It's funny how quickly the strange become the mundane.

You get used to the patterns, no matter how bizarre they seem at first. I think we're trained to see patterns from a young age. I feel like we're all put into position to do so. To make sense of our world through repeated experiences. That's how we learn as children what we should and shouldn't do. That's how we adapt and how we flourish.

It's kind of amazing, if you think about it.

How easily we can get used to things.

It took a while to get used to him. To the idea of him. To how he showed up throughout my day, seemingly out of nowhere. It scared me a little, at first. Made me wary. But I slowly started to realize, we were just finding each other by chance. Our daily lives intersected. I saw his face and his lazy smirk as I went by and I could feel the smile tug at my lips. It felt like we were closer, then. Like we were hanging out, even though we scarcely shared words.

When we did, it was by chance too. Meeting on the street, falling into pace. His legs were much longer than mine and I never quite realized how tall he was until then. But he always managed to fall into step beside me, never faster nor slower. Sometimes I passed him on the street, sometimes he passed me, and sometimes, without any warning, he was simply beside me.

It unnerved me at first, to have him in my peripheral, barely speaking unless spoken to. He never made small talk and only responded vaguely to any attempts I made. It irritated me at first. I felt that he should be more invested in talking to me if he was going to be following me like that. It wasn't until we began talking longer, about deeper things, that he seemed to care at all.

Every conversation came quicker and easier than the last. I would simply pick up a topic and he would follow. He always followed, everywhere I went, from delivery to delivery. He never seemed to take particular interest in anything, his eyes seeming perpetually half-lidded and dull. He waited outside each stop, never taking offense to my walking inside and taking care of things. He was always standing just outside, hands in his pockets, and the conversation would resume as soon as we were a polite distance away.

There were few times he would break away from me, placing a single finger on my lips to still them. It flustered me the first time he did it and I loudly protested as he disappeared down some dank alley. I waited, scrubbed my lips, then decided I wasn't about to be at his beck and call. I kept going, complaining to Ren about his actions.

But soon enough, there he was again, unrolling his sleeves from his elbows and falling into step beside me.

That's how it always seemed to go. He rarely spoke when a single action would serve better. It took me a while to realize that, but I did. He trained me to read him without words. Slowly but surely, I became fluent in his language. A finger stilled my lips, a smile returned in kind, a two-point glance told a joke. He made me laugh.

I got used to seeing him, which was something I didn't think I would ever say. I did, though. I never knew exactly when I would meet up with him, but it became an inevitable, daily routine. He would be there and we would walk. He would listen as I talked about whatever came to mind. If it was around lunch, we'd grab something as we went. Whatever I wanted, whatever was my whim. He indulged me completely, even when my desires were left unspoken. He could read me, too.

Sometimes we'd stop at food trucks, sometimes we'd spend half an hour at a café. He delighted in whatever I chose, or so the curve of his lip suggested. He always pushed a little further than I was prepared, but I accommodated him. He liked to feed me bites from his plate and always insisted I feed him from mine. It embarrassed me to have that sort of exchange, and I was sure everyone around us was staring. He said it didn't matter. All that mattered was us. That, too, became mundane.

He never pushed me too far, despite how far it already felt. We were never late for a delivery, I never arrived with food on my face. He was never an intrusion, merely a constant. He was just there for my benefit, or so I surmised. Maybe I had looked too lonely.

I didn't feel lonely anymore.

He fit seamlessly into my life without my ever asking. It wasn't that he catered to me, or that he somehow lacked from giving to me, rather it seemed to give him some sort of purpose. He seemed to enjoy how he fit into my life, even as my life changed to accommodate him.

I invited him to dinner sometimes, just on errant whim. He always encouraged me in that way, said I should follow my desires more often. He always supported those decisions, even when they seemed bad, even when I made them just to test his limits. He made sure things never got out of hand, that I always had the most fun, that he always did exactly as I did. It turned into a game of pushing each other, just enough but not too far.

But never inside the front door.

I invited him, but he never came. He always made an excuse that sounded terribly boring, so boring that it absolutely must be true. I found myself pouting at him, rolling my eyes petulantly, and he pouted and rolled right back at me. He moved as if he were going to ruffle my hair but never did. He pushed me with a broad hand right between my shoulder blades. He sent me inside.

I barely realized what was happening then. I started noticing it once things had progressed. There was a change in myself I had not expected. There was a hunger I'd never noticed. The more he denied me, the more I was left wanting. If I was supposed to be spontaneous, if I was supposed to make abrupt decisions and lead us on, why wouldn't he follow me inside?

I was unsatisfied. I found myself lingering more and more before returning home. If he wouldn't follow me inside, I would stay outside with him. We went different places, tried different things. We looked into shops and boutiques, tried on all sorts of ridiculous clothes. We bought them, traded them, laughed when his swallowed me up and when mine stretched to the threads on him. We did everything that came to mind, immediately.

