Daniel and Stephen had been walking quietly, because they were hunting, but also because there was this weird tension between them, like it was when they had first met each other.
Both of them had been extremely agitated the whole walk.
Daniel was still mad at Stephen for multiple reasons. First of all because of the fact that the necromancer refused to talk about his past, and second because he had been acting even more hostile then usual.
His grumpy personality had turned more angry and aggressive.
Meanwhile Stephen had a lot of other things to worry about. More pressing issues to face. He was on edge for a reason after all. If Stephen had learned one thing in his life then it was to keep his guard high.
He knew that eventually his secret would be somehow revealed, but he wasn't going to make it quicker.
"Hey Stephen, are you just going to stand there or will you help me out?" Daniel muttered in annoyance, giving Stephen his classical disapproving look.
Stephen only managed a confused stare.
"Help you with what?" He wondered.
Daniel sighed at Stephen's ignorant response.
"Weren't you the one that suggested to hunt and look for food? Might as well help me right?" He reminded the suddenly forgetful necromancer.
Stephen rolled his eyes. "Yeah yeah, I spaced out for a moment, so what?" He grumbled, before scanning the area for animals, or edible plants.
Daniel glared at him once more. "Spaced out? You've spaced out an awful lot lately." He muttered in an accusing tone.
Stephen looked to the side and just shrugged.
Daniel's stare on him never shifted. "One could even think, you're hiding something." He said under his breath, but loud enough for Stephen to hear.
Stephen simply ignored the comment, in favour of pointing to a bush. "Look, there's an animal of some sort in there. I saw something move."
Daniel gave Stephen an unimpressed look. "You really think you can distract me like that?"
Stephen shushed the green haired man quickly. "I'm serious, look." He whispered, pointing at the bush.
To Daniel's surprise, the bush actually shook slightly.
Then between the green leafs, something came forward.
A rather small blue bird jumped out of it insecurely.
Stephen looked at Daniel smugly. "See, an animal. Now let's kill it." He said confidently.
Daniel looked at the small thing with a sceptical frown. "But, that thing is so small..."
"So? It's better than nothing." Stephen answered immediately.
"But look at it. It's so cute." Daniel mumbled guiltily, looking the birds wide amber eyes.
Stephen rolled his eyes. "Wow, so you don't kill cute things huh? That's superficial." He said in an almost offended tone of voice.
Daniel glared at him. "Well sorry, but that thing is obviously too innocent and young to die." Daniel bit back.
Stephen chuckled darkly. "Yeah, I thought you'd say that." He mumbled amusedly.
"What are you getting at?" Daniel proceeded to question, not removing his stare from the small animal.
Stephen took a deep breath before silently walking toward it. Slowly pulling his scythe from it's socket.
Daniel's eyes widened in shock. "Wh-what-"
Before any of them could continue their actions, they heard a loud, high pitched scream.
This startled not only them, but also the small bird, which flew away quickly.
Stephen remained frozen in place. "I wonder, why do we all value the lives of cute or innocent things over those of others. Isn't it unfair?" He said to no one in particular.
Daniel, still confused by the absurd situation, and worried about the scream, walked toward Stephen slowly,not sure what to say. "I guess."
He mumbled as he let his gaze wander to the bush.
As he looked at it from up close, he quickly noticed that a lots of strawberry plants grew beneath it. The fruits looked perfectly fine and edible, they slightly shone in their deep red hue under the moonlight.
Daniel pointed at the plant. "We're not that unlucky." He stated quietly.
Stephen chuckled in response. "Sure. Are we just gonna ignore that scream?" He questioned slightly amused.
"We don't really have a choice. It sounded very far away..." Daniel said uncertainly. "Let's just get as many strawberries as possible and then go back to the place where we'll meet Anne and Hosuh."
Stephen nodded quietly before starting to take one strawberry at a time from the small plants, before putting them into his bag carefully.
His face was contorted into a dark, sort of sad frown.
Daniel kneeled down to join him, sure that something was wrong, but not sure what it was.
He couldn't help but wonder if he was really wrong for not wanting to kill something because of appearance. He did think that everyone was equal after all.
So why was it that he had killed other animals in the past, but refused to kill this one.
He wondered if what Stephen's argument had some deeper meaning to it.
Maybe it had, or maybe it was just one of they're usual little arguments.
They continued their work quietly, until they deemed the amount of strawberries collected as satisfying.
"Alright, let's go." Daniel suggested, trying to get over Stephen's hostile glare.
