Not proofread 'cause that's not how I work.

Krystal shifts uncomfortably in her sleep. She feels the grass tickle her leg and she yawns a bit, stretching her legs as she opens her eyes. It’s not very comfortable to sleep on the ground, she comes to that conclusion.

Furrowing her brows, she adjusts to the horrible brightness and grunts in distaste as she sees she was still where she was before—the clearing in the never ending place she had been running from. It’s not like she expected to have magically transported out, but that might have been of some use.

Sitting up, Krystal turns her head a few degrees to the right, and almost jumps back in shock at the rather tall figure standing before her, too close for comfort, staring at her with extremely confused eyes. She decides though, that jumping back would render a weakness, so she chooses to glare at him a bit.

The figure is male, and has very black hair swept to the side, and he wears a plain white shirt with the sleeves rolled up and ripped jeans. They’re not ripped on purpose, it seems.

Krystal sends him a disapproving look as he only widens his eyes and bows his head slightly out of respect, and offers a very dirty hand out for help. Krystal only scoffs and gets up herself, ignoring the man. She brushes off any filth that could have gotten on to her dress, and starts to scold herself mentally for even wearing a dress in the first place, and not bringing some sort of bag.

Still uncomfortable in the stranger’s eyes, she turns completely towards him and places her hand on her hips and lets out a huff.

“What are you looking at?”

The male seems rather uncomfortable as he withdraws his hand and bows once more, releasing a small word or two of apology.

Her eyes boring into his own; Krystal shifts her weight onto her left leg.

“You live in that cottage over there,” Krystal points at the cottage that seemed to have not moved at all, but there was no real reason for it to have moved, “right?”

“Yes…” The male nods and Krystal seems pleased with the answer. “Would you like to come inside?”

She scoffs at his attempt to be nice, though grabs her very heavy backpack of necessities and trudges past him and over to the cottage.

The black haired male follows shortly after; a breathy chuckle escapes his lips as he continues to examine the girl. He deems her worthy. Although she has a bit of an attitude problem (he thinks he really needs to change that), she seems thankful enough.

He runs up to her, catching up and she doesn’t even spare a glance his way. Rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly, they walk closer and closer to the small, comfy little cottage.

He closes the door behind him as Krystal takes off her shoes first by the doorway and proceeds to look around.

It reminds Krystal very much of the story her mother used to tell her and her sister when they were young—Goldilocks and the Three Bears. In fact, it’s almost exactly like that story that it gets a bit odd.

They’re in the ‘main room’, as Krystal would call it. One with just a small table and three chairs (was the male expecting some other people?), and there was a small bowl on the table, and Krystal had to fight the small smile that threatened to turn up on her lips when she looked in it, and it was porridge. There were also cooking utensils and a small stove as well, with a rather normal sized white refrigerator.

Walking around uninvited with her heavy backpack still on her back, Krystal sees two doors; one dark brown, and one light brown, and she also noted that there’s a really small staircase leading to the second floor, wish she could only guess was the bedroom.

She cracks open the dark brown door, only to find a rather cozy looking room with two comfortable looking chairs in it, and then a small stool at the edge of the room. Krystal also notes the television and she hums approvingly—at least now she can catch up on the anime she had been too busy for. Thank goodness he had a DVD player, and she also thanked the fact that she usually over packed, allowing her to bring her multiple favourite movies along.

The male takes a seat where the porridge is and picks up the spoon and places it in his mouth and a small smile appears on his lips. He nods at his apparent porridge making skills, and proceeds to have another bite as he watches the brown haired girl peer into his bathroom.

“Your name,” He voices out, and Krystal whips her head around, brows furrowed in a somewhat confused looking expression.

“What?”

“What is your name?” He tries again, and Krystal sighs in relief, which makes him wonder what she was thinking about.

“My name,” She says slowly but cautiously, still peering around the bright and oddly nice smelling bathroom, “is Krystal.”

“Kai,” The black haired male introduces, and then continues to eat his bowl of very successful porridge. “You can look upstairs as well, Krystal. I have an extra bed if you need it.”

A very offended look paints across Krystal’s features as she folds her arms. “What makes you think I’m going to stay?”

Kai feels the edge of his lips twitch upwards in amusement. “If you hadn’t noticed from your excessive running earlier,” He starts, and Krystal’s eyebrows furrow at the realization that Kai must have been watching her. “There’s really no way out. I don’t even know how you got here, but if you’d like, I have lots of clothes, and I make a pretty good porridge.”

Krystal rolls her eyes and doesn’t reply, but Kai only takes that as a confirmation that she would definitely be staying.

She wanders up the stairs with a curious expression on her face as Kai finishes the rest of the porridge in his bowl, and he stands up to wash it before a voice calls out his name. He recognizes it as the only other person in this house.

“Do I get the bed right at the end?”

“Sure,” Kai calls back nonchalantly as he places the bowl and spoon in the drying rack.

