Flip the Coin [BL]-Chapter 422. Haunted

I had fallen asleep very soon after Ren had latched onto my left arm again, apparently overjoyed over our little fist bump.

I think I slept for a long time, only waking up when I felt a presence in the room.

Snapping my eyes open, I stared at a demon-like ancient figure, her walking stick in front of her, as she stared down at me deep in the night.

FUCK!

I nearly screamed out loud.

"So you are alive." My grandmother looked with distaste at the sleeping Henry sprawled half over me but ignored the kid who had taken over my other arm.

I regulated my breathing and cleared my throat, scared that my voice would come out too high-pitched from the shock just now.

"...As you can see."

"I can see it." Again, a glance at Henry before turning back to me, her mouth pursed as if she had just tasted something sour.

"Naturally. You have night sight." I retorted.

"Do you know the chaos you have caused? Just because you couldn’t wait for a moment?" She asked accusingly, but at least she kept her voice down.

"How the fuck should I have known that you would come to the center if you didn’t tell me?"

"How could you haphazardly gloss over such an important task? If you had done it thoroughly, we would have arrived in time."

"Are you angry because we were just too efficient? Just so damn good at what we were doing?" I shrugged slightly so as not to wake the other two on me.

She grimaced instead of answering, coming up with the next accusation.

"You have no real rat corpses at hand, so what now? Hm? You plan to use your power for half a million pests?"

"I mean, yeah, I probably could." I said nonchalantly.

I would love to tell her that I don’t care about that anymore, but I fear she would beat me to hell and back if I did. And I do not ’not care’ that much about it anymore either.

I was just angry before; now that I had a good night’s sleep and that we had come so far, let’s go through with it.

"What about the ’thousand zombies’ I heard about? What about them?" She really tried with all her might to find something she could bring me down with.

"Well, they are gone now."

"Where are they?"

"I can’t say for sure." I mean, I have an idea, but I didn’t want to think about it so as to not endanger my newly found sanity.

"..." She took a long look at me.

"Are you alright?"

"I snapped. I injured the kid and kitty." I blurted out before I could stop myself.

It was uncomfortable to talk with her while lying down and smothered by two bodies, especially Henry.

It felt strangely exposing, as if I had a bunch of things to confess and was forced to do it in the most revealing posture.

My grandma took a look at the kid before turning back to Kitty in the corner.

"They seem fine to me."

I didn’t know how much she knew, if Henry had told her about the twisted consequences that came from using the giant’s powers.

But I didn’t want to know how much she knew either.

"You think?" I asked her weakly.

"I don’t need to think; I can see it." Always the last word.

"Mhm. Naturally, you can. Why did you break into our room anyway?"

"To throw your corpse out before you smell."

"Sorry to disappoint you."

"You didn’t. You smell either way, and like this, it’s less work for me." She turned around to leave the room before stopping at the door.

"Three things: a room of potatoes is waiting for you, and you are grounded forever." She hissed before hesitating.

"And the third?" I chuckled.

"We will have to talk about... that." She pointed with her walking stick in Henry’s and my direction before leaving the room with a swing, like the fucking diva she was.

I sighed with annoyance, leaning back and closing my eyes before opening them again. 𝒇𝒓𝙚𝒆𝔀𝓮𝓫𝒏𝓸𝙫𝓮𝓵.𝓬𝙤𝙢

Something red watched me from the corner, and when I raised my head to take a look, I saw Kitty.

"Do you want to come over?" I asked him.

But he just placed his head back down on his paws, turning away from me.

"Are you angry?" I asked the tiger into the silence of the room.

Somehow, I got a feeling his pride was more hurt to have gotten knocked out with one punch than him being really angry with the attack itself.

"Pfft. Don’t worry. You also did very well."

The tiger snorted but ignored me otherwise.

Not that I really thought he would answer me anyway.

My fever was better, maybe because I had two warm bodies on me helping me sweat it all out.

I felt dirty as hell, but being restrained, I could only close my eyes again, hoping that no ghost, demon, or dragon would again haunt this room.

**************

"I think I dreamed something good," I mumbled with my eyes closed; the light shining through the window was too bright for me to even think about opening them.

I could feel Henry sitting on the mattress beside me, rustling around with his paper again.

"Something about me?"

"Maybe. Since lying down, I think I constantly had good dreams." I used my right hand to cover my eyes, as just leaving them closed didn’t seem enough.

"Do you feel better?" A finger landed on my stomach, slowly traveling its way up to my throat.

"Much better. My counterpart and the dreams seemed to have done their magic. You?"

"Also better. Is that why you have given away your left arm?" A light, deep chuckle, as he had arrived at my Adam’s apple.

"Yeah, the arm accessory probably helped as well with a good night’s sleep, even though my grandmother broke into our room." I felt the kid silently laugh upon hearing my words.

No idea if he just woke up or had been awake longer—but he hadn’t stopped wrapping himself around my arm, so that was that.

"Oh... she diiiiiid?" Henry asked so fakely that I nearly opened my eyes.

"You were awake?" I chuckled.

"I was scared into stillness."

"Scared into faking sleep, even after she was gone," I corrected.

"You were out seconds after your heartfelt talk with Kitty." He poked my cheek, sneaking his finger over the arm on top of my face.

"So what is going on? How long was I out?"

"A week," Henry told me.

"No way?" I put my arm away and looked at his breathtaking handsomeness before surveying the room, noting that Kitty wasn’t present anymore and the nest had been cleaned up.

The pillows and blankets were still there, just folded and placed in order on the ground, and the kid had naturally changed his clothes as well.

Ren beamed at me when my eyes fell on him.

"Hey." I greeted him, and the kid pulled one of his arms out to slightly wave at me.

I smiled and turned to Henry.

"So... what’s up?"

He sighed before looking down at the drawings he had laid out in front of him while he sat with crossed legs beside me. There was not enough space for every drawing, but enough to get an overall look at most of them.

"There is basically a small civil war going on in the city."

I raised my eyebrows.

"What?"

Henry bent to his right to get his phone, which was apparently next to the mattress on the floor.

I saw him opening a random website only to find a big red banner instead.

"REMAIN INDOORS FOR YOUR OWN SAFETY! THE WATER SUPPLY HAS BEEN HALTED, AND NO FOOD WILL BE PROVIDED AS LONG AS THE TERRORISTIC FACTIONS DON’T SURRENDER THEMSELVES!"

"What the fuck is this?" I asked, speechless, and saw Henry shrug disinterestedly.

"It’s just the government’s way to deal with people throwing self-made bombs and attacking the ’official facilities’. No need to worry; there won’t be anyone finding this place, and if they do..." He let the thread hang in the room.

"Are the guys alright?"

"Mhm, they are fine."

I sighed in relief before taking the phone out of Henry’s hands while he still very narcissistically overlooked the drawings of himself.

I stared at the text.

"Is this really a message from the government? Wouldn’t this just be throwing fuel on the fire?"

"Probably."

"Mhm... you act as if it doesn’t concern us at all."

He looked down at me with a smile.

"Because it doesn’t concern us at all."

Hearing how assured he was, I chuckled.

Well, in that little crazy world of ours, what did a little civil war matter?