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Devoured

Chapter 2

The light above them sparked for a moment, twinkling and blinking, startling them both. Unanimously, they lifted their heads towards the fixture, eyes illuminated, darkened, and lit up again, finally: blue, black, blue, and black black black, to each respectively. When the room returned to gray muted tones once more, their gazes met and locked. His was still cold, masked, and stony; hers was bright, inquisitive, and unintentionally revealing. He could see that her insatiable curiosity was eating away at her, gnawing at her tongue, telling it to form audible words. The smile was still there as well, and it irritated him beyond reproach. To him, she looked like a doll spawned from police-scientists. His eyebrows furrowed, causing deep creases. At this, her eyes brightened.

“What’s the matter?” She had a pleasant voice, at least at the moment. At times, she resembled a screech owl, barking out orders to her electric attendants, or reprimanding her parents for invading her lab. He found it odd that the tone she used with her elders was so condescending, so bossy. Such a thing would not be tolerated with the older ones of his society, but then again, none of them existed anymore.

Hopefully.

Switching positions again, she leaned heavily against her elbows, her chin on both palms, her chest brushing against the table-top. One eyebrow was arched in an exaggerated fashion, causing her face to appear lop-sided. The left side of his mouth tugged insistently upward, but he quieted it with a sharp thought. He noticed that her pupils were directly focused on his mouth, specifically that itching side, unfortunately. She was distracted; time for an insult.

“Eyeing my face, are you?” He layered that faux-princely quality heavily upon his voice, allowing the creeping grin to burst into a facetious smirk. Her eyes narrowed, and the smile split like a criminal from an implicating scene. A frown dominated her features now, and cracked her disguise. She was truly and visibly unhappy, since he proved to be a stubborn target.

He removed his hands from his lap and placed them on the table while she withdrew back into her seat. Crossing her arms over her chest, she glared at him, displeased with the only response he had given her in the last five minutes. There she had been, chisel and hammer in hand, at the alleged door of his mind, seemingly making her way through. Instead, she had discovered another wall, and had been deceived. Also, she could not help but chastise herself for becoming too involved in the analysis of his mouth. It came off the wrong way, and she was wary of his thought processes.

She sighed. “I should probably go to bed. What time is it now, anyway?” Rising from her seat, she glanced at the Felix the Cat clock tick-tocking its way through the hours. Like his eyes, Felix had black irises and shockingly-white eyeballs. Her frown dipped farther down her face.

“Eleven-thirty. Jesus.” She feigned surprise; she usually stayed in the lab until two or three A.M. Unfortunately, he knew this.

“That’s not very late for you.” His smirk widened.

She sighed again, this time in exasperation. Not only had her attempt to study this creature fallen flat as a pancake, but he was beginning to understand her too, memorizing her habits, like when she slept, and where she slept, and how she worked. Not anticipating this strange connection between them was an annoying misstep. Irritated, she flopped back down into her chair, slouching. Her hair hung on her face; when struck by the light, it appeared more turquoise than blue. Her hands rested in her lap, red nails glittering.

As for his, they were clasped together on the table, and he was still smiling. She looked up at him and glared. To him, when she pursed her lips, she appeared more violent. He liked that.

“You’re the quiet one now? Should I alert Kakkarot and the others that I’ve actually gotten you to shut up?” His incisors looked sharper in the shade. Ever so slightly, her eyebrows bent upwards in fear.

“Um, no! Then they’d act all creepy and pompous like you,” she retorted nastily.

“I would exempt Kakkarot from that. He’s too stupid.”

Anger took over her face. “What is it with you and Goku anyway? And why can’t you just call him ‘Goku?’ Is it that hard?”

He just kept on smiling.

“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?” Her voice rose to a shrill octave, then dove into the lower scales.

The grin disappeared, replaced with a stern line. “Look, woman, I’m not an idiot. At first you just seemed like a curious young thing that wanted some information to put in a case study of ‘aliens’ or something like that. But you had to keep going and pestering me. I saw you as a scientist, but now I see you for what you really are: another conniving female.”

“I am not that!” she yelled, standing up and slamming her hands against the table and gesticulating, “How dare you! The fact that I even tried talking to you while everyone else stayed away like you were the Plague is amazing by itself! I told you to stay here, since you really don’t have anywhere else to go. Then, you act like I don’t exist. Maybe I just wanted to figure out why you were so distant.”

He was surprised at her reaction. His eyes widened and he pulled his arms defiantly onto his chest. “I don’t like you.”

“But why?! What the hell is your problem?!”

At that moment, they both realized that their guards were down; they had glided past each other’s barricades with ease.

Together, they thought, “Dammit.”