Lucilfer (ChrolloxReader)

Chapter 36

I stopped dead in my tracks, my body frozen in place as I steadily retracted my hand from the door, balling it into a tight fist. The smug satisfaction oozing off of her in waves was enough to jolt a highly undesirable reaction from me—I wished I could rip that stuck up smirk off of her face so badly, or perhaps do worse, and just land a smooth punch on her high cheekbones to fuck up her pretty makeup. Either way, I had to take several deep breaths, quietly, to keep her from noticing the gritty indignation sparking dangerously in my expression, before I turned around.

I didn't even need to see her face to guess what it looked like—her lips slightly pushed outward, turned up at the edges in a victorious grin, her head tilted down and one eyebrow raised, her hips leaning against the counter. I worked until my last nerve to keep pure bloodlust from scaring away this odious woman, to keep it contained.

The hell is she talking about...?

I couldn't respond for a moment—I crossed my arms over my chest and leaned back against the door. If I was going to be in that bathroom with her, it would be she who was stuck with me. But my mind still scrambled to try and decipher what she could mean by two boyfriends. She couldn't be referring to Kassidy, right? Wasn't it obvious that we were friends? Was I not constantly unfocused around Chrollo and obviously, to the public eye, infinitely in love with him?

"Don't act like you don't know what I'm talkin' about," she scoffed incredulously, her smirk widening—her voice carried a slight twang now, as if she had been covering it up earlier when she served us.

I tilted my head and crossed my arms tighter, my entire body tense as I begged my aura to stay low, to not expose me or Chrollo.

"I honestly don't." I shrugged, my tone disinterested and bored. "If I had to label him as a boyfriend, the man with the pretty face at my table would be him. And he's mine."

Surprise flickered inside her blue eyes, and they narrowed suspiciously, as if she hadn't expected those words to come out of my mouth. Cadence clicked her tongue and giggled, a secret sound, like she knew something I didn't and couldn't wait to break it to me.

Try me, bitch.

"Honey, that man doesn't belong to anybody," she quipped condescendingly, her high-pitched voice disingenuously sympathetic. "Funny that he's lettin' you drag him around on some leash, though."

My face felt hot with fury—she talked about him like she knew him, or at least, who he was. But that was impossible, right? Chrollo's identity was always hidden.

But it's not like he uses another name... and the Phantom Troupe is pretty infamous if you go to the right circles of people.

Perhaps she wasn't one of the ignorant regulars of York New City, the ones who believed the Spider was just some urban legend, some ploy of the Mafia or those in underground services; perhaps she did somehow know him.

I felt my racing heart pick up even faster, my eyes scorching her generic face with as much fire as I could muster.

"What the fuck do you think you're saying?" My voice was kept low, quiet, and it became ever more difficult to suppress the bloodlust building in the pit of my stomach.

Cadence must not have been very perceptive at all; she must have interpreted my anger as some sort of a threatened reaction. Her smirk widened, and she sighed exaggeratedly, leaning her head back as though she were frustrated with me, with my apparent slowness. It was utterly galling.

"Babe, that man? He doesn't run in cutsie little circles like yours," she cooed, the patronizing tone laying thick over every word she spoke.

Honestly, I was a bit confused by her words—she couldn't just get to the fucking point already? Most likely, though, she assumed I didn't know who Chrollo was.