Payment

Parasite

Note: Rewritten but not triple checked for spelling and grammatical errors. If you see one feel free to comment

I stared out the window, torn between two different feelings. A part of me wanted something to appear, to pop out of the dimming scenery and grab me, dragging me away to nothingness. Not in some horrific way, no pain. I was simply exhausted from all the questions pounding at my brain. But the other part of me wanted to return to the castle as fast a possible and demand answers behind closed doors. I knew I couldn't do it here. Though we had a private suit, the train was bustling with people, bursting from the seams with footsteps down the hall and voice leaking in through the walls. We didn't have any privacy here. And I wasn't even sure I had the courage to demand anything from them. 

Parasite. 

I closed my eyes to my own thoughts. My eyes felt hard, like rocks laying beneath my eyelids. It was so irritating but I didn't even have the energy to confront my discomfort. I simply sat there, silent, and ignored it.

The door suddenly opened, abrupt and loud. My eyes snapped onto Kana's form filling the doorway. She was exasperated, in a rush. She looked around the cabin with a pinch brewing between her brows.

"Where's Dominik?" She huffed.

He was gone. I was sure I hadn't fallen asleep. How could I with this pain throbbing through my mind. But admittedly when I stood, sweeping the small space we had been occupying and even down the hall, I find not a single trace of him. There was no dip in his bench from where he had been sitting. Placing the back of my hand to it, it was cold. The darkness looming in from the window seemed to seep into me and instill a panic.

Without a word to Kana, I set out down the hall, opening any and every door I came across. Many people were sleeping, their lights put out long ago. I even happened upon a couple wrestling beneath a sheet on the floor. But no Dominik. 

Parasite.

I hadn't noticed he had gone because I was so focused on myself. These questions that bothered me could so easily be spoken but I decided to be a coward and dwell on my helplessness. 

Throwing the door of the car open, wind rushing in to dishevel my hair and whip me in the face, I ran to the dinning car. It was the only place he could be that made sense. I pushed through people, past tables and smoke. It was thick like fog and made me cough. And when it cleared, as if guiding me to where I needed to go, I found a familiar back hunched over at the bar.

My heart settled a little, my legs not as hasty to throw me forward. He looked so natural there, hair tied back, glass of dark liquor chilling in his grasp like an extension of his arm. The scene was just as dark as his feature, making him blend in. If I hadn't been looking for him specifically, I may have even passed right by him. Dominik wasn't one to blend. He always seem to stand out amongst any backdrop. But here, he was in his element.

So, quietly, I slid into the seat beside him. He didn't have to look at me, nor did I at him. 

"Bring me two." He flicked his fingers at the bartender, downing the rest of his drink. "Make it neat."

Parasite.

We remained silent. The only sounds between us was the fixing of his belt around my waist and the tucking of fabric as I made sure I was properly covered.

The bartended slid up two crystal glasses of what looked like tea. It was thick, rich looking with a strong aroma. Stinging my nostrils, I rose the liquid to my mouth and mistakenly took a slow sip. Like fire it burned right through my throat and chest. I didn't spit it out, though. Rather, I choked it down and took the momentary beating before I felt a lightening to my burdened mind. It instilled a numbing sensation that sent my head straight into a cloud.

Dominik's gentle laugh sauntered through his lips, slow and sensual. It was like a breath of fresh air, a proclamation that everything was and will be okay.

A laugh of my own, mixed with a long blown sigh, left my chest like fire. My hands came up to touch my face, to rub out the stress lines that had begun to form around my features. It was sad how worked up id gotten over something that hadn't even fazed us yesterday. 

"What in the world happened today?" I took another sip of the poison in my glass and turned to finally look at him.

He was peering into the spinning liquid, his lower lip caught between his teeth. There a red flush to his face. Much like a blush, it caressed across his checks, not too dark, but just noticeable. 

"Lets say you got attacked my a hypnotist." When he looked me straight in the eyes I saw how impaired he was. Id only ever seen my father that way a handful of times. 

He wasn't like my father though. Dominik didn't seem angry in the least. In fact, he rose a hot hand and pressed it to the side of my face affectionately and gave a slow breathy sigh. He turned his entire body, legs and all, so that they pressed up against mine. 

"I don't want to talk about Giovanni though." He hummed at my face. "Lets talk about something different."

"Like what?" I stared in his eyes as open as a book. 

"You. I want to talk about you." The hand that touched my face slid and moved like a caterpillar, tickling my skin until his thumb pressed to my lips. "You have a beautiful back."

I nearly choked on my breath, smitten with his drunkenness. He was so blunt, so straightforward and so beautiful. This side of him suited him the most. Not the drunken looseness, but the lack of barriers. There were so many secrets locked up in his head, as long a list as the bylaws. I knew that it drove him mad, just as it did me. It ate away at his mood and made him into the brute he pretended to be towards others. I wondered what made me the exception to that backlash. 

"That's not the only thing beautiful about you though." Noticing my expression he laughed at his own dispense. I think he was starting to realize how far got he had ventured into the bottle without me having to spell it out for him.

"Beautiful?" Setting down my glass, I steadied him at the shoulders, pushing him upright. "I don't know about that, but-"

He cut me off with the stiffening of his body. The soft press of his hand turned hard, grabbing at my head and forcing me to look at him and focus.

"You are beautiful, Roza." I saw the light lit behind his gaze. It was honest and bleeding with emotion. It shocked me more than his words.

I didn't know exactly how to respond. I knew he meant it but it couldn't have been true. My whole life id been told otherwise. And as I helped him stand and return to the cabin, I took one last look behind us, at my still full glass of top shelf liquor. It probably cost more money than I had made in my entire existence.

Parasite.

No matter what he said, I knew very well how ugly I was.