None the Worse ✓

9) Befriending A Thief And Other Things You Never Thought Anyone Outside Of...

9) Befriending A Thief And Other Things You Never Thought Anyone Outside Of Prison Could Do

Benjamin stared at the ceiling.

It certainly wasn't... the same. Anymore.

It wasn't the fact that Thijmen was kind of, in a way, sort of friendly— by the way, Thijmen was being kind of, in a way, sort of friendly— no, no. It was the pillow.

The pillow was gone.

And it was quite obvious by now, that he really wouldn't be able to go to sleep, no matter what he tried. Maybe, if he'd never found out that Thijmen had stolen his pillow, he wouldn't be so bothered by it. Ignorance is bliss.

Shucks.

He regretted looking at the clock, partly because he realized he'd only have three hours of sleep if he magically did so now, partly because it meant that he'd have three hours more to kill. Video games weren't an option. He couldn't play those without yelling, "DIE, YOU SHOOTS!" like the classic eleven-year old on Call of Duty. And he was kind of grounded, which meant Netflix wasn't an option, either.

Benjamin rolled and tossed around until the clock hit 3:30 AM, gave up on life, and creeped his way to Thijmen's room.

He knocked on the door for about ten minutes, which didn't work, so he banged his head against it for another ten minutes, calling out, "Thijmen Thijmen Thijmen," nonstop, which did work, and which got the Dutch guy opening the door and Benjamin falling forward to the floor.

Thijmen was not happy. "Benjamin," he grumbled, his low voice practically reverberating through Benjamin's own tummy. Holy cow, Thijmen had a serious case of morning voice. Benjamin secretly wished he had a voice like his, because it sounded like Thijmen could get anyone to enter his bedroom with it."It's like the middle of the night. What do you want?"

Without getting off the floor, Benjamin replied, "My pillow."

"What?"

"My pillow."

"I know, I heard you."

"Then why did you ask 'what'?"

Thijmen closed the door against Benjamin's face. Was that a mean act or was it just the (perfectly justified) annoyance resulted from getting bugged for petty things at 3 AM? It hurt, either way. Benjamin would have probably reacted the same way himself. Probably. At least in his mind.

Knowing he wouldn't be able to sleep, Benjamin did the most mature thing he thought of and stayed right outside Thijmen's door, lying on the ground like a rug and daydreaming about him being Dragonborn and collecting cheese wheels on his house. It was nice. He tried to picture a girlfriend, but couldn't. Women were something happening in a realm far outside of his existence, with the exception of his mom, if she counted.

It was still dark when Thijmen opened the door with a yawn. Without noticing the redhead on the floor, he stepped right on top of Ben, which got the latter shrieking and which made the former jump so bad he might as well have seen the girl from The Ring crawling around the walls.

While Benjamin agonized, Thijmen rasped out, "Shit. Sorry. Benjamin, what the hell?"

"M-my pillow."

"Ah."

So Thijmen proceeded to ignore the newly-acquired carpet and stumbled his way to the bathroom. Once he was gone, like a ninja, Benjamin rolled—yes, rolled—into the room and right to the pillow.

The first thing Ben did, when he got his dear pillow back, was press it tightly against his chest, but as he took a deep breath to sigh happily, he caught a scent. The pillow no longer smelled like Ben's room—which really meant it smelled like nothing, since Ben was used to his own scent.