房客(糙汉)何璐程曜坤

"...?"

It was already dark – truth be told, it was almost dead in the middle of the night – which was why the sound that rang through the darkness was that much more surprising.

Someone was knocking on the window to Zoemi\'s room, waking the boy up immediately.

Whoever the intruder was, they knew just the right amount of noise to make to get the black-haired boy\'s attention.

|Who is that...?|

the Zoemi thought, raising his brow, directing his question to his sentinels...

"(...? Umm... who exactly...?)"

"(Dad, did you have a bad dream...?)"

...but the answer that he got was rather confusing, to say the least.

"(Dad, there is no mana movement anywhere around your room - no spells, or other people.)"

"(We would also be alarmed about anyone with hostile intentions too... just go back to sleep...)"

The two corpse puppet sentinels who were by far the most powerful beings at Zoemi\'s service assured him.

|...|

Which unfortunately didn\'t put the black-haired boy\'s concerns to rest.

Mainly because there were some obvious flaws in the logic of the two sentient spells.

A person doesn\'t have to be hostile to harm others...

...and no mana readings do not equal no one on the premise...

Those two arguments weren\'t just Zoemi\'s own observations but were such common threats that things like that were taught during the attendant\'s training that the black-haired boy went through.

|Alright – sorry to bother you, rest well.|

"(Same to you, dad~!)"

"(Goodnight!)"

Nonetheless, Zoemi sighed and mentally waved his hand at his sentinels who cheered out back happily, completely clueless.

That said, the black-haired boy himself got off the bed and after confirming that his body isn\'t particularly hurting at the moment, allowing him full mobility, he snuck his way towards the window.

The knocking on the glass repeated in regular intervals, making it almost impossible to be something accidental, considering the lack of vegetation high enough to reach the necessary level.

"..."

Zoemi lightly brushed his finger against the curtain blocking the starlight from entering his room and used the minuscule opening to check who or what has showed up to bother him at such a late hour.

"...!"

And once he did, his eyes widened in shock, and he barely resisted the urge to pull the curtains and the window itself wide open.

He really had to do his best to contain himself.

Instead, he waited for the noise to repeat itself one more time...

----------

A proud-looking dark-haired girl with a single platinum stripe growing within her basically black, dark-green hair furrowed her brows with concern and pulled her hand away from the window.

"...is he still asleep...?"

Miriette muttered to herself, glancing up at her fringe and stroking the platinum stripe of hair with a bothered expression.

Aspakeony had told her everything, and the dark-haired girl wasn\'t willing to wait even a single hour to clear things up with the black-haired boy.

Since the cat was somehow out of the bag, there was no need to keep things a secret.

Or rather it was the other way around – Miriette was fully aware that if she tried to ignore the situation, things could escalate in a rather horrible direction, and even cause her and Zoemi to drift apart.

That was something she could never allow to happen.

Ever.

At the same time, if the black-haired boy wasn\'t responding to the noise she was making, there was a chance that he was so exhausted or worse, so sick that he was knocked out and blissfully unaware.

If that were the case, Miriette would hold back her own anxiousness and wait for him to get enough rest.

But still, she wanted to be completely sure that it was the case.

She was so bothered by thoughts like that that she missed the slight movement of the curtain and the gleam of the dark eye reflecting the light of the stars in the very corner of the other side of the window.

Hoping that the black-haired boy\'s health isn\'t in such a bad state that he can\'t move, the dark-haired girl raised her hand, intending this one to be the last time she tried to get Zoemi\'s attention for the night.

With a heavy heart, she reached out and...

*shuuuh*

"...!"

The curtain blocking the inside of the bedroom from the outside world was pulled open revealing the black-haired boy trying to keep a serious expression, but unable to hold back a smile at the sight of the late-night visitor.

If he was just smiling, then Miriette would manage to recover from being stunned by his face.

The problem – for the moment – was that the black-haired boy put up his left hand on the top of the window, but did not open it at all.

Instead, after giving the girl a long glance gazing at her from head to toe and back, his right hand moved to his shirt and unbuttoned the first button.

