The tantrums end

Suddenly, your front door is racked with a few hard raps. 

“Who’s-” The man begins a question but you immediately smack your hands over his mouth, silencing him. 

“Shh, don’t say anything!” 

He removes your dainty hands from his lips and surprisingly holds them quite gently. “But is it the police-” 

You clasp them over his mouth tighter, your face and his suddenly mere inches from each other as you tut him. “Shh! They can’t hear another voice!” 

“Honey! Are you in there?” 

You both pause, wide-eyed and frozen in time as you hear the voices of the nice couple that live next door to you. Your fight or flight mode kicks in, stress hormones on high alert as you register the idea of them seeing a random man in your apartment. 

Let alone you on top of him like this.

They’ll assume the worst and get too worried for their own good, sighing with immense anxiety. You rapidly scramble off the leather-wearing stranger and snatch up his wrist, quickly tugging him upwards and onto his feet. He balances himself and you quickly shove him onto your tousled sheets and disorderly feathers. 

“Look, just-stay here.” You hiss in a whisper, gesturing to him to stay put like a pet dog as you rapidly kick some stray feathers that escaped into the hallway inside your bedroom. You fix your outfit with a few strokes and begin shutting the door to hide the man, until he suddenly calls you back with a whisper-yell. 

“Wait, woman!” 

You poke your head back in with an incredulous ‘what the f**k?’, and the man rises as he steps speedily towards you. His hands jut out for what you believe to be in effort to harm you, but instead find your hair and smooth down some of your wild locks, even picking out a fuzzy piece of feather that stuck to your bangs. 

“Oh..” You quietly exclaim, running your hands through your hair for a quick fix.

“Dear, where are you? We’re getting very worried!” You hear Mr. Tran yell more urgently this time, and your hands smack against the strangers to unhand you, pushing him back within the four walls of your bedroom and shutting the door on his handsome face. 

You compose yourself once you’ve done so and reach your foyer, swinging open your front door. 

“Oh dear, Cherry we were so worried, honey. Are you alright?” Mrs. Tran holds her hand to her chest as she takes a deep breath, Mr. Tran soon joining. 

“Is anything going on, sweetheart? We heard so much yelling.” 

“I’m okay, Mr. and Mrs. Tran. You don’t need to worry about me at all.” 

“Are you sure you’re okay, dear? There was an awful lot of screaming.” Mrs. Tran’s eyes flit around your apartment discreetly. 

“I was just on video call with my friends and they decided to play a scary prank on me.” You bellow out a fake laugh and watch them lighten up, buying the lie. 

“Oh gosh, we thought we heard another man’s voice and got so scared! We’re so glad you’re alright, dear.” Mr. Tran laughs with you, and you kindly reply. 

“Oh not at all! Thank you for checking on me, Mr. and Mrs. Tran.” You smile big and wide to appear okay, momentarily snapping your vision towards your bedroom with a gulp. They end up bidding their farewells and you watch them entirely enter their apartment, sighing with relief once their door closes. 

You shut yours, and practically stomp over to your bedroom as you hurl the door back open. The man on the other side practically leaps when you do, staring wide-eyed with raised eyebrows at your angry expression. 

“You have a lot of explaining to do.” The man watches steam figuratively blown out of your ears, and a little noise escapes the back of his throat that almost sounds like a laugh. 

“Did you just laugh at me?” 

“N-no.” He brushes off sauvely. 

You roll your eyes and snatch his wrist again, dragging him over to your living room and abruptly halting just before your couches. You shove him towards them and he snaps a testy look at you, taking his seat. 

You decide to stand and look down at him as he crosses a leg and lays his arm against the backrest, sitting as if he owned the place. You fold your arms and tap your foot in anticipation, eyes pissed and steely. “Well?” 

“Well, what?” 

“Do you not owe me an explanation?” You quirk an audacious brow, attempting to fathom what just transpired in the last 5 minutes.

“Explanation.. of what exactly?” He tilts his head and watches you with fascination, and it was now you realized his eyes weren’t glowing red anymore, they’re the colour of chocolate brown. But that doesn’t mean what you saw was a hallucination or a mind-trick either, you remember exactly what you witnessed with your ***** eyes. 

The man seems to feel a crook in his neck. Your once occupied attention now snaps to the way he stretches it out, listening to the cracks of his bones that sound practically inhuman. 

“Why the hell did I see fire coming out of your hands? And your red eyes? Who the f**k are you?!” 

The stranger has an ah-hah moment, and understands you with a small nod. He goes from a non-committing look of disinterest to a mirthy smirk on his face, one that almost seemed devilish. He lets out a proud sigh as he hoists himself up, standing tall before you as he suavely tugs at the lapels of his leather jacket. 

“Well, I’ll cut to the chase,” The man quirks his eyebrows and plays with his lips in this undeniably sexy way you can’t help but find hot, blinking away the thought before it consumes you. 

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