Beauty and the demon LuciferXRin

Chapter Five part 1- Lumier

This time I wake up on my own. No one shuffles outside my door, and the hallway sounds empty.

While I don't mind how quiet it is, I do miss the sounds of Kuro scrambling around my apartment at night. Something about the feral ambiance of crawling scattering across the floor, and random yowls throughout the night just feels like home. For as long as I can remember there was always some ambiance in my life, whether it was the natural buzz of wildlife or just the strange hums of demonic creatures.

But now everything is flat. It's not quite, but there isn't much of a dynamic to the sounds that I hear. In this room especially every noise is muffled. I'm sure Yukio would love falling asleep here. But it's almost too quiet and too bland.

I can't describe it right. It's as if all the color in the world was only the flat and over-saturated art supplies they gave us in grade school, but instead of color, it's sound. Everyone wears the same shoes, and only the pace and weight of the steps are different, but there are no different or unique sounds of different types of shoes. The air conditioner only turns out halfway through the night, and when it does it produces a low, dull humming noise. All the sound is just reduced into one color in the color wheel, and it can only fit perfectly within that box. There aren't any differences in shades or saturation, it's just all the same color.

It bothers me. Not enough to do anything about, but I think that is going to drive me crazy before anything else...

Finally, a knock drags me out of my pit of insanity and I answer the door. Out of sheer habit, I am already dressed. In my defense, there isn't much anything else for me to do other than get ready.

"Mr. Okumura, are you ready for my appointment?"

Lund and Storm are at the door. One of them asks the question but I can't really tell the difference between them. I really should ask Shima how he gets their names right.

"Sure," I step out of the room and the door shuts behind me. "If you don't mind me asking, why were you sent to guide me? Surely Lucifer's guards have better things to do."

They look at each other before looking back at me.

"Ms. Homare said it would be better for us to stand guard in case getting the samples went array. We can take hits better than those puny doctors," one of them says, grinning as if he recalled all the times he and his brother withstood many an injury.

"The commander was going to escort you there himself, but business came up. It's easier to arrange a place and time for him to meet you since we are his guards."

Arrange a meeting?

"Why is he so eager to be around me? I know I'm awesome but if it's so inconvenient for him then he really shouldn't waste his time."

Playing it off as oblivious but confident usually goes well. As I learned from Arthur nothing makes someone want to shut you down with the truth than idiotic tenacity.

"Your safety is important to him," the cocky one says.

My safety is important to him... I guess that lines up well with what Lucifer said earlier. They might actually want to keep me safe, but I can't believe them too quickly. These are Lucifer's guards, after all, they were likely briefed on what they can and can't say to me.

I just need to keep alert and catch any changes in their stories.

As I walk with them, all the other things I could have been doing come to mind. I could have sorted through my belongings and finally put everything away into the drawers. I could have made my bed or looked for secret trap doors. I could have polished my shoes or searched for a way to make a weapon out of my limited resources. Out of all the things I could have done I choose to be complacent.