She huffed a deep sigh after finishing reading aloud.

She looked out the window.

"It's already gotten late. You must be tired, right?" 

Not particularly, I would've said, if it wasn't a rhetorical question.

She closed off the door, turned off the light and laid under the covers next to me. 

"Goodnight, sweet dreams."

"You too."

I got a full view of her figure before me, her pyjama being rather liberal with the amount of skin it shows. Not to mention how thin the fabric is. Does she wish for me to touch her? Most likely. Do I want to? Somewhat. Am I going to? Very doubtful. 

There are much greater priorities than self gratification, and much at stake. I have to act quick and proper. Waiting until it looked like she fell asleep, adjusted breathing, irresponsive to sound and touch, I sneaked up to the bedside, and headed out the room.

Instead of changing clothes, I just put on a jacket before heading outside.

"Likely the usual spot."

The dock we often used to go to, the place which gave me my most loyal customers for years to come, and the place where my interest was finally brought into fruition.

My 'friend' is the one to give me the opportunity. We don't even like each other much, but are bound by our fates. As parnert in crime, we rely on each other codependently. At this point, I'm not able to tell if it's out of our own volition, or out of paranoia.

I went for a walk there. My attire wasn't very proper, the chilly night wind made me shiver a little. My legs felt somewhat cold. I have experiences harsher conditions however, many of those being directly my fault, so a little breeze isn't going to stop me.

I need to get the materials much more than anything. The are a lifeline of mine. Without them, I would live as if my hands are tied behind my back.

The sacrifices needed aren't even close to overwhelming the potential capacity of improvement. All I need to make sure is that the vessel can stabilize. In theory, given a safe environment, they should be able to survive for longer than 40 hours, at the very least.

I quickly arrived at the dock, and saw a sillouette standing far away, covering his face with his hood, sunglasses and a mask.

"You're ten minutes late." He said.

"Sudden intervening." I replied.

"I got the... things, pay up."

I handed him 25000 yen, the usual price for this size, and grabbed the oversized rucksack from him. He complained at me in return.

"Seriously, how have you still not been arrested?"

"In contrast to you, I calculate my decisions thoroughly."

Well, that was a bit of a lie, I just like to annoy him a bit.

"...Yeah yeah, whatever you say you pretentious ass. Get the hell out of here, you look extremely suspicious.'

Too bad he didn't bite.

"Farewell, then. I will contact you later." I replied back courteously, and left.

I returned back to my new home, and opened the bag in the backyard. 

Rats, a cat, birds, good collection.

He also set an internal cooling system, how considerate.

I can definitely work with this.