"Who the fuck are you?"
The man in the shadow did not talk. Instead, he calmly put the glass of liquor down and reached inside his jacket - only to take out a gun with what Kei can distinctly recognize as a silencer.
"Oh-kay! Enjoy your evening. I'll be - I'll be about. Do you want dinner?" he asked as calmly as he could, turning to the kitchen dimly lit by the light by the stove. Right. He turned back to the man and saw him move the gun as if to dismiss him and he nodded, sighing because he's not really in the mood to move in the dark.
"I really hope you're the same guy from the other night because I have some beef with you," Inoo said as soon as he recognized the silhouette of a man in the shadows. He walked the distance and stopped just right on the edge as if the shadows would consume him if he took a step more. "You left the tumbler the other night unwashed! You come here drinking my alcohol, without permission, mind you, then you're expected to do the bare minimum of washing what you used," Inoo exclaimed, huffing because so what if the man has a gun? He is trespassing and leaving unwashed tumblers around!
He didn't get any response, however. But the next morning, he saw the tumbler he was using washed and on the drying rack.
It was bizarre - he wouldn't call it scary at this point since he didn't really feel any fear and he was more than accepting of the fact that the man could kill him in his sleep but still. Bizarre.
The man - he isn't even sure if it was a man but the shape of the shoulders and the smell of the musky perfume left an impression - did not appear a few nights after the last one. Favors Kei, really, since his alcohol stash isn't going anywhere but he couldn't help but wonder where he is. How he is doing. He doesn't even care about who he is since he's pretty sure he won't be getting the answer to that if he's so adamant about drinking in the dark.
His absence actually gave Kei enough time to reflect on himself and how he reacted when the man appeared. Perhaps the exhaustion from his daily life has gotten him unbothered whether there's a gun to his head or none. The daily humdrum of life not doing anything anymore to his once excited spirit.
He's old. Old enough at least. And very tired.
"Ah, you're back!" Inoo said surprised when once more, he saw the now familiar silhouette in the dark. "I was wondering where you've been. I was starting to think I imagined you," Inoo said cordially, going about his routine. After hanging his jacket up, he went to the kitchen to get himself a glass of water before checking his fridge for food.
"I'm gonna order something and shower while I wait," Inoo said, picking his phone up and browsing through a site. "Is pizza okay?"
Silence. He nodded as if the man answered and ordered a large margherita pizza and one overload. "Dinner for tomorrow," he murmured as if the man asked why he's ordering so much. "I have to stay late in the office since the equipment for the construction will be arriving tomorrow morning." he explained, giving a hum of approval as soon as he saw that his order is being processed.
"Be a darling and get the door for me if I'm not yet done, okay?" Inoo said, leaving his phone on the couch before making his way to the shower, groaning when hot water finally hit his soar muscles.
The unknown man got his order for him and after he showered, he was able to immediately eat in the dark of his living room, the TV the only light. Since the man was seated next to the TV, any hopes of seeing his face was thrown out the window.
Kei's not barbaric as to not offer the man some pizza. The slices he offered were taken and he said the man could eat more if he wanted but as for him, he made an early retreat. He needs to go to work early tomorrow.
Kei snorted when he figured the man took another slice of the margherita. Remind him to order that next time too.
It has been a week now. His flat has been bright for one whole week. The moment he comes home to complete darkness, he turns on all the lights - leaving no corner dark.
The man usually welcomes him with some dim light - enough to hide him but also enough to let Kei move about the place. These days, however, he's been coming home to a really dark place and maybe it's him trying to make up for it, he doesn't really know, but he turns on all the lights and sleeps with them all on too - damn the bill.
Or maybe he's just lonely. And he won't admit it to himself.
"Well, look who decided to come back," Inoo said, rolling his eyes when he came home to a dimly lit apartment, the familiar silhouette there once more a month after he last saw him. "Got bored doing what you do and decided it's time to go observe me in my cage again?" he said, not really thinking whether this would get him killed or not. He stopped caring about that way before the man appeared anyway.
"Oh, and by the way, I didn't buy - huh," Inoo said, finally glancing at the stash of alcohol he keeps, finding it fully restocked with some addition, the usual alcohol the man drinks by him. "Thanks, I guess." he shrugged, motioning to the stash
Much like any other time the man is around, he went about his routine while doing his hardest to keep himself from turning on the lights. He doesn't really know how his life has come to this but it is what it is.
"Since I have no way of knowing when you'll come around, I don't really buy stuff to accommodate you," Inoo decided to say to fill the silence. "You'll have to eat what I eat or something." he went on, making his way to the kitchen where he found a moderately sized box. "What's this?" he asked.
Like always, the man didn't speak. Instead, he saw him waving his gun as if to tell him to go ahead and open it.
"If this explodes, you better pay the bill, understood?"
