a hurry, lamer?" Seifer asks patronizingly, yet it doesn't bother me.
"Shut up and help me." I laugh as I keep struggling. I can hear his clothes rustle as he pushes himself away from the wall and walks to me.
"Stop moving, chickenwuss." He orders. I obey his command and stand still as he gently pulls the shirt over my head so that I can see what I'm doing. My face is already breaking out into a smile and by the time I have my shirt on correctly, it's almost painful. The small smile gracing his lips as he shakes his head at me are totally worth the pain though.
"You're an idiot." He says, but there's no malice behind his words. My smile doesn't falter and he pushes my head down lightly. "Fix your pants and come eat, chickenwuss. Breakfast is getting cold." I hurry and pull my other leg through the leg hole of my shorts and follow after him.
Things are going to be just fine.
~Authors Note~
I'm just going to warn you guys now that this story is going to get a bit dark in the next couple chapters. I'm probably going to have to put a warning in the description or something. Anyways, there's going to be a lot of Emil and craziness so there's something to look forward too. I'm planning on updating every Thrusday, but if you are just generally interested in how the chapters are going then you can find my tumblr url on my profile. Feel free to drop by.