...and then the second...

...and third...

All with such flamboyance and confidence as if he had no doubt in his mind that the dark-haired girl didn\'t show up to talk, but rather just to watch the show...

Off went, the fourth button, and Miriette couldn\'t pull her eyes off of Zoemi anymore, completely enchanted by the motion the young man was going through.

And there was a lot to look at – with no undershirt, the parting shirt was revealing the muscles honed to perfection by the countless hours spent on rigorous training enhanced by mantaining the proper diet and lifestyle that no amount of mana could change.

Enhanced by the moonlight and starlight and looking more like the most beautiful statue of some ancient demigod, the sight of the black-haired youth was enough to make others drool.

*tap*

When the fifth, sixth, and seventh buttons were released, the dark-haired girl unintentionally moved her hand, reaching out to Zoemi, and got stopped awkwardly by the panel of glass in the wooden frame – the barrier commonly known as a window.

"!!!"

By doing so, Miriette\'s head cleared up enough to get so embarrassed that her face turned completely red – something that wouldn\'t be all that easy to see...

...if not for the ability to see perfectly well in the darkness that Zoemi possessed...

*click*

"Hey there, missy. Do you often show up at hoovering by the other people\'s houses without using mana?"

After having enough fun teasing her like that, Zoemi opened the window and leaned on the windowsill, glancing down at the ground below.

Indeed.

Miriette wasn\'t standing on the ground.

She was peeking into Zoemi\'s room which was on the higher floor of the Banemor mansion.

She wasn\'t scaling the wall or grabbing onto it in any way either – actually, she was almost three feet apart from it, standing on thin air as if it was nothing.

That definitely should not be possible considering what Zoemi\'s sentinels had told him mere moments earlier.

"I am using mana though..."

The dark-haired girl glanced at the black-haired boy\'s face and shyly glanced to the side.

"I mean... I used mana to stop my mana as well as the mana present in the air right here, creating conveninent footholds just for me. I believe from the outside point of view, it looks like there is no mana in those spots here."

She added, raising her hand and playing with the platinum stripe of hair that was slowly but surely taking over more and more space on her fringe, and it turned out that she wasn\'t looking away from embarrassment, but rather because she was worried to look Zoemi in the eyes.

"I had to make them this far away too because there is no mana to stop right next to the wall... but I believe it\'s to help you heal..."

And considering what she was talking about, there were multiple reasons for her to feel like that.

She also moved her leg and tapped her toes on the space she was standing on to help visualize what exactly did she mean, and truth be told, seeing her foot being stopped by nothing was a rather surreal experience, all things considered.

"Convenient."

Zoemi glanced at her leg and nodded his head without changing his expression, before straightening his back and reaching out his hand towards her as if he was helping her get out of the carriage.

"We have some things to discuss, I believe. Care to join me?"

He asked and his face lighted up with a reassuring smile.

"..."

Miriette instinctively reached out to him, but then hesitated momentarily just a fraction of an inch away from actually touching him.

She had smugly declared to the gray-haired necromancer that it was not surprising that her Zoemi would not be angry at her no matter what, but that was just showing off.

The truth was, the dark-haired girl was expecting to get severely scolded – if not outright hated – for keeping the circumstances of her true identity a complete secret despite all that happened.

...that was why, seeing Zoemi act just as she had said out loud that he would be like, was such a big deal...

"Wait - hold on. Just to be sure - you said that you stopped your own mana... Will it still be okay to enter my bedroom like that? When Arreta brought me food before, she complained that she got a headache. If that was caused by the absence of mana, maybe it\'s better for you to stay away..."

Miriette\'s moment of hesitation allowed Zoemi to realize a potentially problematic situation, and lean back inside the room, taking his hand away.

"Eh...?! No! Wait! It will be fine!"

Funnily enough, it turned out to be a push that Miriette needed to stop worrying.

"!!!"

And instead of walking, she ended up jumping the distance between her spot and the window, almost making Zoemi have a heart attack in the process...