"What the hell are you doing in my room?"
The air in the room was cold and stiffening to the bones as Kirin stood by the door, his dark brooding gaze fixed on the unwelcome guest's moving back.
The mental strain incessantly grinding at his nerves was enough to place him in an incredibly irritable mood and now, just when he could finally afford a moment of rest, he just had to find a detestable someone invading his personal space.
It was the final straw and Kirin finally exploded.
"Get out, NOW!"
Kirin bellowed, black lines crisscrossing his pale complexion. For a short second, Shion seemed to have frozen, his back visibly straightening as if frightened before he slowly turned around to reveal a seemingly unaffected expression.
Once or twice was enough to raise his alerts but, to be faced with the other man's extreme mood swing for the third time, it would instead be rather unrealistic to expect the slightest hint of a surprise from a master of adaptation like Shion.
"What am I doing in your room?" Instead of heeding to the man's pressuring command, Shion had instead repeated his question in a slightly playful manner.
"I don't know." He shrugged. "You tell me. All the house tours and other stuff. Aren't you the one who offered me yourself and brought me into this room?"
'Is that what really happened?' Kirin stilled, the flames raging within him gradually residing as clarity returned to him.
'Right, this must be all because of the default mode and its lousy decision-making.'
The default mode was a self-functioning mode that allowed his body to function like a normal human just without the thought and mind of one – able to speak but not much and definitely not for long, able to completely abide to commands and perfectly complete tasks just with the little minus of being inflexible, and able to build up its own routine through muscle memory but not before surfing the internet and taking reference.
All in all, despite its glaring weakness, it was indeed a very convenient mode especially in case of emergency.
One more to note was, although building muscle memories were possible, the default mode couldn't contribute any memory of what had happened in the host's absence, most oftentimes leaving the host lost and troubled after the takeover.
That was why, in efforts of filling in the blank spaces, Kirin could only try to recall the moment before he left the body to its own device.
At that time, because he was in a hurry to deal with the rampaging demon outside, he had only left one mission to the body and that was to stop the oblivious Shion from leaving the perimeter of the house no matter what.
So, the terrible idea of touring around the house and even bringing an OUTSIDER into his undoubtedly restricted room must be the rotten fruit of the default mode's lousy way of convincing Shion to stay.
When he reached this point, Kirin realized that he couldn't really blame the matter on anyone else other than himself and his bad luck.
In hopes of turning back the tides, Kirin softened his stance and attempted to convince Shion, "That's strange — I don't recall ever saying that. You know what? You must've heard it wrong! A misunderstanding. It's all just a misunderstanding! Now, leave before we both get into trouble!"
But, Shion didn't listen.
Gliding past Kirin's stretched out arms, Shion wandered deeper into the room with curiosity brewing in his eyes, ignoring the man's shouts of protest.
When compared to the rest of the Dormitory that was designed to be both traditional and homey with all the natural woods patching up the whole place, Kirin's bedroom was at best described as simple and monotone – bare minimum furniture, mute warm colour tone, and dim yellow lighting that could only be detected from behind the ceiling beams.
If Shion had to point one thing that caught his very eyes the moment he entered the room, it would undoubtedly be the massive painting of the mountains and seas covering the entire surface of the wall across the door.
The detailed drawings and bright colours painted an incredibly vivid image as if it was the real deal, but what had attracted his attention the most was the pitch-black figure encroaching at the foot of the mountain.
The figure didn't seem to be one belonging to a human, its head strangely-shaped with three pairs of arms connected to the torso and even a pointy tail.
Shion's eyebrows unknowingly furrowed. Something about the figure somehow unsettled him. He just couldn't put a finger on what it was.
Shion blinked and blinked.
'Was it always in that position?'
His careless thought sent shivers down his spine. Shion forcefully removed his eyes from the black figure, his gaze darting around without any aim before they settled on the messy papers strewn across the table.
Basked under the warm yellow glow emanating out of the table lamp, the rows after rows of curly pitch-black characters on each paper seemed to have a life of its own, twisting and turning as if riding on fierce waves.
Shion's interest was instantly riled up.
"Is this a curse you're writing? It's quite menacing to the eyes." He took the papers to his hand, gawking at each strange character in amazement.
"It's an English phrase I copied out of the textbook."
"..."
The surrounding temperature seemed to have dropped a few degrees as Shion stared at the paper again, reciting in difficulty.
"It's adding insult to injury, you idiot! Do you not know english?" Kirin's face instantly darkened.
Whether Shion was acting dumb on purpose or not, Kirin didn't care as whatever the guy did, his eyes would automatically filter them as a fault. That was just how intense his dislike was towards the guy who happened to be a head taller than him…
Undoubtedly, Kirin was extremely unhappy, but so was Shion. Being called an idiot over and over again wasn't a good experience after all.
"Excuse me? You sure you can call this English? Oh I beg to differ."
Shion crossed his arms in an effort to show his aggression, his proud expression practically begging for a punch in the face.