You Interest Me

Fear

"(Y/n), (y/n), (y/n)." You felt something is tugging on the back of your collar. You groaned and opened your eyes, to see Helen looking at you with great worry in his hazel eyes. His face was hovering above yours.

"So it wasn't just a bad dream..." you quietly mumbled as you groan and rubbed your eyes. "Huh?" You felt something was dripping on you.

You removed your hands and saw Helen crying profusely. You sat upright on the wooden floor.

"Helen, wh—" He pulled you into a tight embrace. Helen started to sob loudly, choking on his own tears. You were baffled, a few hours ago, he's as happy as a child on Christmas day. Now he's acting like he's about to die.

"Y-you did not wake up! I was afraid! I...I..." He continued wailing. For the first time in his life, he felt fear. Fear of losing the person who puts colour into his metronome world. Fear of losing all his interests.

Since this is his first time feeling such a terrible emotion, he didn't know how to act. He cried loudly, letting his tears and mucus flow out of his orifices, it soaks into your dress.

Maybe it's some sort of punishment for being too happy, he thinks.

Helen never feared death, in fact, he even craved for it before. So he never understood why his victims would cry before he kills them. He always thought that he's doing them a favour, to be free from a meaningless prison.

Now he understands.

But he did not regret murdering anyone. No remorse at all because he's not interested in their begs or painful tears. He's only interested in you and everything that has to do with you.

"What are you afraid of!?"

"I'm afraid, I'm afraid of losing my wife! I'm afraid of losing (y/n)! I'm afraid of losing my interests!" He choked out. You patted him on the back as he cries noisily. You grumble, this is going to take a while.

After what felt like forever, he calmed down and wiped away his tears and mucus. "Please don't leave me..." He mumbled.

You kept your lips sealed and nodded half-heartedly. Helen sniffled and asked,

"Do you want to go shopping?"

—
You thought it was that easy. You really thought it was so easy.

When he suggested going shopping, you were surprised. One scream is enough to alert everyone and free you from this twisted man.

Wrong.

"Please be a good person and don't do anything bad." Helen told you in his rusty, old car.

"Or everyone in the shop will die and I will not let you go shopping anymore. Okay?" His eyes 'smiled' sweetly.

"W-what do you mean?" You stammered. He lifted up his shirt to expose multiple hand grenades and guns fixed to his belt. You felt like your eyes were about to pop out of your sockets.

Okay, maybe it may cause some chaos. But it will alert the police, right? Then soon you'll be discovered.

Right?

But then... you're risking so many lives to save your own. Plus, with decades of experience, Helen may have already seen it through and made a back-up plan to evade the police. Should you really raise hell?

There's one thing for certain, Helen may not be the sharpest knife in the drawer, but he is terrifyingly brilliant in cleaning up after himself no matter how big the mess is.

So you decided to bite your tongue and hold the scream. He rubbed your head as if he's petting a dog. Helen made that (happy?) whimpering noise again.

"Thank you, (y/n)." You made an 'OK' sign with your fingers as you get down his car.

Helen quickly ran towards you and grabbed your hand. Leading you to the main entrance of the supermarket. Before entering, he pulled a trolley with him.

You looked at Helen. He's wearing a long-sleeved, low neck, black shirt today with a pair of denim jeans and filthy jogging shoes as his footwear.

You're still wearing that shift dress you wore to bed and your own shoes. You found the dress presentable enough to wear it outside.

He made a beeline to the shampoo department, dragging you along with him.

"Wow..." he whispered to himself. Helen never noticed that the bottles of shampoo were so colourful and vibrant. They were arranged in such a way that it attracts Helen even more.

He reached out to touch them, he was surprised that each bottle has different textures and shapes.

"I'm interested in shampoo." He mumbled as he starts to fill his trolley up with shampoo bottles.

"Hey, wait a minute. Why do we need so much shampoo?" You counted, he already placed sixteen different bottles in there. Helen turned his head to you.

"They are nice. If you are interested in shampoo, I am also interested in shampoo." He continued piling up his trolley.

"Hold on for a second, Helen. I may be...um interested, but this is just wasteful. C'mon, twenty-three bottles for two people?" You pointed at the heap. He paused.

"What should I do?" He asked. Helen reminds you of a very young child, still not understanding how the world around him works. You sighed.

"We gotta put these back first." You told him. His hazel eyes widened in panic.

"No..! Then we will have no shampoo!" He exclaimed.

"Calm down, I'm not sayin' we can't buy them. We have to choose carefully." He tilted his head to the side and hesitantly put them all back to their original position.

It felt awkward. It felt like you're educating a child.

"Okay, now it's uh. All back, grab one that's pretty to you." He tapped on his chin and chose a bottle with yellow packaging.

"Then, open the lid." He did as instructed. "After that, sniff it. See if you like the smell." He brought his chiselled nose towards the hole and took a sniff.

Another door was opened, exposing him to another wonderful world: scents.

He froze on the spot, it smelled so beautiful. Helen dove his nose in for a few deep sniffs.

"And? How's it?" You asked.

"It smells good." He told you before continuing to squeeze and inhale the aromatic fumes.

"That's great. You gotta cover the lid and put it back." You slowly explained to him. He shook his head.

"I like this one." Helen took one long sniff.

"Who knows? There's probably better-smelling ones than that." Helen trusts you and kept it away, taking the next bottle he thinks it is unique and lovely.

Sniff.

"I like this one too." He looked at you.

"More than the first one?" He nodded.

"Go nuts, find the best one."

For the next hour, Helen went on a smelling frenzy, smelling every single brand of shampoo there is. You couldn't go anywhere else because he had an iron grip on your hand. There were some that he disliked and some that he liked, it didn't stop him from proceeding to the body wash aisle.

You rubbed your forehead, this is also going to take a while.

You and Helen spent two hours in body wash and shampoo shopping. Your sane reasoning couldn't stop him from buying five different bottles of shampoo and five different bottles of body wash.

Helen seems to favour women's soap over men's.

"(Y/n), Where are your 'best' ones?" Helen asked, noticing that you weren't inhaling the scents crazily like him.

"It's already in there." You pointed at the plastic bags filled with the ten bottles of liquid soap.

"Oh, okay." He replied with grinning eyes.