Nothing happened when he pulled at the satin ribbon, nor did it explode when he opened the box to reveal two glasses cradled in velvet and another box within.
"Very fancy," Inoo snorted, taking out the other box and finally opening it, freezing when he realized what bottle it was.
"Jesus fuc - what do you want me to do with this?" he breathed, closing the box again, glaring at the silhouette that silently watched him. Even without seeing his face he knew he was amused for it rolled off him and it kissed his skin familiarly. "Where did you get this?" he asked before turning his attention back to the box, now realizing the name was there for him to see, waving at his face that this bottle alone costs around a year and a half of his salary, tax included. "Please tell me you stole this from somewhere because I refuse to believe you bought this," he said, sighing. Well, he's got a gun. Might as well not question it.
But it left him feeling reeling and he gripped the counter before excusing himself so he could take a much needed shower.
When he came back, there was a glass of the gifted alcohol waiting for him on the counter with the other glass missing. When he turned to the shadow, he saw the familiar shape of the glass. Ah, so they are drinking. Probably celebrating. He raised the glass on the counter as if in salute and drank it in one go.
He knew expensive alcohol tastes better.
It became a pattern - well, Inoo thinks it's a pattern now. The man comes in whenever he wants. Depending on how long he's been gone, the gifts he brings become more expensive. If it's just a few days, he does him favors like wash the dishes in the morning or leave his fridge stocked full of food he doesn't know how the man manages to bring in.
Once he bought him a mug when Inoo mentioned his mug at work got broken when a co-worker accidentally bumped into his table.
And a pair of shoes one time. He didn't even mention his old shoes but he got a replacement when he came back after being gone for a week.
Food's also became a sort of arrangement they needed to make. The man never ate food he made - and understandably so since sure, the man carries a gun for fuck's sake. He might as well be scared of being poisoned by the man whose flat he trespasses to. So when Inoo cooks for himself, he orders something for the man, pays for it, and enjoys telly in silence while he talks about his day and his coworkers. Or that project he has been working on.
Maybe he's lonely - that's a thought that he has found himself entertaining more and more these days. Every night after he retreats to his room to sleep, he lies awake thinking why he seems to hoard these scraps of companionship from a person he doesn't even know. Why when the stranger's back from being away for some time, a sigh of relief washes through him much like a sigh of coming home after a long day of work.
He's just lonely. He should go out more often.
He's been going out with his colleagues lately - well, having dinners with them on Fridays should count, right? He doesn't enjoy it as much as he thinks he should - being that he's not used to it and he's not really the type to go out to drink with people. He prefers drinking by himself, getting smashed by himself, then going to be to blame nobody but himself the morning after when he feels like shit and the world's out to punish him for trying to have fun.
That's why he's been murmuring curses at himself as he tried and failed to open his own damned door, the key seeming to miss the damned hole and not letting him inside his damned apartment -
A set of strong arms caught him just when he thought he'd fall after the door suddenly opened.
"Oh, hello, stranger," Kei chuckled, holding on as the unexpected occupant of the house manhandled him to the sofa where a glass of water has been waiting for him. Too drunk to care, he took the glass and downed it, sighing in relief as the liquid went down his parched throat. That's another thing he doesn't like about drinking; he gets too thirsty.
"You're here," he simply said, not even making the effort to squint into the dark to see the man. He instead laid down the sofa and turned his back on him, snoring within minutes of closing his eyes.
Two glasses of water and some aspirin waited for him the next morning and a note that told him to skip drinking if he can't handle his alcohol that well.
It hasn't occurred to him to tell anybody about the mysterious man that visits his flat every now and then, sometimes bearing gifts. He figured it's better to keep it a secret rather than get concerned looks about the state of his mental well-being. Who in their right mind would let a stranger come and go as they please without calling the police or getting attention for help? WEll, him. Obviously.
"You have an awful penmanship," Inoo greeted when he came home to a dim flat a few days after the last time the man was there. Aside from the aspirin and couple of glasses of water, he also found out that the stranger left him some breakfast telling him he left in the early hours of dawn after he cooked food.
"But good cooking skills," Inoo mentioned to make up for the jab.
"One of us had to be good at it," he heard and he couldn't help but laugh excitedly hearing the man speak for the first time.
And he was right. It's a man.
"He speaks! Just when I was thinking of dabbling into sign language!" Inoo teased, not really looking towards the shadows. He's excited enough with the new development as it is.
No words followed that, however. No matter how many questions he asked. He figured before the night ended, while he was thinking of whether he should change his sheets or not, that he won't be hearing anything from him anymore. It happened once. Only God knows when it'll happen again.
"By the way, transfer the leftovers to a container. We don't have enough space in the fridge with the groceries you bought last time," Inoo called out from his room when he heard rustling.
The next day, he found the leftovers in a smaller container and the fridge rather organized.
