酷视

\'I\'m not sure if the walls have ears or not.\' This sentence was simple to understand, even if someone didn\'t know how walls could have ears.

I wasn\'t sure about something. And there might be someone\'s ears here, ones that we couldn\'t see. Even without knowing the exact meaning of what this sentence entailed, Fay could pretty much guess it.

And just like I expected, after giving me just a short glance, she pursed her lips and silently followed me to the bedroom.

Once there, I closed the doors before rolling down the window covers, just in case. Knowing how little I knew of the technology that rich people had access to, I dared not to assume Makary didn\'t send men to some high building half the city away with optical equipment potent enough to peek into my penthouse.

And as long as he could see my lips moving, it would take a simple request to a specialized AI to turn the video into a text that the artificial intelligence could easily deduct from the movement of my lips.

\'Am I growing paranoic?\' I asked myself while unpacking the simple yet insanely expensive device I bought in a specialized store back at the city\'s center.

It was only capable of a single task, described by the very name it bore.

"Jammer Master five thousand," I read out the name while rolling my eyes. "Whoever came up with this name shouldn\'t be given any raises..."

For how expensive this item was to get, its control panel was perfectly intuitive. But for something designed for amateurs to use, this was a given.

"What is it?" Fay asked, approaching from the side... but rather than just walking around to get a proper look, she rested herself on my back and looked from over my shoulder at the few buttons I was messing up with.

"It will cast a protective barrier. As long as it works, we should be safe to talk here," I explained shortly as I finished setting the device up and smashed the power button.

At first, nothing really happened. It took me a while to suddenly notice a distant noise that grew in strength with every passing second. A weird buzzing of sorts that sat right on the edge of the frequency I was able to perceive.

It was pretty damn unpleasant to constantly hear it right at the verge of my perception. Judging from Fay\'s lips twisting in discomfort, she could hear it as well.

"BEEP!"

With a simple sound and the change of the color of its main diode from yellow to green, the device announced it was now operating in full swing. Yet, giving in to my paranoia, I pulled out my phone and tried giving Makary a call...

"The number you\'ve called cannot be reached. Please, try..."

I ended the call before the automatic secretary could even finish its usual advice. And as I looked down at the screen, the lines describing the quality of the connection between the phone and the global network were now all gone.

"I guess it works," I muttered, only for an ugly grimace to follow up on my lips. "Well, that\'s assuming we are only talking about wireless devices. If they installed some prewar, analog tech..."

I took a deep breath and rolled my eyes.

\'As if!\'

Makary simply didn\'t have enough time to organize such an elaborate plot.

First thing first, prewar equipment, thanks to its insane resiliency, went for extreme premiums on a black market. And with the addition of how desperate every military across the entire world was to recover as much of it as they could with some new wars in their blood-stained minds...

\'I don\'t think he could get his hands on a military-grade wire that quickly. Not when he took just a single day to rent this place out!\'

The military grade was the main problem that I was worried about. The civilian stuff, even of the highest grade, my jammer would make a quick work off.

"Now then, let\'s talk business," I finally opened my mouth, moving the buzzing device to the corner of the room. Yet, rather than turning to Fay, I grabbed her hand and brought her to the bed.

"Is this what you wanted to..."

"No, we are just going to pretend," I cut into Fay\'s words. My face twisted in a displeased grimace. \'Isn\'t my paranoia progressing too quickly?\'

Once again, Fay didn\'t require an understanding of the matter to just obediently follow my requests. And when we got into the bed, cuddled close together while hiding our bodies under the sheets...

I was finally willing to risk it.

"First thing first, that disgusting aura. Do you have any thoughts on it?" I whispered my question.

Fay shifted around a little, all for the sake of pulling her head far enough to let me see her slightly bewildered expression.

"I assume all the weird stuff you just did was to stop others from listening in on us," she whispered back, only for her eyes to twitch a little as a small, slightly troubled smile appeared on her lips. "Right, I kinda let the heat get to my head and I failed to properly explain how I see aura back then..."

Fay\'s cheeks covered up in a slight blush when she recalled the intimate escapades of the day before.

"Let me guess," I muttered, killing the excitement I felt when I recalled those events myself. And after giving it some thought... It became pretty obvious. "You are able to read someone\'s intentions by reading their aura? Or maybe their desires?"

Instead of answering, Fay closed her eyes and cuddled back into my chest.

"I\'m not an expert," she whispered a moment later. "And mom told me my way of feeling auras is special, not how Celestials nor Divines feel it. For me, one\'s aura is just as real as their body," she revealed. "And right now, I can tell just how terrified you are for my sake."

For a moment, Fay simply rubbed her forehead against my chest. story-by-MvLeMpYr

"But when I sensed that awful aura on your aunt and its much weaker version that appeared along with that former mate of yours..."

"She was never my mate," regardless of how important of a topic it was, I wasn\'t going to let this misunderstanding slide. "I\'ve never done it with her. Or with anyone else for the sake of precision. You were the first woman I\'ve ever laid with."

I had no idea whether, in Fay\'s words, they attached the same importance to one\'s first time as people still did on earth. But I wasn\'t going to take the risk of letting her keep this misunderstanding.

"It\'s okay," even though I couldn\'t see Fay\'s face, I could tell she smiled.

\'Is this what she meant by feeling one\'s aura?\' I thought for a second.

"I wouldn\'t mind either way, but..." she hesitated for a second... only to pull herself even closer into my embrace. "But for some reason, it still makes me feel happy."

For a moment, we continued to cuddle. And then, right as I started to feel drowsy, my dearest decided to drop the bomb.

"You know, now that I think about it, that awful aura we saw on your aunt..." Fay hesitated for another moment. "It was pretty much the same as the aura I saw on you when you first came to my world."