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You stick your head out the window in your room, the wind from the meadow that had manifested outside your room whipping through your hair. You let yourself down over the edge of the window, the metal digging into your stomach. You press yourself flat against the outside, which takes the form of a ragged wooden wall, with your arms dangling. You try to remember how the road away from the district you grew up in felt as Mephistopheles drove over it. Tried to remember how the buildings lost definition, and the silhouette became smaller and smaller until it was a shapeless blob on the horizon when you left for the first time years ago.
You could faintly hear something over the sound of the wind, a door closing, and a faint voice, you think. You figured it was nothing, the room rearranging itself maybe. You were wrong, though, of course. You felt a tap on your back and shot up, stumbling back a bit and having to grab the windowsill to catch yourself. Hong Lu stood there next to you, the same sweet smile on his lips as always.
“H-hey,” you greet him, trying to ignore the headrush you just gave yourself. “Need something?”
“Just wanted to check in on you, you left your seat so quickly when Dante called it for the day,” Hong Lu tilts his head and claps his hands behind his back.
“Just, uh, weird… being back home and all,” You keep your hold on the windowsill as you speak, trying to breathe through the growing pain in your chest and throat.
Hong Lu notices your face twitch and hums, putting a finger to his chin. “I was gonna get something to eat if you want to join me,” he leans down a bit and whispers to you, “I know where Rodya hides her snacks.”
You nod and close the window with shaking hands, following behind Hong Lu closely. He walks much more gracefully than any of the other sinners, sort of gliding across the ground.
When you reach the kitchen, Hong Lu opens the pantry and crouches down, lifting up a loose floor panel. You get lost in the somewhat decrepit state of the kitchen as he rummages around. There’s some staining on the wall, and the stove is dirty, with various crumbs and solidified oils surrounding the burners. The counters have dried rings of coffee, and the sink is half full of dishes. Only some of you can actually cook, but Dante insisted on a rotating schedule of who makes dinner. Despite this, and because no one really has the time to consistently clean the kitchen after meals, it gets dirty relatively quickly.
Hong Lu waves a plastic-wrapped snack cake in front of you to snap you out of your trance. “Here, it’s strawberry,” he hands you the cake and smiles before moving to leave the kitchen.
You turn quickly, blurting out, “Do you want to come back to my room?”
Hong Lu stops and spins back around on his heel. “Sure, that’d be nice,” he giggles and waits for you to join him before he walks down the hall.
He stops in front of your door and hums, taking off his shoes while he waits for you to catch up. You let him into your room first, following behind him and watching as he looks around it.
“Your room’s so much more humble than mine,” he giggles, trailing his eyes over the mostly empty walls and simple furniture.
“Heh, thanks,” you stand a few steps behind him and rub the back of your neck, a little embarrassed about the state of your room.
“Where’s that?” he points out the window at the same sprawling meadow from before.
“There was this abandoned cottage in the fields a few miles from my house… my friends and I would go play in it when we were kids,” you explain, staring far out into the sky.
“Why didn’t we visit?” he turns his head to look back at you, referring to recent events. He talks so sweetly it almost makes you nauseous.
“It burned down,” you lied, your voice cracking as you tried to push through the pain in your chest.
Hong Lu walks back to you and places a hand on your arm. He can tell that you’re lying; it’s really obvious just by the tone of your voice. He leads you over to your bed and instructs you to sit down. You both set your cakes on your bedside table, and Hong Lu kneels, starting to untie your shoes.
“Oh, you don’t have to do that,” you pull your foot away from him, resting it on the side of the bed frame to untie it yourself. He watches you untie both shoes and cuts in once you loosen them to take them off your feet. You blush a bit, embarrassed. He takes your shoes and his own and rests them by the door. He hums a bit as he walks back to you, picking your cake up and sitting next to you on your bed. He opens it, pulling the plastic back to expose the treat, and handing it to you.
You swallow and take it, biting into it gently. It’s a pleasantly surprising strawberry Swiss roll filled with whipped cream, seeing as Rodya’s snacks are typically not as simple and airy as it is.
You can feel the pain in your chest grow as you eat, thinking about the snacks you would get on your birthday as a child back home. A tear forms and falls down your face, followed by another as you start to cry.
Hong Lu notices you shaking and leans towards you, your arms touching. He loops his arm around yours, pulling you closer to him and resting his chin on your head. You lean into him, shoving the rest of the cake in your mouth to muffle your sobs. He hums to you, swaying back and forth as you fiddle with the plastic wrapping in your hands. He notices and insists that you lie down. You nod and stand to throw away the wrapping, then try to take off your vest with trembling hands. Hong Lu stands and helps you, his hands gently sliding off your shoulders. He then undoes your tie, placing both on your nightstand. He moves to stand behind you, placing his hands on your shoulder and leading you back to your bed, pulling the covers back. You climb into bed and pull the covers up to your face, tears still streaming down your face. He sheds his own coat, vest, and tie, placing them next to yours. He walks around your bed, crawling in next to you. His arms wrap around your waist, pulling you close to him. He smells nice, like morning dew, and he’s stronger than you expected.
Hong Lu starts to whisper in your ear, a story from his own childhood, but one much sweeter than any of the other windows into his past you had heard before. He tells you about his sister, about how cute she was as a baby, and how he would tie her hair up into buns to make her look like a panda. You can tell there's a twinge of sadness in his usually unwaveringly cheery voice. He’s never talked about his past like this before, never recounted the sweet moments in between all the grueling training and fighting for his life. You didn’t think there were any at this point.
His stories distract you enough to stop crying, and fatigue overcomes you as the stress subsides. You feel him start to pull away, but you put your hands on his to stop him.
“Stay with me?” you mumble, turning your head to look at him.
He smiles and nods, holding you even closer to him. He regales you with more childhood stories of him and his sister to put you to sleep, each one sweeter than the last.