It is recommended that you read the other routes before this one. A lot of you have asked for me to come back to finish this route, so here you go!
Today just feels different. Weird. I can't explain it, but the atmosphere in this house is different from yesterday. Even though I am in a different place, I should still feel the same as I do waking up at Trender's. Jane is still asleep on her bed with a knife beside her. Remind me not to make any loud noises at night...
I slowly get out of my air mattress and make my bed before leaving the room, quietly. I shut the door and tiptoe away until I reach a few feet near the stairs and know that she can't hear me anymore. Feeling hungry, I decide to go down to the kitchen and make myself something to eat. The kitchen is clean and has exactly the right ingredients for a sandwich. Once I am done, I set the food down on the counter and clean up my small mess. I hear footsteps behind me and I turn around to sit down next to my plate of food. The masked male, now known as Masky, walks up to me and stares at my sandwich.
"Gotta problem, lookie?" I send a joke his way.
He faces me now and leans against the table I am sitting at. "Nope. Glad you are eating something before we par."
I give him a questioning look. I don't recall him telling me that. "Par?"
He nods, "Uh yes. I told you that we are supposed to be fighting partners. Slender's orders."
I shake my head, "No. You never told me this, I got food on my own. Plus, I don't take orders from anyone but Slender himself."
Masky continues to stare at me but I can't tell his facial expression. Stupid mask. "Are you sure? I distinctly remember telling you that we were going to fight... Actually I remember telling you that three times?"
He looks confused as well by tilting his head and looking slightly down. I shake my head once more and take another bite out of my sandwich and swallow it. "Nope, don't recall. Maybe you've finally lost it, Masky."
He stands up abruptly as if he remembered something important. His head turns around and looks at his surroundings in the kitchen. "Wait a minute..." He says with a small voice.
"I'm waiting~" I say before taking another bite. Might as well play a little, this situation seems interesting enough.
"Could this be..?" He says while looking outside the window.
"Hmm, I guess going insane isn't extremely unlikely here. Hey, but could you do that somewhere else? You're getting dumb on my sandwich." I say after another bite, almost done with my food.
He looks over to me with food in my mouth and mutters, "Could this be...?"
I nod my head and look down at my sandwich, finishing his sentence, "-be a peanut and jelly sandwich? Yup~" I hold it up proudly and shove the rest of it in my mouth and stand up with my empty plate in my hands. My mouth still full, Maksy grabs my shoulders and I assume he is looking at my eyes. "Eh?" I say with my mouth still full.
His hands on my shoulders are harsh and I can feel each of his fingers digging into my skin. The air around us is intense but I don't understand why. Is he offended by my choice of sandwich? Is he allergic to peanuts?
"What do you think about Hoodie?" He asks with a sharp tone.
"What? He's a good guy I guess but I don't understand what you're asking me. I don't know him." I tell him.
"EJ?" He asks again. I shake my head.
"Who?" I ask him.
"Zero?" He asks once more, shaking me a little. I start to get a little afraid of the way he is interrogating me.
"Again, who? I don't understand these questions.." I tell him back.
He lets me go and backs up a step. He is quietly observing me to see what I will do next. Trying to brush off this awkward moment, I turn to the sink and put my plate in. He said that Slender ordered us to par together, but Slender didn't tell me directly, so technically I don't have to listen to Masky. But, by the unstable way he has been acting, I don't feel like arguing at the moment. Plus, I'm bored af right now so what do I have to lose?
I walk to the door a few feet away that leads to the back door and turn the knob. I open it halfway and glance over at Masky, who is still staring at me. "I'm sorry, are you trying to stalk me from up close? That doesn't work. Believe me." I say the last part quietly as I remember my stalking days. Not good.
He seems to disappear from his trance and runs up to where I am. "You're not going to complain and talk to Slender first?" He asks me. I put my hand over my heart and act offended.
"Whaaa? How could you think that I would not trust you? I'm disappointed in you, Masky." I am a pretty good actress because he seems to believe me.
"Oh no, I'm so sorry! I just thought that you'd go to Slender like you did in- I mean like I thought you would...." He seems to stop himself from saying something. I shrug it off as nervousness from being around a stranger. I can be intimidating sometimes. I laugh at him and lightly punch his shoulder.
"Just messing with you. Come on. I'm going to totally destroy you." I say with a prideful smile. He seems nervous but recollects himself as we step on the grass.
"That's my line." He runs up to the clearing in the middle of some trees in the backyard. He holds a couple of knives and stands up straight. He had completely did a 180 personality change from the kitchen. What was that just then? And he said that his line was 'I'm going to totally destroy you?' I was joking but... He didn't sound like he was..
