Criminal Love

In This Together

It seemed no matter how close Lifty got to someone, Flaky soon found out that he'd always find a way to distance himself from that person. In the days following their kiss, Flaky noticed a change in Lifty's demeanor to her. Whenever she'd come home from the store or work and sit next to him on the couch, he wouldn't even give her a passing glance before he'd get up, muttering about how he needed to use the restroom or another excuse to get away the redhead. It started to worry Flaky as she was growing close to the thieving man as he was to her. But now it seemed like he wanted nothing to do with her anymore.

After the third time it happened, Flaky decided to try and get some answer from her kleptomaniac friend. She returned home shortly after going to the supermarket and sat down next to the thief, waiting for him to move. It only took a minute before Lifty started to rise from the red sofa, halfway through mumbling another one of his excuses. He stopped, however, when he felt the girl's hand on his shoulder, surprising him as he looked at her.

"Red, let me go. I gotta use the bathroom."

"Lifty, you always leave whenever I s-sit down," Flaky shook her head, staring up at him as her big red eyes started to fill with tears, "I just w-wanna know what I d-did wrong."

Lifty sighed and slumped back into the sofa seat, running a hand over his face before answering, "You didn't do nothin' wrong. I just don't want someone like you getting close to someone like me."

"Why?"

Lifty shrugged, "Have you met me? I'm a thief. A criminal. You're too nice to be around a guy like me."

"I don't care. I still c-care about you."

Lifty sighed again, seeing there was no way he was going get the girl to leave this alone and shook his head, "Fine. But don't say I didn't warn ya."

The girl ignored his warning and instead stood up from her spot, grabbing the thief's hand as she pulled him to his feet. She led him to the front door and he stopped her there, pulling his hand from her grasp as he stared at her curiously.

"Flaky, where are you taking me?"

"I gotta go to the supermarket, and I figured y-you could come with me"

Lifty frowned, even more confused, "But didn't you just come home from the store earlier?"

Flaky nodded, "Yup, but you haven't left my house since we w-went down to the library. So I figured it'd be good for you to g-get some fresh air. Plus I forgot to grab a f-few things."

So without even listening to Lifty's protests of him saying that he'd rather just stay inside and watch television, both of them piled into Flaky's red car and she started the drive into town. Lifty sighed and just stared out the window, thinking to himself this might not be so bad. After all, it was true that Lifty hadn't left the girl's house and it was being to bore him with seeing the same rooms every day and every night.

But if Lifty knew who he'd see in the market, he never would've left the couch.

X X X

Lifty trudged along, a bored expression on his face as he followed Flaky from behind as the girl pushed a cart down the aisle. He watched as her crimson eyes darted from the shelves to the paper list in her hand, muttering quietly to herself.

"No, not t-that one. Maybe. . .no. . ."

They passed another aisle and it seemed to catch the girl's attention as she tore her eyes away from the list in her hand as she stared down the aisle, searching for whatever it was she needed. She frowned and turned to Lifty, who was busy picking at a string on his coat only to feel the redhead's eyes on him as he looked back at her.