MANIPULATED Book A (Sequel to Tempted)

2. Questions

The two of you walked back to the apartment as you finished eating the rest of the crushed cookies. Even as your mouth was full of sweet crumbs, your mind was filled with confusion.

Why did you react to the bird the way you did? That wasn't like you. Again, normally you would be crying your eyes out with tears of holy water. But you push this aside.

As soon as you get home, it is almost completely dark out. Before you walk in, Anti says he has to leave again for the night. You nod, still filled with wonder, then he glitches into the night, leaving you alone in the darkness. 

The next morning you awake to the smell of breakfast. As you walk downstairs, you find Anti standing at the stove cooking bacon and some eggs he stole from the market. You remember when he brought them home, as an apology for never repaying you for crushing your eggs more than once. And you remember being angry at him for stealing them, but you actually just accepted it and gladly eat them. Nothing about it bothers you that you are eating stolen eggs. Sort of odd. But not really. 

As you and Anti eat at the kitchen table, you see him staring at a single piece of bacon intently. As if he is trying to make it burst into flames with his mind. 

"Anti...?" 

He doesn't move. He just keeps on staring at his plate. 

"ANTI!"

He jumps in his seat, being shocked back into reality. He looks at you as if your eyes have started to bleed. 

"What?" He asks urgently. 

"You dozed off... I... was wondering if you were okay." 

He takes a breath and relaxes a bit. "Yeah... I'm fine. Just tired."

"Where did you go last night?" 

He picks up his fork and picks at picks at the food. "I've told you, (y/n). You shouldn't ask questions. It doesn't matter." 

You just nod and clean up your plates. "Right."

After putting them in the sink, you say, "I'm going to record a video now. You... wanna come?" 

He looks up at you and says still sort of zoned out, "Sure. It'll get my mind off things, I guess." 

You give a small smile and go to set up to record. Anti later walks in as well. Ever since you've given in to him, he has no longer needed to be in the recording room to watch you record and monitor you, but you actually sometimes ask him to stay in there with you. Sometimes it's just nice to have him in there with you to give you company. And he doesn't mind. In fact, he sometimes just walks in while recording, and when that happens, you just cut out the part where you look over at the door smiling. Today you decided to play a game where you have to protect your home base by killing enemies before they see you. 

You live stream it because today you just feel exceptionally lazy for you to edit. So you make sure Anti keeps quiet as he sits cross-legged on the table across from you with his chin resting on his hands. 

As you record, you can hear him giggle silently when you die, and you give him a look that says shut up or you'll blow your cover, and he then returns back to his dazed look. It really does make you wonder if what happened last night has anything to do with why he is acting like this. It must. 

Once you finished the live stream, Anti just goes off into his room to do whatever, and you decide to watch some YouTube to catch up on some videos you've missed. (Which is a lot.) 

The day is already almost nearing its end, so the sun is going down. And Anti is still quiet. This is the most quiet and distant he has ever been from you. As you plop yourself on your bed, you first listen for Anti, and you hear shuffling. So he's fine. Maybe he just wants to be alone. Understandable.