Tonight’s weather was abnormally nice. Usually it would be light rain all over the night or storm. But it was almost nothing in the sky today. No clouds, no stars. It was only the moon, hanging alone on the dark sky. Not that I liked the starry sky or something. It was weird enough to not having rain all over the city. I thought people used this opportunity to going out somewhere but their houses. The street was unusually crowded, snack stalls popped up in every corner of it. It was kind of nice. I bet the air smelled like tasty crisps and doughnuts.
“Are you going to bury yourself in this room?”
The High Warlock smiled at me, his fierce yet soft eyes scanned me and I knew he could read what I was up to without actually read my mind. Then he turned to the window, in his eyes lights from the street below reflected. The orange orbs flickered, as if the activity down there perked his interest. But I knew better.
“You know I won’t, Vander,” I said without looking at him. “It’s warm out there. Do you think I will miss times like these?”
Vander smirked and let out a sigh. “You won’t do good with your ability. It’s warm, like you said,” he walked closer to the window. “And he might be out with his friends. Who knows.”
I stood up from my chair, put on a dark green jacket around my shoulder and snatched a red scarf. “I know him better than you,”
Instead of replying me, Vander sneered at my outfit. “You look like a Christmas tree.”
“See you later.”
I ran down the spiral stairs to the hall and went out through side door. I didn’t like the front door that much. It would attracted too many people both outside or inside the cathedral. I slipped out from the kitchen’s door to the backyard, and walked directly to the crowded street. I knew Vander could see me from up there. I glanced back to the cathedral and then proceed to vanished inside the crowd of people.
The street was full with people. I felt like in a festival. I walked passed three or four couples, all hand in hand, and I scoffed to them under my breath. If only they knew what was this nice weather all about. Not that those things mattered. I had something else to do right now.
I hummed a random tune, a bit louder to my liking but nobody paid attention to me. They were too busy with their own partner to realise that a dream maker just passed them and could took their life any time I want. But I didn’t want to kill someone tonight. Not tonight. The weird weather seemed to affect me in some way.
I passed two more street lamps and arrived at this place. Just a little bit out of the town. I could hear the crowd back there, but they didn’t walk here. This area was too far from the town centre. I was glad I could escape the jam-packed street. I didn’t like the smell of humans. They tend to smell bad.
Without worrying of intruder, I silently walked to one of an old building. It was an old apartment. The rusty stairs outside cracked beneath my feet when I climbed up. When I arrived at the third floor, I searched the number ‘thirty six’ and opened the door once I found the right place. Before I slipped in I spare a quick glance to the street below. Nobody was there to saw me enter the place. Great.
When I closed the door, I slowly adjusted my eyes to the darkness of the room. The smell of old sofas mixed with the scent of a particular flower hit my nose as soon as I explored the house. Not that this unfamiliar to me. The house was so quiet, I could hear my own heart beat. Perhaps the owner was sound asleep.
And I was right, the owner of the house was deeply sleeping on the bed, covered with blanket. I stepped closer, not wanting to woke him up, and carefully sat down on the bed. I liked watching him sleep. I could see his dream like I could see anyone else’s dream. It was like projected inside my head. Tonight’s dream was him, in a forest full of light and wild flowers. He was running in the forest. He ran with the deer and the lion, and the bird sang above his head. A school of butterfly tailed him like a sparkling pixie dust, trailing behind his body. His brown hair was decorated with flowers, circling around his head. He was beautiful.
I waved my hand a little, and the vision changed. He kept running, but the animals left him one by one. The lion first, and then the bird. The deer suddenly disappeared, and the butterfly made their last turn with circling his hand and then left. He stopped running. He looked around, confused, until eventually he met my eyes in the dream. I smiled.
The real life him stirred in the bed. Three seconds later he woke up and yawned.
“I told you to not ruined my dreams,” he complained. He even didn’t bother to woke up properly and greeted me. “It was a beautiful dream until you came.”
“I know,” I laughed a little and took his hand. I took the warmth and melt. “Good morning, Sunshine.”
“It’s not morning, Gwyn, it is nine pm and you wake me up.”
“I wanted to see you.”
“It’s warm today, why don’t you spending time outside?”
“Why are you sleeping?”
He snorted. I knew I won the argument. He snuggled back to the blanket and pretend to be mad at me. Like I didn’t know that it was an act. I opened my jacket, tossed it somewhere in the room. I took out the scarf as well, but instead tossing it to the floor, I formed it like a ball and threw it to his direction.
“Gwyn!”
I laughed and joined him under the blanket. It was not even cold, but he kept himself warm inside the blanket. I didn’t know he liked the blanket that much.
“Don’t come closer, Gwyn. You are cold.”
“I am not.”
Now I perfectly lying down with Alais inside his blanket. My body turned to facing him. He was right, though. My body temperature was naturally cold. It was colder than average human. Contradicting his own saying, Alais pulled me closer and made himself comfortable. His breathing was steady. He was so warm.
“Why are you even here,” Alais whispered. I knew he was going to fall asleep in no time. “You are not supposed to be here.”
“I can do whatever I want.”
“Stubborn.”
“But you like me.”
