Karin- (This story is Parallel to "Jealousy")
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"Do you have nightmares, Karin?"
I was stunned by Griffin's sudden question. I'd wanted him to shatter the awkward silence in the air, but I hadn't expected that.
The three of us- Akira, Griffin and I, were sitting in an old-timey dining room, relaxing after a hard day’s work of rubble removal and cleanup. Everyone else was either in the pool or snoozing upstairs. My pitifully weak arms were already starting to cramp up from moving all that debris, and it hurt to even pick up my fork. Akira excused herself as she finished her meal, apparently not hearing what Griffin had said or ignoring it. She seemed very caught up in her own thoughts lately. I couldn’t blame her after those crazy scientists ransacked our house.
He gazed with heavy lids at my evident surprise, but didn't take his question back. "When you sat next to me on the flight here, I heard...Well, I thought I heard you crying. I tried to stir you from your slumber, but you just told me to stop.”
“Oh," I sighed quietly. “Sorry, I wasn’t saying that to you. Thanks for trying though, haha.” I could feel my eyes glazing over as I recalled the tribulation.
He just nodded, his curiosity satisfied. He didn't push me any further. But for some reason, it really annoyed me how he thought he understood completely.
"Anesthetics put you to sleep before a surgery, ね? So that it's painless." I blurted. Griffin, weirded out by the random subject change, just nodded bemusedly. "デモ, what if it doesn't do that- what if it just paralyzes you until the surgery is done and then wipes your memories, so that you don't remember the excruciating pain? じゃあ, Is it the same?" I was so tense that my native tongue peppered the interrogation.
Griffin's eyes went serious, his slitted pupils narrowing. He contemplated how to reply. "Of course not," he murmured fiercely, "For one is evil and one is not."
I smiled because he was right. I thought back to when I’d asked Sebastian the same question.
“Well...I guess so. I mean, they’re essentially the same thing. If you can’t remember pain, it’s like it never happened, right? ....What’s with that look??” I remember casting him a glare (a rare occasion for me) and refusing to speak with him until he literally swept me off my feet and ran through the Avenue des Champs-Élysées with me dangling in his arms.
"That's what I dream of every night," I whispered, "But I never forget the pain." I hugged my knees and couldn't bring myself to look at Griffin again.
"I am sorry. I misjudged you," he sighed. I shrugged in acceptance of his apology and he just smirked a little. "I, too, have those dreams."
After a moment, I bolted upright and turned to face him. "What did you say?" He looked immediately ashamed of himself for letting out his secret so easily. "ごめんな- I mean - Sorry, I was just--"
He put up a hand to stop me. "It is fine... You heard correctly. However...mine are not dreams, but memories."
My eyes felt like they were the size the of dinner plates in front of me. "That's how I feel! But- I just don't remember them..." Griffin looked more than skeptical. "Ah, that didn't make sense, did it? I meant, if they were just dreams, they'd be trippy and random and crazy. But I'm always trapped in the same place...and everything is so real."
Griffin seemed to believe me. "Whatever they are, I am sure it is no coincidence."
I leaned toward him and put my hands on his forearm. Huh. It felt cold, like Sebastian's. "I promise I won't tell anyone, okay?" and I gave my best attempt at a ‘You can trust me!’ wink. He just looked at me strangely before laughing in awe.
"You are strange," he said, swatting my hands away softly.
I giggled in reply and got up from the dinner table. “Good night, Griffin,” I chimed, and started hopping up the staircase.
“Sleep well, Karin,” Griffin answered monotonously from where he stayed, and I stopped in my tracks to look back at him. My ears twitched once. “...What?”
“Nothing,” I smiled, “I just...really appreciate that, that’s all.”
And with that, I leapt up the last step and crawled into my familiar bed. My last coherent thought was Griffin really isn’t such a bad guy... before exhaustion pulled me under.
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SHIP KARIN WITH ALL THE BOYS~ (I'm totally kidding)
This was just a post to show everyone that Griffin isn't THAT BAD <3 (Confession, I'm actually kinda in love with him. A little bit.)
heheheheh
