An unfamiliar white ceiling. That was the first I saw as soon as I opened my eyes in a neat, king-sized bed. Looking to my side, I noticed that the wall was pretty far away and in front of it, stood what I assumed a black kitchen was. At least I saw a few palm trees outside the window, giving me a hint where I was, though I haven’t seen that strangely flat house since my first day of my life there.

“Wow … never expected me to sell myself out for that little.” I mumbled, looking over to my other side towards Aska who laid there with an exposed chest, the back of his head inside his palms.

“Well, you did hold out for twenty two years … and if you hadn’t jumped into the water like a crazy frog, you wouldn’t be here.” Croak, croak. I loved being a frog … but he did have a point there. At least I managed to hold out for twenty two years, which meant I meditated a bit longer than expected.

“You could have stopped me … from jumping into the water, and from what followed afterwards.” I said and looked at him sternly.

“You asked me to never step over that line. And besides, I didn´t want to restrict your freedom to fuck whoever you like.” He said, which made me avert my gaze for a second. He was right, I didn´t want my freedom to be restricted, but he mercilessly exploited the momentarily weakness I showed him.

“… you know that you are an asshole?” I asked quietly, mostly because I knew exactly where this would go.

“Okay, if I restrict your freedoms, you aren’t happy. If I let you do as you please, you aren’t happy either. So tell me, what do I need to do so that everything reverts back to how we were before?” Maybe he should stop being himself … but I was probably asking too much with that.

“Maybe … just maybe stop teleporting other humans here while we fuck?” I asked, sat up and pointed at the ten corpses in the room, brutally murdered by me in various ways. Some had their ribcages open, others were missing a few limbs … my usual murders so to speak.

“You asked me to feel more death though … and you had fun while eating them alive.” I didn´t eat them alive … okay, maybe I did eat one or two hearts which didn´t even taste that bad …

“Could you please stop mentioning my kinky side?” I said while holding my head in shame.

“What is the problem? You enjoyed it.” He said, which didn´t make it any better that I lost control of myself once more.

“Aska, I want to be able to live a somewhat normal live and that includes not going to orgies to slaughter everyone … we need rules.” I stated.

“Oh, so now we are locking our dark side in a closet again?” Yes, I tried. I knew it wouldn´t stay shut for too long, but I had to try if I ever wanted to have a slightly normal life with Mary or someone like her.

“Yes. And if you cannot accept that, I´m back on my own side of the island again.” I stated dryly. All things considered, we needed boundaries. I needed boundaries. 

“Fine … what do you want?” He asked, finally relenting.

“No more orgies without my approval.” I stated immediately. These things were destroying me.

“… so sex between us is okay?” He said, making me flinch immediately. 

“Aska! I´m trying to build a somewhat functioning relationship between us! I am trying to forgive you what you did to me, so could you please stop joking around?” I asked, just slightly furious. In the end, the battle between my love and hatred for him was decided … by my own inability to control myself. I was sure that things would never be like before and that was a good thing, but I also knew I couldn’t hate him forever as long as he would stick to my rules. 

“Okay.” He said, backing off a little.

“No means no.” I said as I didn´t want him to cross any lines I put up.

“I get that.” He said, even though I honestly doubted it.

“No more magic for you except I allow it.” I stated and grinned wryly.

“Fine … wait, what?” He asked in surprise. He was kind of using his magic quite often after all. 

“Maybe you get down from your godly trip that way.” I claimed and glared at him. If I couldn’t reach him, I would just drag him down to me, or at least that was my intention.

“But I am … alright.” He nodded meekly, even though I could see he wasn’t exactly happy with that arrangement.

“And now, let us talk about what we want from each other.” I said, laid down again and nested my head onto his shoulder.

“Hmm?” He asked, pulling up the duvet until it reached my shoulders again.

“I want you to cuddle with me like we did in purgatory. Like … when I read a book and leaned onto your chest … these were beautiful times.” I admitted.

“I want you to cook … and someone needs to clean as well.” I wasn’t his housewife, that was for sure … but if he would do all the other stuff, I wouldn’t need to worry about that.

“If you do the dishes and you throw these corpses out into the ocean.” I asked slowly, while thinking of how I could avoid getting crazy like the time before.

“What about other intimacies?” He asked and pulled me closer to him.

“I am surprised that food is higher on your list … fine, as long as it isn´t getting out of hand.” I said and grabbed his hand wandering downwards. It definitely would get out of hand if I let him do as he pleased …

“Yay! Washing clothes?” He asked after trying to gently wrestle his hand free.

“Do you expect me to do anything with water after this massacre?” I asked and finally rolled off him only to step onto a foot as I tried to stand up. A bit disgusted, I kicked it away from the bed and turned around to him once more.

“Okay … you clean up the rest though.” He said while I hopped off the bed and threw the dress that miraculously survived over my head. 

“… we sound like a married couple.” I answered and turned around awkwardly. 

“Uff … well, I am not that interested in being your second husband though.” He said nonchalantly and finally stood up as I walked towards the kitchen while avoiding all the puddles of blood.

“Fair enough … let´s clean this up, shall we?” I said as soon as he was finally dressed in a bloody suit as well. After rummaging through the shelves a little, I found a rather interesting blue bucket out of a strange material and opened the faucet to let water flow into it. While Aska was dumping all the corpses into the nearby ocean, I was running through the strange house while swinging my mop around wildly. Truly, this was the first day where we started to live together again and honestly, I felt a bit happy about that … and I also wanted to stab Aska to death.