Alais chuckled. I patted him in the head, made him easier to sleep. I knew it was my fault to visit him in the night like this, but I wanted to see him. I couldn’t see him on the day because of things, and night became the only time I could sneaked in to his apartment. He would had asleep most of the time, and I would let him sleep. The pattern in his dream could tell me whether he was tired or not. Today was the rare times when I could wake him up from his sleep. Mostly I would just watching him sleep.
“Don’t pat me,” Alais said in a drowsy voice. “It makes me sleep.”
“You are already sleeping.”
“I’m not.”
I didn’t answer it. To be honest it was not really different when Alais was asleep or not. He was gorgeous, awake or asleep. His face was not all symmetrical; his eyes were too big for his small nose. There was a scar on his left eye, barely seen, yet it made him special. He had light brown hair, flawlessly hung on his shoulders like a soft silk. I liked to bury my fingers in there. When he was awake, his emerald eyes were the sunlight, nothing could make it turn dim.
I hummed the same tune. I remembered that it was one of his first piano songs that he had learn years ago. I surprised I still remember that. And he seemed to surprised as well.
“Did you remember that?” he said very quietly, I scarcely heard it.
I nodded. “Claire de Lune,”
“Debussy.”
Alais snuggled deeper into my embrace. I ever thought that he could get cold when he was with me. But he never caught the cold.
“You are funny,” Alais said, half sleepy.
“Why?”
“You are supposed to be warm, as a half cat, but at night you are as cold as a vampire.”
“I am sorry for that.”
“Don’t apologize,” Alais sighed. Perhaps he was too sleepy to laughed. “I like you the way you are.”
“Sleep.” I told him. If he couldn’t wake up early next morning, it was all my fault.
“No.”
“Will you sleep if I told you I like watching you sleep?”
This time Alais took his energy to opened his eyes and stared at me. He even half way raised his shoulder. “Why?”
“It fascinating.”
Alais scoffed. He went back to his position, and he was laughing for a second. “I should jailed you for that.”
“For what?”
“Being a creep.”
It was my turn to laugh. “Sleep.”
This time he didn’t bulge to argue. He just raised his face and pecked me on my cheek, and then went to deep sleep. He didn’t woke up when I slowly slipped out of his blanket and vanished through the window, back to the crowd of people and the cathedral. I knew Vander would still sitting on the same spot as I left him. Not that I cared. He could do what he wanted to do. And I could do mine.
I was right, he was on the same spot when I’d left him before. As if he didn’t move an inch from the window. He didn’t greet me when I came. He just talked like I had never leave the room.
“I wonder why people like to party,” he said in a monotonous voice. “It was boring. All you do is dancing and laughing and hooking up. It is not healthy.”
“And I wonder why you like to judge them,” I hung my jacket to the coat-hanger. It was one of Vander’s things that he bought far away outside the town.
“I don’t judge,” Vander turned to me. He raised his left eyebrow. “I analyse.”
I didn’t reply him. It had been one hour and a half since I left the cathedral; it was ten thirty now. There were still several couples hanging out on the street below. Tomorrow was school day, wasn’t it? Didn’t they had school? I thought about my Alais and how he had already sleep at this hour. It seemed like he was not attracted to the world around him.
I smiled sheepishly to myself. Alais was always that kind of boy. The nice boy, the one who wouldn’t get you in trouble. He would come back home on time, he never did drug, he didn’t drink a lot. Heck, perhaps he never tasted alcohol until today. He was boring to Vander. That was why Vander didn’t understand why I liked him so much.
“Don’t you have work to do, Gwyn?”
“Nobody had a bad dream tonight, Vander. I can guarantee that.”
Vander just hummed. He moved away from the window and went to the door. Perhaps he had something to do. The High Warlock didn’t get the title from nothing. He was incredibly magical, very talented young warlock, yet he just had problem with his weird personality. Aside from that, he was a good man.
He paused at the frame door and turned to me. “You know, Gywn, I can easily changed him into half cat and you two can live together happily ever after.”
I smiled half heartedly. “We’ve been talking about this, Vander, I don’t want him to become like me.”
“He will die soon and you will keep living until whenever,” the sun-like eyes scanned me, searching my weaknesses and persuade me with that. He was good with that, but I’ve been with him since forever.
“No, Vander, I kept telling you-”
“Okay, okay, you don’t need to be mad at me,” Vander sighed. He went to me and placed his hand on top of my head. “I’m just saying that as your friend.”
“Well, thank you, but I know what I’m doing.” I felt the weight on my head but I didn’t brush his hand off. It would break his soft heart, I knew.
Vander walked to the door and disappeared from my room. He was my oldest friend, he was just being nice with those words, I knew. He had already asked me about the changing, and I always refused it. I didn’t want to alter Alais’ humanity. He was beautiful as he is, I didn’t want him to became a weird creature like me. At least, in all of human’s weaknesses, he was a real thing. He was a real human. And me? I didn’t know who I was any more. I wasn’t a human, but I wasn’t a warlock either. I was an accident, an object of Vander’s research on his magic power. It saved me from whatever had threatened me years ago, but I was no longer human. Vander kept saying sorry for the change, yet I brushed it off. He was doing his job as a warlock, and a friend. He didn’t do anything wrong. It was just me.
There was one couple left in the street when I fell asleep thirty minutes later.