Lire

Hey, there!

I'm really stoked by the decently large amount of attention this story's been getting, despite how little has been posted so far!

As always, this is kind of the first draft, so any spelling/grammar corrections are greatly appreciated.

Your comments also make me happy, so don't be shy to drop by and say something!

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the chapter, and it makes you stick around for more!

= Lire ♪ =

"Uh, maybe I shouldn't be so personal...?" Zayne bit his lip in hesitation as his finger hovered over the part where he wrote about his troubled past. "Fuck it."

In the end, he clicked send. That time of his life was behind him. He wasn't bothered by it anymore, so what was the harm in talking about it?

If Archiver got uncomfortable from that, he'd just apologize.

Not even a minute passed, and Zayne already got a reply.

'What the... isn't that a bit too fast?'

"Well, guess he wasn't put off by it." Zayne smiled as he read through the reply. Then his eyes paused on a part he found strange. "Slightly more work...? What does that mean? Aren't I the one writing the novel?"

Although he found it weird, Zayne just brushed it off.

As for Archiver's thoughts on vampires, he was open to them. He'd gotten subtle hints in the past about including vampires in the story. A lot of hints.

Unfortunately, he hadn't been well-read about vampires at that point in his life. Eventually, he just forgot about adding them.

"Sending something...? Is he going to send money again...? Even though I haven't even written anything yet?" he felt more exasperation than amazement at this point. He wondered whether Archiver was secretly some oil prince from the middle east.

"Zayne. You awake?"

He looked up to see Luna staring at him from the doorway, wearing an oversized white hoodie and yoga pants.

Basically, her home clothes.

"Hey. Done streaming?" Zayne closed his laptop and shifted to sit at the edge of the bed.

"Mm." Luna nodded meekly then sat down beside Zayne without a word. She leaned her head on his shoulder as she asked, "Sorry about your back..."

"Oh." Partly due to the million-dollar donation, as well as conceptualizing his new story, Zayne had forgotten that his girlfriend was in 'apology-mode' at the moment. "It's fine. I'm used to it."

"That doesn't make me feel any better at all." Luna pouted then nuzzled her face on Zayne's arm.

"Hey stop that." he tried to push her off because it tickled, but she wouldn't get off. Zayne sighed in defeat. "I said it's fine."

"But still..." Luna let her body fall sideways, resting her head on Zayne's lap. She then looked up with an apologetic expression.

"You're so annoying..." Zayne couldn't help but chuckle at her antics. He smirked as he puckered his lips and tapped them with his finger.

Luna, understanding what Zayne wanted, sat up and kissed him.

"Again," Zayne whispered.

"Okay." Luna closed her eyes and brought her lips to meet with Zayne's.

"Again."

"Mm."

"... again."

"Yes.♥" Luna kissed him again, letting her tongue do some work this time.

"Alright..." Zayne pushed Luna down on the bed. The light-brown-haired beauty's eyes widened in surprise for a moment, but they were soon filled with anticipation. As her breathing became a bit rougher, Zayne whispered into her ear, "Do you want to make it up to me...?"

Luna wordlessly nodded.

"And you'll do anything, right?" he asked.

"Yes..." she said, breathless, as Zayne's breath tickled her ears.

Zayne kissed her on the cheek and then quickly stood up. "Then please do my share of chores this weekend."

"Okay...-- wait, what?" Luna looked at Zayne's back with a blank expression. After processing what he'd just said, she sprung up and hugged his waist from behind. "Hey, wait. This is the part where we get naked and have lovey-dovey sex, y'know? Follow the recipe!"

"Stop trying to squeeze culinary puns into our conversation. 'Script' would have been a better word there." Zayne chuckled in exasperation. His lips formed an impish grin as he looked at his beloved. "This is payback for forcing me to do it last night."

"Wha--" Luna spluttered as she looked at Zayne with an indignant expression. "You're so petty! And you liked it too!"

"That last part doesn't matter." Zayne shook his head. He had to take revenge for small slights like those. It was his creed that couples should get some payback for small grievances like that, so frustration doesn't build up.

At the very least, the two of them have been doing that for years, and their relationship was still doing well. So it had to have some sense to it.

"Hey, let go." Zayne tried to pry Luna off of him, but her grip was too firm. "No, why the hell are you so strong...? Let go!"

"No!" Luna screwed her eyes shut as she strained to use all her power to get Zayne in bed.

"Whoa!" he exclaimed, just barely maintaining balance. "You fucking gorilla woman!"

"Get back in here! Don't you dare edge me! I don't have that fetish!"

Zayne bit his lip, trying his best to escape but he just couldn't do it. An introvert like him — who only worked out once a week — couldn't compare to someone who regularly exercised and could even bench 1.5 times their body weight when he couldn't even get some proper footing. Since that was the case, he decided to just pull out his trump card.

"Ack! It hurts! My back — which was bloodied up by my girlfriend — hurts~!" Zayne voiced in monotone.

Luna's grip eased up as she looked at him with a gaze filled with utter disgust.

