Lisa had already arranged plates and cups on the small table when Nine and Twelve enter their home.
“There we are” Twelve calls out in a singsong tone and grins a big smile towards Lisa who is rushing towards the boys helping them with their bags and receiving a kiss on her cheek from her ever smiling lover.
Five just watches them lazily on the sofa, her piercing eyes following Nine every move it takes him and Lisa to prepare their dinner.
After their meal, Twelve is helping Lisa with her physics homework.
Tired of this day, Nine lays down on the sofa and grabs a book. How peaceful…listening to Twelves explanations about mechanics. How can anyone not understand this simple stuff?
He sighs. This feels like an ordinary, simple life…almost convenient. Well…if there was not…
Five is climbing on the sofa and presses against him.
She behaves like an annoying, spoiled cat, Nine thinks. Always wanting attention.
But this time, he is wondering that she seems so calm. No demands. No complaints. She just lays beside him with her head resting on his shoulder.
This time, it’s really peaceful. He delves into his book and overhears Twelves explanations and Lisas questions which disclose that she didn’t understand anything Twelve had told her already three times, as time passes by.
So he just notices he is almost alone, when Twelve and Lisa already went to bed and Five fell asleep on his body.
Nine tries to get up carefully, not to wake the white haired girl beside him. Waking her up could cause a hassle, so he tries to get away without any noises.
He grabs his clothes for the night and enters the bathroom.
When he stands under the shower douching his body, the albino girl comes in.
“Five. Do you always have to come in when I’m already having few moments for myself?”
“Oh come on. There isn’t anything I haven’t seen already.” She yawns as she stands in front of the mirror and tries to get her make-up off her face.
“This was when we were kids. This is not the same now.”
“Oh? Does someone in here feel ashamed? That’s new.” She doesn’t look up, she is too caught up in washing her black mascara off her white lashes.
When she turns around, Nine is already out of the shower, with a towel around his hips and grabbing his shirt for the night. She looks like a ghost, he thinks, watching her face without any make up, just the glowing violet eyes under her white lashes and the pale skin, framed with this unbelievable frizzy white hair of hers.
“Well then, the shower is yours”, he says when he leaves her alone in the bathroom.
He walks to his bedroom or well, their bedroom. As they couldn’t afford a flat with rooms for everyone, it was no problem for Twelve and Lisa to share a room. And he, well, he had to share his room with Five as she wasn’t willed to sleep on the sofa for longer than a few days.
And as he was the one who brought her into their home, he was in charge to take responsibility.
He sighs. Well, they bought her an own mattress, but she has the habit to just ignore that and to crawl into Nine’s bed every night. He wasn’t able to do anything against it and it was best not to resist her to prevent any fights. He uses the short time for himself to get on his pants and shirt for the night and lays down to read his book again, enjoying the last minutes of this day on his own.
Some time has passed as the door creaks open and Five walks in.
As usual, she slips under his blanket without a word and lies beside him, her tousled hair tickles against his right cheek. Unfortunately, this time she is not that calm like before on the sofa. She is bored and she wants to be noticed, a last time before going to sleep.
“That book is boring. Stop reading it” she demands.
“No, it’s not.”
“Stop reading it and entertain me.”
“No, I won’t.”
Hah. This guy is of no use, she thinks.
Why did I even come with you?
She looks up at the ceiling and remembers the night, her life changed another time.
When she was threatening Nine with a gun on the highway. When she told him she would never be able to beat him, because she felt her life ending soon. When she pecked his lips for a second and said, he should live for both of them, because at least one of them should survive. When she was about to end her life, but he grabbed her arm, still in handcuffs, and asked her to stay…to try to survive as long as they could, even if it was a few days.
Well, she was surprised. She didn’t have an argument against this proposal. She both loved and hated being surprised by him, as she wanted to be the one that stunned him. That would be almost as good as to beat him. And he indeed was baffled, when she had bussed him back then.
That brought her an idea.
Why not try something that already worked, but put a bit more effort in it?
She turns her face and bites his earlobe.
“Hah?!” He gasps out of surprise and pain, he almost lets his book down.
It works, she smirks.
She works her teeth around his ear with small bites, making him whimper.
Now he is not able to read further anymore. And she likes the sounds he makes.
“Five…what the hell are you doing?!” he asks under another whimper.
“Making you notice me, what else?” she answers coldly while wandering down his neck and leaving bite marks on his skin.
“That hurts, stop it, Five!” he almost whines.
Does she feel pity? No. But she decides, just listening to him weep is boring as well.
There has to be some variety. So she leaves some kisses on his neck as well, every few bites she makes.
He sounds surprised another time. He clearly doesn’t know what she wants at all.
His quiet cries are now mixed with something else, soft pants and he doesn’t even know why he acts like this.
And why he is not simply kicking her and ends her annoying behaviour.
He is plainly out of breath, when she finally decides to astonish him and leans over his face and gives him a longer and deeper kiss than the one she left on that night a few weeks ago.
But this time, not only Nine is surprised.
She neither expected his lips were so soft nor that she wouldn’t be pushed away.
Five leans back and watches his exhausted face.
This time, Five, you truly beat me, he thinks.
And it seems like she is able to read his thoughts, because she suddenly grins a victorious smile and lays down beside him again, her head resting on his shoulder and contentment all over her face. With this feeling, Five is slowly falling asleep and Nine wonders how he will explain the marks on his neck to Twelve and Lisa.
You truly are like an annoying, spoiled cat, Five, he thinks as he turns off his reading lamp and dozes off while watching her sleeping peacefully.
