Hearts of the Lonely (Reader x Mountain Ghoul)

28- Rising Tension

*TW: knife

"Let me come over."

He kept insisting. At first, I told him I was sick. Then I said I had to work. After that, I claimed to be busy with the other ghouls. I was running out of excuses. Still, Special kept asking to visit.

But what was the issue? He only wanted to talk. Fuck it; why not?

The still, humid air crawled into my apartment, following Special. I shut the door and gave him a hug, and he pulled out a plastic bag.

"An offering for Tobias," he told me.

I smiled, leading him over to the cage. Special put the apple slices next to the rat, and Tobias eagerly gobbled them up. Special went to sit down in an armchair; I did the same.

"We haven't talked in a long time."

"I know."

"How are you and Mountain?"

"All right, I guess." I lowered my eyes and picked fuzz off my pants.

"What do you mean?"

"Aren't humans and ghouls supposed to avoid relationships?"

Special sighed. "Who told you this?"

"Terzo."

"Perhaps he wishes that you and Mountain not be together."

"What! But why would he want such a thing?"

"He truly cares about you. Wouldn't he want to warn you?"

Something seemed off about Special. He was always supportive of my relationship with Mountain. His calm and cool demeanor was replaced with fidgets while he tapped his foot.

But what if he was telling the truth?

. . .

"Found one!"

Rain pulled a rat out from under the couch. He cradled it in his arms, bringing it back to the sunroom cages. Previously, Sodo wandered into the sunroom to visit the rats, but he forgot to shut the cages. He quickly received many angry comments from Copia.

"Ah, the final fuzzy baby!" Copia took the rat from Rain, put it in the cage, and shut the cage door.

"Sodo? I need to talk to you." Swiss and Sodo were in the sunroom helping Copia. Swiss pulled Sodo into the empty kitchen, and he made him sit down on a stool at the island.

"I need to tell you that your actions are getting out of hand."

"It was an accident!" Sodo was quick to defend himself.

"I get that was, but, overall, you are too much for me to handle." Swiss took a pen off the counter and used it to fidget with.

"What do you mean, I thought you liked that about me?"

"Sodo," Swiss sighed. He wanted to continue, he really did, but he didn't want to hurt the Fire ghoul.

"No. You brought me here to talk to me. Finish," Sodo snarled.

"Sodo, don't I think we should date anymore."

. . .

Phantom could pick up on things quite easily, but Aether was grateful that playing guitar wasn't one of them.

"It's ok, buddy. Do you wanna to try again?"

"No. I think that I'm done for the day."

Aether had been teaching Phantom on his guitar. He showed him different songs like "Pro Memoria", "Con Clavi Con Dio", and "Depth of Satan's Eyes", but he started with introducing Phantom to the fretboard. Aether taught him different exercises before teaching him how to read some sheet music. Then, Aether had Phantom learn by practicing different portions of some of his favorite easy songs. Phantom was eager to learn, but he had to realize that he couldn't master guitar by only listening.