"You're a shitty person."

"Y'know that if our genders were reversed, you forcing me to have so much sex would be a problem in society's eyes, right?"

"I don't mind using double standards to my advantage."

"You're a shitty person." Zayne retorted, walking toward the door. "Thank you for volunteering to do my chores~!"

"Grrr..." Luna gnashed her teeth. Zayne's ploy really annoyed her since she got a bit hot and bothered. She decided to hurl some abuse at him to get some payback. "Get a real job!"

"Wow. Real nice. You know I pay for seventy percent of our bills, yeah?" he scoffed. His creed obligated him to retaliate. "Get back to the kitchen and make me a sandwich!"

"That comeback sucks. I'm an aspiring chef so I'm supposed to be in a kitchen!"

"Oh right..." Zayne bit his lip in frustration. When he ran out of obscenities to hurl that didn't go too far, Zayne decided to beat a hasty retreat.

"Hey come back here!" Luna called out to him in an irritated voice as he ran away.

"Don't wanna!" Zayne flinched as a pillow hit his head and was about to go into his workroom, but stopped when he heard the doorbell ring. He called out towards the door. "Coming!"

He opened the door to find what looked like a delivery man.

'Huh? I didn't order anything... Luna tends to buy stuff in person too.'

"Uh, do you have the wrong place, maybe?" he asked probingly.

"Uh, I got the apartment number and building right, dude." After raising an eyebrow in perplexity, the delivery man hastily glanced down at a list. "I'm looking for a 'Zayne Morgan'. That you?"

"Yeah..."

"Thought so. Can you sign here please?" The delivery man held out a clipboard for Zayne to sign, which he did. The man inspected it for a bit, then smiled. "Thank you for your cooperation."

"Sure." Zayne frowned as he was handed a small package. It was shaped like a book and seemed about as heavy as a dictionary.

Perhaps it was a dictionary? Did one of his readers send him one as a jab, because they found a typo or something?

That couldn't be.

Setting aside the fact that he was sure there weren't any typos in what he released recently, none of his readers should know his address.

He even took the trouble to install a good VPN. He'd done it because some of his readers were creepy bastards and he didn't want those guys knowing where he lived.

As he chuckled over his absurd thoughts, his breath got caught in his throat when he saw who the package was from.

[From: Akasha's Archiver]

"What the fuck...?" Zayne frowned as he looked at the package, not even noticing that the delivery man had left long ago. "How the hell did Archiver know where I live?!"

Package in hand, Zayne ran back to his workroom, closed the door, and rushed back to the computer. He hastily sent a message to Archiver about the package and how the hell they got his address. But even after anxiously waiting for dozens of minutes, no reply came.

"Shit. They did say that they couldn't reply since they were doing something..." he brought up Archiver's last message. "Won't be able to reply till the project starts...? I mean, how would he even know when that is? Like, if I start now, can he reply now?"

Bewildered, Zayne reread Archiver's other messages, and noticed a few more peculiarities.

'I'm getting some strange vibes from these...'

Shaking off his thoughts, he tried to think about the implications of someone who shouldn't know where he lived, knowing where he lived.

'Well... Archiver's obviously filthy stinking rich. Maybe he hired some super hacker to track where my computer's location despite me using a VPN? Is that even possible though...?'

Zayne hastily brought up google-sensei, and looked up whether it was possible.

"Shit! It is! Why the hell did I even buy a VPN then!?" he slammed his fist on his lap. Even though it was apparently very hard to do so, it was still doable. A rich person like Archiver would definitely be able to hire someone to do it for them.

Zayne tapped his finger on the desktop impatiently, thinking about what he should do, but after a few moments, he managed to calm down.

'Well, let's think about it logically. Archiver doesn't seem to want to harm me. Otherwise, he could've sent guys to abduct me. Maybe throw a grenade through a window or something.' he bit his lip as he tried to steady his rapidly beating heart. 'And, I mean... this is just a feeling, but they don't seem like a bad person.'

Once he'd settled down, Zayne took the package into his hands and ripped off the paper wrapping.

As he'd initially expected, it was a thick book. Zayne hesitantly peeked inside and found that every page was completely blank.

"What the... does he want me to write the new story by hand!?" Zayne exclaimed in shock.

The fact that it was troublesome was the least of his worries.

Zayne was well aware of how messy his penmanship was.

'I mean, even if I can draw somewhat well, don't just expect me to have good penmanship!'

Lire

Sorry to those people who love fast-paced stuff. I'm a writer that usually paces the story a bit slowly, especially at the start.

After all, if you don't know much about the characters, you won't care about them, right?

And if you don't give a hoot about them, you won't have any fucks to give when they're in a bad situation, or if they suffer a tragedy.

If you don't care about the characters, you won't be happy when they are happy.

That's my writing philosophy. I'm gonna make you care about them...

And then I'm gonna kill them. Kill them all! Right in front of you!

Of course, I am joking. Naturally, I won't do that to my protagonists...

Anyway, thanks for reading and see you next chapter!