"I'm tired of calling you 'hey', or 'shadow dude' or 'mystery man'," Inoo said as he munched on dinner that was left warming on the stove the time he arrived home. "I'm going to start affectionately referring to you as 'the monster under my bed' or 'the ghost in my closet'," Inoo went on, eyes trained on the TV.
They've been at this around a year now - been a long time, could you imagine? Inoo has been going home to a dimmed flat with gifts of expensive things and food and washed tumblers and dishes on the drying rack for a year now.
"Consider that as my anniversary gift since we've been doing this for one year now." he said, nodding at his own words. He didn't get much reaction but he heard a bit of rustling then from his peripheral, a hand reached out from the darkness and pushed towards him a velvet box.
"I didn't know we're doing actual gifts," he chuckled, reaching for the box and smiling when it revealed a watch - the one he had been talking about a few months back he saw someone was wearing. It was too expensive for him and he has a working watch so he didn't really feel the need to buy it. But this -
"You're very sweet. Thank you," he smiled, wearing it and appreciating it on his wrist. "You know what? Another anniversary gift - you're allowed to use the rest of the flat - except my room - from now on. I think you deserve that. Just don't go about sitting ominously in the bathroom because I need to bathe after coming home."
Doing the same thing after two years, Inoo's learned that his mystery man would sometimes be there every night then be gone from a few nights to an entire month. Sometimes as long as two but he learned not to say anything about it anymore as long as the man sits on his favorite chair at the end of the day and eats dinner with him. They've moved up from referring to him as a creature of the dark to something friendlier like 'buddy' for more neutral nights, 'babe' for when he brings home gifts that are probably beyond a normal person's paycheck, and 'bubba' for everything else. Because if Inoo is allowed, he'd come up with worse, longer names to call the man with.
He's gotten so used to their little routine that when he got home to a dim flat with no man on the chair, he was alarmed. He started looking around and found the door to his bathroom ajar, water flowing like someone's drawing a bath.
"Bubba? Are you here?" he asked cautiously. He's never really felt the need to be scared despite the man appearing out of nowhere in his flat with a gun pointed at him. Call Inoo apathetic to his own existence. Or anything at this point.
"Bubba?"
There was an answering pained groan. "If you could reach anything that would make a sound, and probably not damage any of my things, I need you to tap twice for no and three for yes, understood?" he asked, standing near the door. He heard three taps from inside and nodded, feeling the relief that at least the man was inside and could understand him.
"Are you okay?" he asked. Two taps.
"Are you hurt?" came the next question. Three taps.
"Do you need my help?" He asked, hoping for two taps but then came the third hesitant tap. He doesn't know what's happening but he got a few more supplies other than the first aid he keeps in the bathroom just in case.
"There are non negotiable things tonight like me turning on the light and you not pointing a gun at me and shooting, understood?" he asked, hoping there's no gun pointed at him right now.
Three taps.
"I will do my best to not look at you but I will if I have to, understood?"
Three taps.
Inoo made his way inside, taking a sharp breath in when he saw the blood on his floor, refraining himself from looking at the occupant of the tub who was turning the water red. "Is this your blood?" he asked softly, frowning at the silence.
"Are some of it your blood?" he asked a little firmer and he received three taps. "I will assume that you got yourself into a fight and was too much of a baby to go to the hospital," Inoo said. He heard two taps.
He quietly cleaned up and allowed himself to look up when the man adjusted himself inside the tub and showed him the big gash on his upper left back. "Jesus Ch - I'm not a medical clinic in case you missed that," Inoo said, reaching for the first aid he keeps under the sink. "You should know by now that I'm actually an architect. Not a nurse." he said, gritting his teeth.
He heard a soft snort of amusement then two taps and Inoo realized the man actually got a hold of his shampoo bottle. And the man was absolutely pulling his proverbial pigtails.
"Careful. I'm not the one with his back on someone not bleeding right now," Inoo murmured, pausing to reach the bottle when he saw the man tense up when his hand came to his peripheral. "You will take a bath and then we'll clean your wound after. I'm not letting you dirty my sheets."
He got a nod.
After bathing him - as clinically as he could - he helped him sit on the toilet and attended to his wounds. Aside from the big one on his back, he had a few smaller ones in other places. Those were easily patched up with bandaids but the big one, he was thinking between winging it and stitching it up or just using strips to close it up. The strips won and he told him he can't expect top-class medical services from an architect.
He got three taps.
After their little play doctor in the bath, Inoo turned to clean up and told him to make his way to his bedroom and wait for him to get clothes for him. Like a good pet, the man went out while Inoo made quick work of the bathroom, rushing to get the man some clothes that he thought would fit him.
"If you plan on doing this in the future, you should start leaving clothes here so you don't have to wear borrowed ones."
He got three taps.
And a big bag of clothes was delivered to his address the next day from an unknown sender.