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‘Thud’. a sound of someone’s feet hitting something soft can be heard. Aki turns his body to the other way. His eyebrows are in taut as he finds it uneasy for people to be loud in the middle of the night.
‘Thud.’ he heard it again, and this time… it kind of gets.. louder? ‘Man, who the hell is making a fuss in this middle of the night.’ he wonders.
‘Thud’. again. This time it is accompanied with pain blossoming on his torso. He only lets out a grunt to tell whatever this thing is to just leave him alone. It totally doesn’t work though as the sound only gets louder and louder with increasing amount of pain felt across his abdomen. He realizes it then, two pairs of feet have been kicking his upper body for a while. This is certainly caused by the two devils slash roommates slash coworkers he’s living with right now.
Aki’s lean body shoots up in an instant. He then brings himself up, now sitting instead of lying in the bed.
“The hell do the two of you want?! I can’t even fucking sleep peacefully in this house.” He sends a sharp glare to both of the troublemakers. His hair, not being tied in the topknot style he usually has, has now reach his shoulders. Silky black strands sprawl messily atop of them. The bangs is getting too close to his eyes too.
After blinking his tired eyes a few times, he can then see clearly how Denji is still half asleep, dried drool around his chin, his usually blazing eyes are only half-opened. His hand on top of his soft belly, scratching the skin underneath the crumpled white fabric. He is wearing that stupid shirt which has a sexy girl printed on it again.
He shifts his sight toward Power, now. That blood devil is the only one who’s seemingly wide awake to know what exactly goes on right now. Still in her fluffy, cow printed onesie—soft pink colored, the cow’s horns are gone, though. They are replaced with her own horns—she is looking at Aki in his eyes, showing him The Puppy Eyes. Aki cannot help but groan a little bit inside. He understands this completely. She is going to ask for something, really. “Why am I not surprised.. Is this because of you? What is it? What is happening?”
Power smiles giddily before saying, “I am asking for the two of you to accompany me to the convenience store. Right. Now.”
“What the fuck. I thought this apartment was on fire or what. What do you need?” Aki is totally appalled. He swears to god if this is just her saying reloading whatever shit she needs for her gacha games is an urgency—just like how she did a few weeks ago— he’s going to put a hell load amount of vegetables in her meals for the whole week.
“I want ice cream! Ice cream! A whole tub of the strawberry flavored one!”
“There were some of them still left yesterday, right, just eat that one first, Power..” he sighs. His shoulders slump down.
“Denji already ate all of it! He ate my favorite too! Although after I threatened to drink his blood in his sleep if he did it again, and he fucking did it!” tears are flowing out of her eyes. The blood devil then kicks the sleeping Denji in the stomach while actually crying. Denji’s closed eyes almost bulge out because of shock.
“That fucking hurts, Power, what the hell! It was just some ice cream, fuck.” the thin boy groans in pain while clutching his stomach. “And it was My! Ice! Cream! I want my ice cream back! I have been keeping it for tonight, too, Denji.” Power starts sobbing loudly.
Through his peripheral vision, Aki can see the clock showing exactly one-thirty in the morning. He just hopes that they won’t be getting noise complaints tomorrow. Aki lets out a heavy sigh before standing up. Getting out of the bed has never been this hard. Not to mention that they just came back from a big mission today. His body is still aching, mapped with blues and purples from all the life-risking fights they had. Plus bandages too, and some of the wounds are still bleeding, even. These devils with quick recovery ability never really do understand humans, aren’t they?
“Okay, fine. We’re going out. Get out of my room first, I’m going to change.” He rolls his eyes. Those exhausted eyes are just going to get baggier, no doubt. Power who was sobbing earlier stops as soon after he spoke. Her dull, sad eyes are now gleaming. “Hell yeah !!” she screams. The sound of cat meowing could be heard from the living room. Even Nyako is now awake.
“Nyako!!!” Power’s voice fills the house, followed by Nyako’s meowing. Denji who is now awake brushes his eyes before following Power groggily out of Aki’s three-tatami-mat sized room.
Seems like tonight is going to be long, since Nyako is already awake. Power absolutely will not stop playing with her cat. His eyes feel drier and he could feel his head spinning. Considering that it is already the early hour of morning, Aki shudders thinking about the weather outside. It's getting even colder lately, he realizes. Seems like winter is approaching. ‘It’s already that time of the year, huh. Time flies so quickly, I did not even realize.’
He quickly puts on a winter jacket and lets his hair down as keeping it down will contribute to more warmth in the neck area. He huffs in the crook of his palms. His hands are already cold, and they are not even outside yet. He reminds himself to buy some hand warmers from the store later and switch the heater on, too. After changing into a new pair of thicker pants, putting on socks and grabbing his wallet, he comes out of the room.
Power and Denji are playing with Nyako. All three of them never seems to get tired. Just looking at them makes him feel tired. Is he getting too old already?
“Are both of you going to go out like that? Not going to change or something?” he asked.
“This onesie is already big and warm enough for me. It’s fine!” Power replies.
Denji looks at himself, he is wearing a short sleeved cotton shirt, with his usual plain pyjama pants. He then gives Aki a shrug. “The store is not that far from here anyway, I’m too lazy to change. I’m just going to go in this.” Aki just nods and asks Power to put Nyako down because no, they are definitely not bringing Nyako to the convenience store around the corner that does not allow pets. It takes a few times for both him and Denji to persuade Power. He can only sigh.
He remembers the nights he had where he was alone, undisturbed by anyone. It was dark, and very quiet. The heart of his never managed to fail getting tugged by the solitude. Now, he wonders, if it has changed. He feels like it did. It's not like he does not feel it anymore, the ugly emotion is still sitting there in the corner of his heart, but it’s not as frequent as it was anymore. Most of the times he will not even have any chance to think about it, as the once small apartment which felt too big for him to live in is now filled with voices and lives. Sometimes it is getting too cramped in the living room. The space around the house is getting filled with new stuff that are not his. He will not say it makes hin uncomfortable, though.
Aki locks the door quickly and struts along behind Power and Denji who are already walking. He smiles a little when the two of them stop moving to look for him, their voices resonating in the neighborhood, asking about his whereabout. “Yeah, I’m right here behind you, don’t worry!”
Life might not be as bad as it is, he thinks. Although tomorrow is going to be long and exhausting, surely. Puffs of smokes escape his chapped lips as he takes a deep breathe and exhales.