The grass is incredibly green and the sun is perfectly coming across the horizon with slight fog covering the ground. As I am walking toward the masked man, my feet are slightly slipping on the grass. The dew may be a problem because my feet will now be slipping every step I take. It is slightly chilly outside, but once I start moving, my body should start to warm up. Masky is wearing a black hoodie today with black sweatpants and shoes that look slightly worn. He seems like an all around cool guy but he is a little weird from this morning. He is patiently waiting for me to reach him in the center, watching my every move as I near him.
It is weird how I already kind of feel comfortable around him, like he was a long lost friend and our relationship reflects the past. Once I get in front of him, he tosses a knife in my direction and I avoid it. It falls to the ground and my face scrunches up as I look at Masky. "Are you trying to kill me before we even start!?"
He shrugs at me and laughs, "Sorry, Y/N. Forgot that you aren't skilled yet."
I tilt my head at his comment and pick up the knife, "Remember that please. I don't feel like dying the second day here." He lets out a short laugh at my comment and I can practically hear the smirk in his voice.
"Will do. Wouldn't want that happening so soon." He gets into his stance and I mimic him, my feet already slipping from underneath me and Masky see's this. We stay in this position until one of us moves. He is trying to fake me out, but I'm much smarter than he thinks I am. We end up paring for a while until my foot finally slips and I face plant on the ground. Masky takes this opportunity to get on top of me and pull my hair back with his fist, causing my chin to lift up. The cold knife is resting on my neck but there is warm breath on my ear. "All it takes is the tiniest of mistake for me to take advantage of you."
My body shivers at his comment. For one, it is cold outside and with me on the ground, it is a lot colder. To top it off, the way he says that he can take advantage of me at any moment I mess up makes me feel anxious. My neck is starting to hurt from this position so I tap out with my hands. He gets off of me and releases my hair. I flip over and sit up on the grass, feeling defeated.
"Hey, don't give up so soon. You did really good for a noob." Masky says with a hand on his hip. He seems to be enjoying this a lot more that I am.
"Ha Ha Ha," I say sarcastically, "You're sooooo funny, you know that?"
He looks down at the ground and laughs before offering a hand to me. "It sounds a lot better coming from you." I take his hand and he helps me off of the ground. I open my mouth to say something but get interrupted by a familiar voice.
"Anything is a lot sexier coming from her~" BEN commented from behind. I turn around and see BEN walking toward us with Hoodie slightly behind him. He is wearing the same green outfit as yesterday and I go back to what I learned from Trender, how you shouldn't wear all one color unless it's black. I was about to comment on this but BEN interrupts me once again. "At a loss for words, beautiful? That's alright, I can do all the talking~" He takes a step too close to me and touches my shoulder, leaning in slightly to say, "Or none of us can talk..."
I am frozen to the spot. I am surrounded by a guy who almost killed me twice, a guy who doesn't talk to me, and a guy who is more perverted than Offenderman. Before anything could happen, Masky pushes BEN off of me rather harshly and stands uncomfortably close to me.
"Don't touch her like that. In fact, don't touch her at all." Masky tells BEN. I nod my head to agree with him.
"Yeah! Hands off the merchandise." I say jokingly.
"Oh? So it is for sale? If I had known that, I'd have bought it the minute it was being put up." BEN says with a smirk. "Too bad I am not the only one doing some window shopping." He says after glancing over at Masky. Do they not get along? No, surely they do.
Masky lets out a short laugh before replying to BEN's earlier comment, "Not window shopping, only looking at what I pre-ordered before I go into the shop to collect it."
I don't know what they are talking about anymore, so I kind of zone out and look over to Hoodie who is standing behind BEN. He doesn't pay me any mind, but instead is watching Masky. I wonder why Hoodie isn't saying anything? I would at least think he would talk to me before Masky did since I untied him yesterday. Masky did ask how I felt about him, so maybe he likes me or something?
As I stare at Hoodie, he starts to feel uncomfortable and looks over to me, slightly making me jump and quickly look over to Masky. "Sorry boys, this shop's closed." I say to end their argument over whatever they are talking about, "Now we should continue training, so bye bye." I push BEN away from us a little so he gets the hint that I want him gone. He doesn't seem to take it that way.
"Oh~ the girl here seems to want to touch this handsome fella here." BEN says with a smirk, "Touch all you want, girl. This shop across the street is open 24/7."
I roll my eyes and face Masky, who is glaring at BEN right now, to get him to help out with getting rid of him. He gets the hint and raises his hand off to shoo them away. "You two will train somewhere else while we stay over here."
