A Toast To You

Chapter Two

Then you stepped back to your bedside, grappling for another closest weapon to brandish like a blade. A textbook was in your hands. The textbook's raised above, high above your head, aiming to slam the side of the cheek, but gave him a little time — and for yourself — to stop and scrutinize.

He wore a uniform, a black one or maybe a dark green, and the buttons and the breast pockets, and the ornaments; a military sash that goes from the shoulder to the waist, a line tied to one button and to another, and mops on either shoulder, looked so respectable and so pleasant sightly, too.

Medals decorated the space closest to his heart and two gloved hands held onto the brush you threw.

'Like a soldier.' You thought, completely unamused.

His head inclines sideways all smooth-like, but he doesn't speak and what's so confusing are his eyes. Eyes? This bitch doesn't even have eyes, he's got pretty eyelashes though.

You raised the book higher.

He was handsome but you weren't a fool. You'd be damned to have a serial killer in your apartment and you'll bash his head in.

The man has an audacity to sigh as if he's the one being robbed here. "Vu do not remember lazt nacht?" He prosed.

A German accent? You acknowledge. It's a nice one, too, like a really smooth one. You'd laugh that you've got a German in your apartment but he was robbing you.

"Last night? What are you talking about? Who the hell are you!" Your mind scrambled for scattered memories to piece, or at least, possibilities and one thought erupted. "Don't tell me I slept with you!" You blanched, so sickened by the thought you lower the book to place a hand over your mouth.

It was a stupid thought, any hungover thought was a dumb one, but there was no other explanation— other than him robbing you, of course. You were completely certain you hadn't left your apartment yet you wanted to set out your possibilities. This man was either here to kill you or slept with you.

Disdain boiled on your tongue, neither made you happy.

Then you've grabbed a pillow like a shield, pointing between him and you. "Did I? Did we?" You gasped.

The man's lips pursed, grimacing. "Nein— vhat?" He grunted only turning to set down the brush on the shelf and you watched him do so.

"Then who are you?" Then you add, discomforted by a detail you'd just notice. "And God where are your pupils?" You're circling him and hiss, leaning your head so sideways what's touching your ear is your shoulder, then continuing. "And why are you black, white, and red?" Your eyes lasered on one medal, one built like a four-leaf clover with triangles and outlined with black and white.

It was your history obsession that turned on now, not the defensive system, and your mind returned to the lectures and the image of the Kaiser with his mustache and hard blue eyes sparkled inside your head, and your jaw drops.

The medal glinted from the sun and shined with honor.

You stopped and reached out a weak— since your head still pounded— finger. Curiosity supplanting fear and controlled the body and roused without the permission of your brain. "Is that an Iron Cross?" He altered the direction of your hand, pushing it to the side, in attempt to preserve his medal from smudges or sebum.

He was quick to react. "Don't touch." The man asked with a frown with edges strained alongside a chin held high.

And you account the caution and keep your fingers creasing the sides of your shirt. "That looks authentic. Shines like gold." You examined the medal from all sides, angling your gaze from behind and in-front and above and below, wanting to prove a hypothesis true. "Is that real?" Asking for clarification.