Not Even Close || Number Five x Fem!Reader

Chapter 106

WITH YEARS OF experience and struggling, reaching their destination had been easier than before.

Five and Y/N wasted no time going up the stairs and into the greenhouse. It was a relief for them to know that it was still the way it was when they left it last time. The scent of life within the strawberry garden filled up their noses with such delight.

They dedicated their whole week into cleaning and exploring the whole interior. They swept the floors, cleaned the cinders off the windows, dusted the furnitures, had the heater running -- they kept it comfortable for themselves, simply put.

When they finished, they took turns taking a shower from head to toe. Neither of them could describe how good it felt to be able to finally get all those grime and dirt scrubbed off their bodies. The clothes they found in the wardrobes felt nicer on cleaner skin. And it felt nicer to finally eat something that won't potentially give them any life-threatening diseases.

As their first night came, sleeping arrangements weren't as hard to ponder about as the house was bigger than they'd thought. The two of them discovered that there were two rooms. It was a clear sign that they were no longer obligated to sleep on the same space. It's what Y/N believed Five would have wanted; personal space -- or, more profoundly, what she wanted to believe.

Nevertheless, they'd come to terms with sleeping in two separate rooms; not that Five had any acceptable reason to oppose.

It was only for a moment that they felt as though they were intruding, seeing as this wasn't their home. But as weeks turn into months, Five and Y/N were beginning to treat this house as theirs; and their worries slowly slipped away, along with their will to go back home -- for a moment, or so they hoped.

That said, the days they spent in this timeline gave them a moment with other internal matters of their own, in which they couldn't fully attend to while they traversed timelines.

The moment they settled down, Five began to understand what he was feeling isn't foreign, though he couldn't imagine even the slightest disdain for it. He liked staying here; he certainly liked the peace he's finally getting. Most importantly, he understood that his endearment toward his companion was becoming something more.

They did everything in the greenhouse together -- from tending to the strawberry garden to unwinding in the same space after dinner. Every moment with her has become something comfortable, at the same time, something he looked forward to every day.

In all the time they'd been here, Five began to realize that this was the life he's been looking for; what he wanted since Oblivion -- a simple, quiet life. He never thought he'd come to realize that he wanted Y/N to live it with him.

After cleaning up their empty plates, they still had time to spare for themselves before they head to bed. While Five worked on the house's gramophone, Y/N read a book by the oil lamp with furrowed brows, eager to concentrate on the words printed on a page rather than succumbing to her worrying thoughts.

But she still continued to zone out, nevertheless.

Defeated, she closed the book and shifted her gaze somewhere else. Her eyes fixated on the flaming wool within the lamp as she let her mind fly off to their family.

The last time she had a clairvoyant vision of them was months ago. Although she didn't miss its messy outcome, it was the only thing that kept her up to date of what's going on in their timeline. Now that she hasn't been getting any of those visions, she wondered how they were doing. Otherwise, she could only hope that they ended up fine the same way Y/N and Five had been so far.

"Everything all right?"

Her train of thought came to a stop as soon as Five spoke. She didn't realize she had spaced out for too long until there were spots of afterimage blinding her sight. She blinked them away before nodding. "Yeah," she said to him, softly.