Chương 13: The Olive branch

June's life in the waking world hasn't changed much since his transformation; he hasn't gone outside other than for walking his dog, and he hasn't met up with friends yet. June wasn't a stranger to loneliness; he even embraced his quiet moments and tended to enjoy the solitary feel. His problem wasn't making friends but feeling satisfied with the connections he made. Needless to say, Shade wasn't making it easy for him.

It was a constant game of cat and mouse; he would find her, ask her, and then she would disappear instantly. If anything, he felt like this was some weird hazing ritual that his crew put him through, but hazing or not, a task is a task, well, at least a reasonable one it was.

June wasn't a stranger to becoming friends with people from all walks of life, eccentrics, quiet people, loud people, genuine crazies, even people he thought had a future in the killing business, which was a weird way of saying that he knew a lot of psychos. Anyhow, he befriends most people he meets; he wasn't particularly outgoing, and his social battery, let alone social ability, was terrible.

At the end of the day, June was one of those eccentrics; he was weird in his own ways, but he never really understood why people liked him. His leading theory was that he didn't judge people off of rumors and looks, but he didn't feel like that was something particularly special. His mind was really good when it came to recognizing patterns, well, except for when it came to himself; he was very harsh on himself for the small unnoticeable things, but when it came to other things, he tended to get it quickly.

Needless to say, he was adaptable, incredibly so. This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

At some point he started predicting where Shade would be from looking at her body language before her sudden disappearance; a common and easily noticeable tell was whether she would bend her legs before disappearance, because when she did, it meant she was going to run away from the dormitories outside; if she didn't bend her legs, it usually meant she would disappear and hide around a corner.

Very little bothered June, other than himself; he was able to give others the patience of a saint, so he didn't mind this game of cat and mouse. The longer they played, the more adjusted his body became to it, and the more tells he learned from shades. At a point, June became able to distinguish exact location just from micromovements in her body seconds before her disappearance.

There were common themes; she only disappeared when near shadows, lingered near them, and would only appear in locations where shadows were, so maybe she was travelling through them somehow or teleporting between them. June tried to keep his mind open to any possibilities regardless of how stupid they may have seemed in his head.

After a day or two more of this game of cat and mouse, June felt way more comfortable in his new body; other than the fact that he knew where she was heading just from body language, he also started hearing a faint harmonic hum when he walked by her when she was in the shadows. He asked his other crewmates, but they couldn't hear it, even the ones with the big ears. Another thing his body learned was how to smell tension; his nose gained more than enhanced scents.

He was able to pick up on emotions sometimes, which was nice since he was a bit slow sometimes when it came to socializing; it was a little weird though. He was able to smell her tension and excitement when she hid from him; he was able to tell if she was hiding in the shadows near him from a faint harmonic tune; he was able to figure out exactly where she was going just from micromovements in her body before she disappeared. Her face always remained aloof, but people always had tells.

On the fourth day, June was able to appear in places where she was disappearing to, almost at the same speed as she got there. He had done this charade hundreds of times, even losing sleep from it, even though he woke up well rested regardless. Every time he saw her, he would ask a simple question with his soothing, yet harrowing, voice.

"Can I maintain your dagger?"