“Whatever you’d like.” Rising, I power up the projector, get the mouse to control it, and offer the set up to her. “For you.”
Hesitant, she accepts the mouse and lap desk before looking toward the waking screen behind me. “It’s…a computer?”
“Technically it still would be even if it weren’t hooked up to a tower, but yes.” I settle in with my cookie, unwrapping it and taking a bite. Full sweetness meets me, and I allow myself a moment’s delusion of blissful matrimonial thoughts. I can’t wait for Azalea to be my wife. She’d be a fantastic wife. The best wife, even.
I wonder if there’s any way to easily coerce her into marrying me. I’d like the coercion to be so blatant that there’s still something resembling consent to it. I don’t know. I think it’d be nice if she married me because she wants to, at least a little bit.
But I’m not what anyone would call picky on the matter if an opportunity to arrange our marriage against her will presents itself.
Shortly, fluttery music plays from the surround-sound speakers, and I draw myself out of the delicate cookie bliss, opening my eyes to see what movie she’s picked, but no movie fills the screen.
Instead, something…else does.
“Kaleidoscope Dawn?” I ask.
Smiling—smiling—Azalea clicksStart Game.
I stare at her soft, upturned lips—enraptured—and miss the entire premise of what I believe to be a dating sim.
Her smiling lips move, and I can’t look away when she speaks. “Do you want to play through the true path, or my favorite first?”
I blink, yanking my mind away from the drug that is seeing her smile for the third time, because it’s the first time she’s smiled without thinking of my imminent death. “Sorry,” I murmur. “What, exactly, are we doing?”
“I might be about to torture you.”
Ah, so. She’s smiling in anticipation of my agony. Got it. I still can’t say I’m not a fan of the character development.
She meets my eyes and loses her pretty about-to-torture-my-lover smile. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“You were smiling.”
Her brows knit. “Was I?”
“Yes.”
Calculations trickle through her eyes, analyzing the past few minutes while her thoughts wander. “I think…I thought it’d be funny if you expected me to choose a movie but I picked a dating sim instead. Also, I bought it on your Steam account. I was prepared to download Steam and log in to my own account and everything, because I never expected you to have one already. It was forty dollars. But that’s the price you pay for a fully casted sim.” She sighs back into her smile, snuggling against the white sheet. “And just look at those graphics.”
I do. I look at them. I look at them, and I find a man in dark attire. Deep violet butterflies whirl around him, adding life to the mostly still image. “Who’s that?” I ask.
“Valkhar Grimveil. Unromanceable. Because the developer hates me specifically.”
My heart trembles, and I believe I’m bearing witness to a different side of Azalea, one I’ve never seen before, maybe one spurred on by everything that’s happened tonight. She’s delirious with exhaustion and overwhelmed by confusing emotions. I understand that much. Whether she understands it or not, she’s reaching for a comforting familiar to help regulate her.
She just seems to have forgotten that she’s doing so in front ofme.
Taking a moment, I scanValkhar Grimveilon the screen. The man’s inhuman. Holding a scythe. Covered in ebony armor. There’s an unmistakably evil charm to him. “That’s the character you like?” I ask.
She shrugs. “He’s okay. I just usually like seeing what the villain path offers, so it’s a shame when there isn’t one. I’m not as extreme as some of his fanbase is, probably because I’m less forgiving of the moments when you go down the wrong path and he kills the female lead. Pretty or not, he’s a monster.”
Her attention cuts toward me, and I get the distinct feeling that statement was pointed.
Holding the ire in her eyes, I finish my cookie. “These are really good, for being poisoned and all.”
“Thank you. It’s all in the ratios.”
“How long do I have left to live?”
She hums and advances the story on screen. “Minutes.”
