A World of our Own | K.TH *COMPLETED*

Beautiful

"What?"

A shocked shout tears through my lips as I instinctively wrap my fingers around the man's arm. It's inching slowly towards my neck, and the last thing I want to do is to get choked to death by a man that thinks that my house is his house.

"This is my house."

I really should be focusing more on the situation and less in the intruder's mesmerizing voice. I just can't help but be drawn to the deep, low baritone, like a moth to fire.

"No," I deny firmly. "This is my house— it says so on my keys."

His grip relaxes a bit on my collarbone, and only then I can find myself breathing. His iron hold had been tighter than I'd expected.

"That's ridiculous. This is my house— it has been for the past year."

Now I know something is wrong.

I twist out from his grasp and immediately look at the man who owns the deep, magical voice. One look at him and my heart stops. I forget how to breathe as my eyes drift over his unnaturally symmetrical features, struggling to accept this man before me as reality.

How can someone so perfect exist?

He has wide, slanted brown eyes— ringed with the most longest and richest eyelashes I've ever seen in my entire life. His skin hovers in a fine line between pale and light, somehow masking the outline of his face in a heavenly glow.

And his eyes.

They're uneven eyelids, just like mine.

And then I realize I'm staring way, way too much.

"I'm sorry," I stutter quickly, fumbling for my ring of keys. "But I was certain that my number was 1241–"

Oh.

1242.

His gaze of steel doesn't leave my face as my mouth slowly drops open in shock. How in the world had I managed to miss the last digit?

The last digit, I had to admit, was a bit off. The two had been smudged to seem like a one at a first, uncaring glance. The sudden urge to facepalm grows even stronger as I continue to burn holes with my eyes into the smooth surface of the metal.

Stupid.

How stupid can you be?

"I'm so sorry," I squeak helplessly as I shove the keys back into my pockets. "I mistook the last digit— I'm so sorry."

"Why the patch?"

His question is surprisingly unexpected, even though that was the first thing most people asked when they saw me. And they usually left me alone when I stared down at my feet, an indescribable look in my dark blue eye.

But when I do exactly that, his hands flash back and forth. It's so quick that I don't even register the patch had gone until his eyes were not only on my blue iris, but my green one as well.

"Hey!" A note of defiance enters my voice as I slap my right hand over my green eye, desperately reaching for the patch that he now holds over his head. And from the start, I know that there is no possible way I can get it back. He was tall— very tall. With expected ease, he towers over me, and he's not even on his tiptoes.

"Give it back!" I keep my hand tightly clamped over my left eye as his eyes seem to burn a path right through my hand to the hidden shade below.

"No."

He crumples up the patch in one hand, and my eyes go wide. Immediately, I cross my arms over one another, staring daggers at his set expression.

"Now you owe me a favor."

"No I don't."

"Yes you do!" I stomp my foot childishly, pointing angrily at the ruined patch. "You just broke my patch! You don't think I'll forgive you so easily for that, do you?"

A deep sigh reverberates through his slender figure as his fist closes even tighter around my patch. Now I know for a fact that it's ruined, and I also know I'm not going to leave without a favor.

"Fine."

"Fine?" When I tilt my head in confusion, his face twists with frustration and annoyance. Without a word, he tosses the crumpled patch over his shoulder. Then he growls, the sound resonating in the fragile contour of my ear.

"Your favor. And I only grant it if you grant one in return."

I'm more surprised that he actually agreed than the fact that he hasn't kicked me out of his house yet. Enthusiasm stretching my lips, I nod eagerly at his demands.

"What's your name? I'm Tzuyu, by the way."

His face tightens as I mention my name. There's like a mental message he's sending— and it's saying that he never wanted to know, loud and clear. The venom in his voice is clear as day as he answers my question, his expression looking like he wants to murder someone.

"V."

I wait for a while, thinking there's more to his name than just an alphabet. But we stare at each other for a while, and only after a full minute has passed do I realize that that was all there was to it.

"Oh."

"My turn," he says, nodding his head st the abandoned patch on the ground. "Show me what you're hiding behind that hand of yours."

No.

I don't realize I'd started to tremble, the panic attacks coming quick and fast. If I showed him, he'd think I was ghastly. If I showed him, there was no doubt that he'd hate me.

And somehow, somehow, I do not want this man with the uneven eyelids— V— to hate me.

"No...you can't." My feet instinctively move by themselves, taking me back one step, two steps away from his intense stare. "You can't." I repeat softly, the word a breathy whisper.

"I'm sorry." I hadn't  expected him to ask something like this— I would've never accepted his request if I'd known.

A tiny sob, only the beginning of fresh, harsher ones, tear through my body. And it warns me to get away from this man.

But he doesn't let me.

Why doesn't he let me?

His touches are firm and rough, but surprisingly soft and gentle at the same time as he carefully holds down my right arm, the one that had been dangling from my side. Then he grips my left wrist, and I know what's coming before he even does it.

And I also know that resistance seems pointless against this man with the unnatural grace.

Sorry— V. I keep putting labels on him, labels that'll probably make him think I'm disgusting. But that's what I am, what I'll always be— disgusted, and tainted with blood.

When my barrier finally slides from my green eye, revealing the atrocity below, he examines it carefully without my expected mockery. Something glitters in his brown eyes before he speaks, that  soft word speaking volumes— and his baritone voice so, so not helping.

"Beautiful."