I stared in shock, watching the smoke rising. More people had apparently been teleported out of the building, maybe the nearest ones too—and were standing quite some distance in front of me, staring, hands over their mouths.
A second later, Llewellyn materialized next to me.
"Ryo? What— The bond went weird. And why did the System insist on telep—"
He stopped, spotting the fire.
"Yeah," I said, sensing the question through the bond. "That was my flat."
I felt—
I mean, I was safe, Penguin was safe, and the System had even let me save a few things I cared about. But still! My flat had just exploded!
Llewellyn looked me up and down for a moment, before his shoulders relaxed a fraction. His jaw was still clenched, though.
"What happened?" he said.
I explained briefly as well as I could. Llewellyn frowned.
Penguin chirped from my pocket, pressed against me for a moment, then extended his flippers toward Llewellyn, who picked him up.
Ah, good thing Llewellyn had enough presence of mind to console him right now!
I was a bit… uh. Had it been the Alliance? Someone else? Had my address been leaked online?
Fuck.
For some reason, my mind went to the day I'd bonded with Penguin. He'd ricocheted over all the walls of my flat, hid in an empty mug, waddled around the coffee table, and almost accidentally frozen the whole flat.
I wasn't a sentimental person. My flat had been small and shabby—really nothing to write home about.
Still. Penguin and I had memories there. And now it was gone.
I had to admit… I was a bit rattled.
"You're coming with me," Llewellyn said, in a tone that brooked no argument. "I'm teleporting us back before someone sees us. It's not safe here."
That was probably a good idea.
***
We materialized in Llewellyn's kitchen. Lumos immediately came running toward us, tail wagging.
I exhaled.
I thought about all the rent I'd paid for that flat in the years since I moved in.
Damn, my landlady wasn't going to be happy. And the police would probably be involved, right?
"Hot chocolate?" Llewellyn asked, putting Penguin down, and mercifully distracting me from my thoughts.
…I must be looking bad if he went for that instead of tea.
I patted Penguin and watched him waddle over to Lumos, who immediately started nosing at him.
"Yeah, thank you," I said with a sigh of relief. Honestly, hot chocolate right now sounded great.
I sat down at Llewellyn's massive kitchen island.
While Llewellyn took out the mugs and milk, I retrieved my laptop from my inventory and started looking at rental listings. What should I even look for? Where should I move? The System said it'd pay, so… should I splurge?
"What are you doing?" Llewellyn asked, eyes narrowing.
"Looking for a new place," I said distractedly. "I haven't moved in years, I don't even know what the market is like right now."
The more I thought about it, the more I didn't want to deal with this.
I had stayed in my flat in the first place because packing and moving had felt too troublesome! I supposed it'd probably be easier now since I didn't have furniture or anything else anymore. In fact, I didn't even have clothes! Shit. Wait, I had to go shopping for clothes too!
"Why would you—" Llewellyn said. He sounded upset. No, judging from the bond, he was definitely upset. "Just stay here."
Wait… What?
"What?" I said, my head snapping up to look at him.
"If you want your own room, the guest room is yours, or you could… stay in mine, as usual," Llewellyn said, looking at me for a moment then looking down to pour more milk. His ears had gone red.
Uh…
I closed my mouth.
I mean…
I really, really wanted to.
And— Yes, it was true that we'd bonded and everything, and obviously we'd been through a lot in such a short time. But we'd still only known each other for… what, less than two months?! Was it really— I mean, this was his place. Was it really fine for me to just— I could just find a new flat.
Llewellyn looked at me.
"I can feel you want to say 'yes'," he said, before I could say anything. "So just say 'yes'."
Ah, damn it.
I could also feel that he wanted me to accept.
I shouldn't be so flustered, but this whole thing had caught me off guard.
"I wouldn't ask you to move in if I didn't want you here," Llewellyn added after a moment, looking away. "I was already planning to— I was going to ask you." His ears had gone even redder. "I just thought I should probably wait another month at least, or you'd say no."
Wait, he was?!
I hesitated.
"The System can pay for a new place for me, though," I said, watching Llewellyn put our mugs in the microwave. "You really don't have to… It's one thing if I come here whenever you'd like me to, but—"
"I know the System can pay for it," Llewellyn said. "As I said, I wouldn't ask you to move in if I didn't want you here—I'd just help you find a new place." He sighed. "If you don't want to live here, that's fine. I'm just saying, you could give it a try. This place already has high-level security, so you don't need to set up anything. And you could always look for a new place later on, if you found living with me annoying."
As if. I'd been here long enough to know that there was nothing about sharing this space with Llewellyn I didn't like.
In fact, the prospect was…
I watched Llewellyn cross the kitchen and place my hot chocolate in front of me.
"Then, I suppose I can— I mean, just tell me, in case… you know." I didn't really want to finish that sentence. "That is to say, I… uh… accept. Thank you."
There was a pause. Then…
Wait. The bond had just gone all—
Ah, I hadn't expected Llewellyn to be this happy about it!
He was still close, so…
I reached out and pulled him into a kiss.
Llewellyn let out a noise. He spun the kitchen bar stool I was sitting on around until I was facing him properly, then pressed me back against the marble of his kitchen island, kissing back.
…Damn.
Best thing about this new situation: I was now planning to do this a lot.
"Our hot chocolate is getting cold," I said when he pulled back, but then… I just ended up kissing him again.
"We can heat it up again," Llewellyn said.
Yeah, he was right. Kissing was more important. I slid a hand into his hair and Llewellyn pressed even closer.
Somewhere behind us, Penguin chirped at Lumos.
I knew we should probably figure out who was responsible for the explosion, talk about what had happened with Baugh and whether this was connected, maybe even call the police. And of course I had to let Gran know I was okay, possibly visit her; and we hadn't checked in on Gléonwon in a while. But… this was the best.
Besides, now that I thought about it, one of the priorities here was that—
"I need to go and buy some clothes," I told Llewellyn into the next kiss.