We were happy. I needn't say a word.

We went to clubs sometimes after work. My bag would have a change of clothes in it to separate the parts of my day. We tucked into an alley and stripped down, hastily changing into the colorful, gaudy clothes we'd egged each other on to buy. We stepped out as different people, or so I noticed in the polished windows of the storefronts. I forgot how I looked with my hair down and wild.

I liked it.

I was never nervous with him. It was chaotic and unplanned, we made our evenings as we wished. I felt freer than I had in years. I found myself marveling the following mornings at some of the things I'd done, but it was awe instead of embarrassment. I thought I'd wanted a quiet life that followed the same steps each and every day, but that was almost too mundane, and impulsiveness had become normal and right.

Maybe I should have been afraid to change so much, but it all seemed normal and right. I never went too far, even when he encouraged and indulged me. He pulled me back, scolded me teasingly with a finger to my lips. He left me wanting, but obedient. There was nothing to fear in his arms.

In his arms, where I'd found myself more often than I could have imagined. I don't know when it started. Maybe I just got used to his hand on my back, his arm around my shoulders. Maybe I got used to him holding me up when I was too drunk and exhausted to hold myself up. When it became normal, I'll never know, but we were happy.

Happiness seemed to come at a price. More than once, Granny was waiting for me at all hours when I came home, sitting with a grim expression and a cup of tea. She looked me over, from head to toe, her face unreadable and hard. Where had I been and who was I out with? I told her not to worry, even as I fell over trying to pull off my shoe. Had I been taking my medicine?

No, I hadn't.

But I hadn't felt this good in forever.

Like a magic cure, my headaches had been fading. I couldn't remember the last time I needed to take my medicine. Those pills were replaced with other pills instead, all shapes and colors you could imagine. Some you swallowed, some you chewed, and all came from him. He said he thought I'd like to try them. I did.

It became routine. We finished up work and changed in an alley, I found myself staring at him and imagining what he would feel like against me so bare. We loitered and ran, dodged the police and lounged in clubs. We drank, we took pills, I fell asleep on his chest and woke up to his hand on my back, pushing me inside.

I didn't want to go in.

I barely realized I was doing it that first time. I'd grabbed the front of his hoodie and boosted myself on my toes as I dragged him down. The kiss was a mess, sloppy and wet and misaligned, but his lips were soft and full and forgiving of my poor aim. The hand that pushed me drew me in immediately, crushing me against his chest, pulling the air from my lungs in a high-pitched note of surprise and lust.

My back met the door and he pressed me against it, our mouths meeting again and again in a hot, slick assault. I couldn't remember how long it had been since I'd been with someone, much less so passionately, but I needed it more and more with each audible smack. He was similarly insatiable, as if he'd spent every moment we shared needing me just as badly as I needed him.

The door opened behind me and I spilled inside in a heap. He caught himself on the frame above me, looking Granny in the face. They shared a long, unbroken stare as I scrambled up between them. The moment my legs were out of the way, she slammed it shut and he was gone.

I laid awake at night, thinking about him. What would it feel like to have our bodies pressed hotly together, tangling the sheets around us. I thought of how it might feel to rest against his broad chest and how his weight would sink me into the mattress. Had I started something unstoppable? Did I care if I had?

I touched myself religiously, giving in to every feverish fantasy that sprung to mind.

He didn't show up the next day, or the day after that. As if there had been some horrible shift in the universe, he was gone. I walked alone, barely even speaking to Ren. I pouted through each delivery, made small-talk with no one. Haga-san even asked me if there was anything wrong, but there wasn't. Not really.

I just wished he was here.

I was tired of the mundane life I'd been clinging to. I wanted the changes, fast and irrevocable. I wanted to keep pushing each other further. I wanted more of him to surprise me and more of me to surprise myself. I embraced it, and I craved it.

He answered my call when it came through. I was relieved beyond measure. A single word of greeting, cheerful and dangerous, and I purred my own back into my Coil. I told him I needed to see him. I told him I was leaving home.

We are heading to his place now. We haven't said much. There's a light in his eyes I've only glimpsed before, and I wonder if there's a matching light in mine. I'm not paying attention to where we're going, just to how his fingers curl over and around mine. We walk, hand in hand, and I leave it all behind.

Maybe tomorrow I'll quit.

I'm planning to stay indefinitely.

I'm excited beyond measure. A calm has settled over me, knowing my decision is correct. I wonder if he'll be there too, and if we can all drink together. I feel like he wouldn't mind that, that somehow we'd all just fall into place. Maybe we'd fall into bed.

I'm ecstatic but dulled.

The red stuff is taking hold.

I can't wait for what he has planned.