Koschei was in my room the next time I'd enter it. I didn't even know how he'd managed to get into it. My room had been locked from the outside. And the window was still sealed.

My hearts had dropped as soon as I'd caught a glimpse of him. Koschei rearranged a pile of books and didn't seem to take notice of me.

I didn't know how he'd gotten into my room and I had nearly closed the door again silently when I heard him saying: "Ms Reprics's been looking for you."

I pushed the door open again and stared at him icily, leaning against the door frame.

"Well, not in fact you... I guess she's been looking for your spine, to be specific. Or your backbone... which was it?" he mumbled while pulling a book from the centre of a pile and watching it collapsing.

"And instead of torturing me myself she's sent you" I assumed.

Koschei looked up. "Me?" he asked disbelievingly "Why should she send me? She'd assume that it'd be fun for me to invade your privacy and then she wouldn't let me have it, I guess. By the way, if you don't want her to find you you'd better close the door in the near future. You know. You never know who's listening."

He smiled at me.

I gave it a quick thought and entered the room with folded arms, smashing the door shut with my back while collapsing against it.

"Then who let you in?" I asked coldly.

"Oh, nobody let me in. I guess I just let myself in." I cocked an eyebrow and snorted. "While no one watched" added Koschei shortly afterwards "You know. Because he was too busy readjusting the rope to the window so no one would be able to enter his room ever again. I simply came through the open door and stayed under your bed."

"For the past day" I completed.

Koschei shrugged. "I guess. Did anybody ask for me? Did Ms. Reprics miss me?" He chuckled while searching through the books on the floor.

"She wouldn't ask me for you" I replied in a low voice "and she'd hoped that you'd left for good."

Koschei shrugged. "When all of your wishes are granted many of your dreams will be of no use."

I sank onto the floor and leaned my back against the door of my room.

"You got that wrong" I corrected Koschei "We read that in a book together. It was by some kind of human reverend. "When all of your wishes are granted many of your dreams will be destroyed""

Koschei shook his head "Not for me, it isn't."

"For you it's always different, isn't it?" I mumbled and gritted my teeth.

Koschei turned his head and focused on me again.

I stared at my feet and pressed my bent legs together.

"I don't want you in my room" I stated icily to break the current silence. It didn't seem as if the room had become quiet. The silence was loud; my ears were buzzing. The blood pumped by two strong hearts had rushed into my head.

As soon as Koschei had realized that I wasn't going to keep on talking he lost interest in me and turned to his books once more.

I sighed.

"Look, why can't you just leave my room? You know, just leave me alone by going to your own room and rifle through the chaos that's been established there?"

"What makes you think that my room's dominated by chaos?" asked Koschei whilst tearing one big book into two small half ones.

"Everything around you is chaos. Everything you touch is doomed to descend into chaos."

"Just like your life" replied Koschei callously.

I didn't reply and closed my eyes.

"Theta, let's not talk about it" Koschei went on "that's good advice and that's all. And I don't know why you want to talk to me anyway. You don't need to talk – I know what you're thinking."

I rolled my head back into the nape of my neck and stared at the ceiling.

I wasn't ready to face Koschei.

I was no match for him and probably won't ever be.

"I've always known what you were thinking" explained Koschei while he crawled towards me over the sheet covered floor "We never had to speak when we were children. We just sat side by side and stared into the sky. And I could search through your mind, I could read anything that moved you; I knew your innermost thoughts. I knew you, Theta." He chuckled and pressed his forehead against mine. "And that never changed."

"I could never read your thoughts" I replied bluntly and pressed my folded arms against my chest, looking Koschei deeply in the eye "I never know what you're thinking."

"Otherwise you'd have become mad, I assume" smirked Koschei and rubbed his cheeks against mine.

The scent. The scent mark of danger.

I breathed in deeply. Childhood and danger, that's what he'd always smelled of.

Childhood and danger.

I pressed my hands against his temples and looked in his mad eyes, our faces touched forehead on forehead, nose on nose.

Koschei wouldn't stop smiling.

I searched his gaze.

"Why?" I asked.

Koschei didn't reply.

"Why?" I repeated "Why are you doing this to me? Why do you keep tormenting me; why can't you stop harassing me, why Koschei, why?"

My voice died away as I gasped and breathed in deeply.

Our warm breaths melded into one, moistening both of our skins.

I hissed through my teeth: "Just tell me, Koschei: Why do you keep doing this? Why can't you stop? Why can't you leave me alone?"

"I swore to you that I'd never leave your side" whispered Koschei and moved his lips towards my ears; he breathed down my neck.

"It's more of a curse than of a promise" I replied with gritted teeth.

"Same thing to me" explained Koschei bluntly before adding on a more serious note "But you know it Theta. I promised you. I'll never leave you. I'll always be there for you; I'm yours."

"You're mine" I replied unbelievingly "My what? You're my what?"

"Whatever you want me to be" replied Koschei "I can be everything to you."

I pulled my face away and rested my head on the door behind me.

"Don't you remember it, Theta?" Koschei grew closer again "It's always been this way. I was everything to you. You couldn't decide if it was better that I was like a brother or a best friend to you; either way you wanted me to be with you. Forever."

"That Koschei's gone" I snapped. Koschei had winked and I flinched instantly. But that was all.
He'd winked and nothing more.

"That Koschei's still there, right on front of you" replied Koschei smiling "And he hasn't changed over the years. He's still the same, after all that's happened. It's not different in any way. I still think about you, like you were before you'd started to grow up, before you'd started to come of age and stopped letting yourself get pushed around by your parents..."

Hope you enjoyed it. Oh, by the way: there was a reference to one of my favourite musicians (well, he WAS one of my favourite musicians when I was a child) on that chapter. Got something to do with what Koschei got wrong in one of the books. I was just curious if anybody noticed it...

And thanks to everyone who favourited/followed or reviewed. This sure makes my day ^^