Murder.

Murder most foul. 

Your thoughts were up and running before your eyes had even opened, but even in the gentle twilight between sleeping and waking, it would seem as if your subconscious and your waking mind were in one accord. 

You were going to have to kill your neighbor. 

Tonight was supposed to be the first night of actual sleep that you were going to have since midterms started two weeks ago, but thanks to your absolute darling of a neighbor, that soft, dark bliss was currently being denied you, and here you were up and disgustingly conscious and not only that—but thinking in Shakespearean quotations, of which you had sincerely had enough, thank you very much, within the last two weeks of English lit midterms.

The roaring whine of the vacuum cleaner grew closer, and your eyes shifted upward as you tracked its movement.  He was lucky.  If looks could kill—and shoot through ceilings…and floors—then he would so totally be dead.  What sane person needed to be that clean?!  On what planet did a mess absolutely have to be handled at—pausing in your mental rant, you realized that you couldn’t quite get your back into it since you weren’t sure of the time, which was admittedly necessary for dramatic effect, so you rolled over and checked your phone (3am)—at 3 am IN THE MORNING?!

Suddenly, the vacuum was turned off, and you relaxed slightly, giving the ceiling a baleful look.  “Better had have,” you muttered to yourself, turning over and pulling the blanket up to your neck as you snuggled further into your almost obscenely soft, fluffy covers.  “I’m so sorry bed,” you mumbled sleepily.  “I’ve been neglecting you, right?”  You patted it gently.  “Don’t worry now, unnie’s here…”

Your bed remained silent, but you know that it appreciated your sleepy sentiments—it was just playing coy, as per usual. 

Just as you were drifting back off to sleep, something overhead loudly thumped, jolting you back into wakefulness and well really, that was just it, wasn’t it?  Flailing madly against the weighted blanket, you gracelessly floundered your way out of bed, tumbling in a tangle of limbs and fluff before fighting your way to your feet, panting in the dark.  And then…

And then…

The vacuum…

Restarted.

By the time you were marching your way up the stairs, you were already formulating a plan to end your neighbour’s life—it’s not murder if there’s no body, you thought darkly—but a wrench was being thrown in the works by the fact that you had no idea what he looked like.  All you knew is that he was male, from the muffled whubwhubwhub of his voice when he spoke on the phone.  Still, even if you had to climb him like a man-mountain, you would scale that peak, just to pop the inconsiderate head from his unworthy neck.

Silently slipping from the stairwell like dark death in yummy sushi pajamas, you made a beeline for his door, and lifted your fist.  Thinking better of it, you caught yourself just short of flinging yourself at his door knocker.  After all, if you did murder him, then you’d have to stay awake; cleaning after yourself, having a glass of chocolate milk to calm your nerves, disposing of the body—it would be a whole thing, whereas if you could just convince him—nicely (you chuckled manically at that)—to cease and desist this inconsiderate and frankly, treasonous, noise pollution, then maybe you could still catch a few hours before the sun rose, thus ensuring that you could rise and shine your normally bright and delightful self.   Okay, this was fine, you were fine--you could do this. 

Knocking like a normal person, you heard a muttered curse under the sound of the vacuum cleaner and no, absolutely not, you could absolutely not do this—how dare he?  How dare he have the unmitigated gall, the unparalleled temerity—the unequivocal cheek—to act as if your knocking were inconveniencing him?  The vacuum cleaner whirled to silence and you cracked your knuckles in preparation for the fray, leaning your neck first from one side, then the other—always stretch before sudden bouts of the ultraviolence.  Leaning your hands against the lintel posts, you inhaled--just as he opened the door--in order to give yourself enough fuel to vent your spleen, but instead all you got was a lungful of clean, sharp cologne, underscored by the softest, warmest musk, and a faceful of black tee-shirt clad chest.

Closing your eyes in a bid to keep your patience—how dare someone so rude smell so good—you canted your jaw to the side in irritation.  “Yah—“  …was about as far as you got before you were being grabbed by the wrist and pulled inside in a flurry of panicked, whispered gibberish. 

It’s a trap! was the only thought that you were able to formulate as you were being dragged over the doorpost and into an—unsurprisingly—clean living room.  This was it.  This was how you died.  Your neighbor was some sort of serial killer and he drove his victims to uncontrollable fits of illogical fury, causing them to confront him and then—ppang—he has them and it’s wham bam, I feel like the other white meat tonight. 

You hope that you gave him high cholesterol. 

Closing your eyes, you could only hope that he made something nice—tasteful—out of your skin, instead of just eating it like some sort of colonialist savage, because you had been particularly assiduous lately about keeping it well-moisturized--which frankly was the most boring activity ever--but you would be utterly enraged if all that hard work were to go to waste just because some philistine of a serial killer couldn’t see quality when it spat him in the eye. 

Busy internally monologuing, it took a moment to realize that he was talking to you in an urgent, desperate whisper, and the moment you shifted to concentrate on his voice you immediately wished that you hadn’t because whooo boy, Mississippi hot dang, the deep, rich, husky, pleading sound of his voice pouring itself into your ear was enough to make you start worrying for his safety.  If he kept sounding like that, then he would find himself tied up in your basement.

And you didn’t even have a basement.

Finally, however, what he was saying reached you, and you paused in your illicit fantasies of making him vacuum the basement for years on end, to act