BEN doesn't like this and pouts. Masky takes a step toward him and he takes one back hastily. "Okay, okay!" He yells and tugs Hoodie behind him to run over to a different spot. I laugh at them and walk over to where I was standing before and wait for Masky to take his stance.
We fight for a couple hours, eventually letting the other two join us for a team battle. Of course, since I am a 'noob' at this, they all go easy on me. Masky kept trying to defend me all the time, even when I wanted to fight alone, and when I got a little better at dodging, he would attack me. "WTF Masky! We are on the same team!"
He laughs and yells, "3 vs. 1!"
I shake my head as all eyes land on me and I back up, "Wow that poor sap who is the 1 is sure unlucky am I right guys?" They all keep coming closer to me. "Guys..?" At this moment, I knew that I was the 1 in 3 vs. 1.
We all went inside for lunch, laughing about everything that happened outside. It actually feels like they are my friends now, rather than just people I am forced to live with. I smile at this thought as I walk to the table after washing my hands. Masky quickly takes a seat next to me and I feel relaxed. Even though I feel comfortable around him, BEN, and Hoodie now, only Masky is the one who I am more close to. Hoodie still doesn't talk to me and BEN is just... well.. BEN.
Everyone gathers around the table to take a seat and chatter arises when the food comes out. I eat quietly and catch glimpses of Masky looking at me every now and then. He must be looking out for me. What a nice guy.
Jeff however, is sitting across from me and is cutting his steak with a knife while looking right at me. His lidless eyes are staring right into the depths of my soul, the knife as already cut the steak but he is trying to cut through the plate now. I can't look away either due to the fear I am feeling, or the fact that he is so ugly that my mind can't even comprehend it. I place my hand on Masky's arm to get his attention and he looks at me, tracing my line of sight over to Jeff's never breaking stare. "Ehem." Masky coughs to get Jeff's attention, but it doesn't work. "Jeff." Masky says shortly after and Jeff looks over to him. "Can you please stop harassing our guest?"
He rolls his eyes and focuses on eating instead of me, finally, and I silently thank Masky with my eyes. He goes back to eating too after staring at me for a couple seconds. I wish I could see his facial expression, because all I see is a mask. Lunch ends with a fight between Jeff and Jane. BEN had stood up on his chair yelling, "Fight, fight, fight!" and I rolled my eyes too much that I have a headache. I was excused from the table and went to the living room to relax, but was followed by Masky and Hoodie. Hoodie had taken a seat far away from me while Masky sat right next to me. "How are you feeling?" He asks me.
I sigh and position myself of the couch so that I am facing him. "Alright. A little intimidated by everyone here."
He gives me a soft chuckle before facing me in the same way. His elbow is placed close to my head on the couch and both my knees are facing him. We are close, but not uncomfortably close like I thought it would feel. I guess I feel safe with him here. "Is there anything I could do to make you feel better?"
I smile at him and open my mouth to tell him that he has done a lot for me already, but the green nerd came into the room and interrupted me. "NO TOUCHING THE MERCH, MASKY!"
Me and Masky still haven't looked away from each other and I roll my eyes, triggering my headache again. "Did you hear something?" I ask him. He tilts his head and puts his free hand up to his chin, "I thought I did, but it might have just been the old walls creaking."
"Uh, HELLO?" BEN says again, nearing us.
"Yeah, it sounds like the walls." I say back. We both laugh for a bit before BEN pushes us away from each other and sits in the middle.
"Ehem.." Hoodie says from the other couch. Masky looks over to him and says, "Aha!"
"Y/N! Me and Hoodie have to go somewhere for Slender. Will you be okay being here alone without us?" Masky asks me. BEN replies for me with a yes but I shake my head no.
"Don't leave me with him." I tell Masky. He looks over to BEN and pulls him up by his collar and drags him out of the room. When he returns, he is cracking his knuckles. "He shouldn't be bothering you today."
"Thanks! I guess I will hang out with Sally." I tell them. They both look over to each other and then back at me. I remember when I first met them being tied up by Sally. "Or maybe not?"
"Just remember that she is not only a little girl, but a killer. Be careful, Y/N." Masky says, "Though I doubt she will do anything to you. She adores you already."
"Oh? How do you know that?" I ask him.
He shrugs and says, "I asked her about you. She likes you."
"SHE'S NOT THE ONLY ONE." BEN yells from another room. I shake my head and sigh. Masky ruffles my hair and tells me that he has to go and will be back after dinner.
As they both leave out the front door, I let myself sink into the couch, waiting for Sally to be done with lunch. Masky is such a nice guy and I think we will be great friends. He just exudes confidence and friendliness, like a cool guy next door kind of vibe. I wonder what will become of my friendships with everyone.