Stephen shrugged and got up. Not really paying a lot of attention to Daniel.
The green haired man looked at his friend with narrowed eyes, as if he was trying to solve a maths problem.
To bad he had never really been good at maths.
The rest of the road was just as tense and quiet, untill they arrived.
They sat down on opposite sides of the road, as if being closer to each other could end very badly.
Then they waited.
Time went by slowly but surely and Hosuh and Anne had yet to arrive.
Daniel began to worry after some time, constantly connecting the scream from before with his missing friends. He could only hope they were fine.
The silence was at some point interrupted by Stephen sighing audibly, before taking the bag of strawberries and opening it.
"I'm not waiting for them any longer." He announced moodily, before biting into a strawberry aggressively, which to his surprise caused some of the red juice to splatter on his face.
So now the aggravated necromancer sat there with red juice all over his face, looking sketchy out of context, but rather hilarious to Daniel.
Daniel couldn't help but laugh at the sight of Stephen murderously staring at a strawberry. "Hey, Stephen, you got something on your face." The green eyed male provoked the other between laughter.
Stephen's gaze shifted from the strawberry to Daniel, then back to the strawberry.
"Oh really Daniel, I never would've noticed." He said with sarcasm lacing his words.
Then he proceeded to clean his face, which wasn't very easy since he couldn't see were he was dirty.
Daniel smirked. "Need help?" He mocked.
Stephen took a deep breath, as if to stop himself from exploding.
Then his expression changed completely, turning into a wicked smirk.
"Sure Daniel, I'd appreciate some help." He said, smiling in a crazed manner as he patted the spot next to him.
Daniel gulped, but he wasn't going to let Stephen intimidate him like that. Stephen wouldn't win this argument, he wouldn't let him.
So he slowly walked over to Stephen, sitting down next to him afterwards.
Stephen looked slightly taken aback by Daniel's actions, much to the others satisfaction.
Daniel just got a tissue from his pocket and moved it to Stephen's face.
Stephen glared at him darkly. "One wrong move and I'll bite your hand off." He muttered under his breath.
Daniel wore a look of concentration. As if he was going to fight Stephen instead of just helping him.
Then he began to awkwardly clean the other's face with the tissue, not sure how he even got himself in this absurd situation.
Meanwhile Stephen just sat there quietly, shocked that Daniel was actually doing it and rather angry that he didn't manage to scare the other off. Now he would have to go through with this awkward thing or he'd seem even more like a loser.
"I wonder what is taking them so long." Daniel broke the silence between them after a while, mostly to feel less awkward.
"We probably don't wanna know what they are doing." Stephen said suggestively.
Daniel coughed in response.
"Oh c'mon! Why would you say that?! They wouldn't possibly..." Daniel complained, embarrassed.
Stephen smirked, glad that he was finally the head of the situation again.
"Who knows. They're both adults." He stated, trying to make Daniel consider it more.
"Argh, no! Hosuh is so innocent, he would never!" Daniel denied Stephen's theory once more.
"It's always the innocent ones, trust me. They probably had this thing planned and that's why they wanted to go together. They wanted privacy." Stephen continued his narrative, wiggling his eyebrows at Daniel, who wore a look of disgust on his face.
"Stop it Stephen! Those pictures are in my head now, and it's your fault!" The green haired male cried out at the scandalous things Stephen was accusing their friends of.
Stephen just chuckled. "Alright alright, I'll stop." He said, grinning at Daniel's obvious irritation.
Daniel sighed, still blushing as he wiped off the last bit of strawberry juice from Stephen's nose. "You're such a child-" he began to rant, when he was suddenly interrupted.
"Um, am I interrupting something?" Anne asked, as she looked down at them with a rather disturbed expression.
She was really confused.
Why was Stephen grinning like that? Why was Daniel blushing?
But most importantly why was Daniel holding a tissue with a red substance on it near Stephen's face?
The whole scene looked very weird.
"We can...explain." Daniel mumbled with a shaky smile.
Author's comment:
Oh dear, I finally managed to update, sry it took me so long.
I hope you like this rather light hearted, but also foreshadowing chapter!
I'm always out recently, so it's hard to write, I always arrive at home late and go out early in the morning.
Tomorrow I'll have to get up at four in the morning, I'll probably die. But I have an early flight so there's no other possibility sadly.
Alright, that's enough of me ranting, thanks to all of you for the amazing support and bye, girlfriends, boyfriends and none binary lovers!