Krystal seems to have a rather light perk in her step as she bobs back down the stairs lightly—Kai notices she doesn’t have her backpack on anymore; she must have left it upstairs. Perhaps that was why she asked.

Oddly enough, she had a small box in her hand.

“What’s that?” Kai asks, following her into the television room. Krystal huffs in reply, but doesn’t actually say anything else.

Kai takes a seat in his rather hard but comfortable chair as he watches Krystal fumble with the box she was holding. It’s a box that contains a small disc, and Kai only sighs as he remembers that the DVD player didn’t actually work.

“Hey,” He mutters to Krystal, who seems absolutely determined to work it. “It doesn’t work.”

Krystal turns around; a triumphant smile plastered across her features as she presses a button and the television starts to play a tune that Kai could only guess was the theme song.

“I have my ways,” Krystal says slyly before slipping into the next comfortable chair, ignoring the small stool at the side.

The theme song nears to an end and Kai looks over at the girl in the previously unoccupied seat. She’s bouncing up and down lightly, mouthing the words to the song with her eyes shut is some sort of concentration.

In big scrawled words across the screen comes the title—‘Daa, Daa, Daa!’

It’s an anime, Kai notices, and the art seems very different to normal, and Krystal leans over to his side in the middle of a scene with a man picking up a phone.

“It’s an old anime,” She says sadly, “but it’s one of my absolute favourites.”

Kai stands up, not liking how he actually has no idea what they’re saying, because he doesn’t speak Japanese. The only up-side to this is that he gets to examine Krystal a bit. She’s rather odd, he notices, as she laughs to a seemingly funny scene.

Krystal’s laugh resembles one of a hysteric hyena, he notices, but it doesn’t throw him off that much; Kai thinks it’s one of her best traits.

“Would you like some porridge?” Kai asks slowly and politely as Krystal slips in the fourth disc. “I make some pretty good porridge, if I may say so myself.”

She turns to him, an unreadable expression on her face as she thinks about it for a while.

“Do you have any strawberries?”

Kai nods. “I’ll put them in if you want.”

Krystal sits back down on the chair, readying herself for the fourth episode. “Be quick—I trust that the porridge will be at least edible.”

Kai closes to door behind him, murmuring a small ‘I promise’ although he knows no one can hear him, and he gets to making the porridge.

Mashing the strawberries is a fun task, he decides, as he mixes the tiniest bit of honey to the mashed up strawberries to create some sort of paste. Kai dips spoon in it and eats a bit, the corners of his lips turning upwards as he thinks of something along the lines of ‘why didn’t I do this before this is amazing.’

He splits half the strawberry paste into each of the two bowls, Krystal getting more strawberries and less porridge, and Kai getting more porridge and fewer strawberries.

Kai opens the door with his knee and walks in, a bowl of porridge in each of his hands as he places the one with more strawberries on Krystal’s lap.

Letting out a small quizzical hum, she picks up the bowl of porridge and eyes it thoroughly before placing a small spoonful in , and Kai can’t help but laugh when he notices it’s more strawberry filled.

Her eyes light up for a fraction of a second before she looks over to Kai with a very fake ‘normal’ expression. It’s obvious she’s pleased.

“I deem it worthy of my taste buds,” Krystal says finally after a few more bites of the porridge, and Kai only chuckles and eats his own. “It’s… decent.”

“You know it’s good,” Kai sing-songs, and Krystal scoffs a bit before her eyes land back on the television set.

Until what seems like around half an hour later, Krystal turns her attention away from the anime.

“How did you get the materials to make this, anyway?

Nonchalantly, Kai answers, “the Village.”

Krystal seems taken aback as she raises an eyebrow, “the Village?”

“Yeah, it’s a complicated system.” Kai begins to explain. “I get my money from cutting logs.”

“Deforestation?!” Krystal voices out, and she gives him a small look of disapproval before he begins to explain again.

“The trees actually grow back to full size in a week.”

“What?”

It’s safe to say Krystal is completely and utterly confused and Kai lets out an airy laugh.

“It’s weird, I know, but it’s like that here.” He continues to explain, and Krystal hums and ignores the fact that the episode that had previously been playing had ended. “I give in ten sets of ten small logs for money every month. I go to the Village every week for new supplies. I just gave in my logs last week, and I just went to the Village a few days ago, but now that you’re here…” Kai looks like he’s thinking and Krystal can’t help but want to go to the Village. “I guess we can go tomorrow. It looks like you’ll need some clothes and other necessities.”

A genuine smile turns up on Krystal’s features as she walks over to take the disc out of the DVD player, and she places in her box of many discs.

She doesn’t say thank you, but Kai actually allows that. He knows she’s somewhat thankful.

“You’re welcome,” He laughs, and Krystal only scoffs and leaves the television room, and Kai swears he hears her stomp up the stairs to the bedroom. “You have to thank me!” He calls out, amused.

“In your dreams!”

Note: Hai. First chapter is up, and I'm actually so, so proud of it. c: I really like Krystal's character, I do have to say.