Chapter 35.

Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep...

“Hah! Haaaah! Haaaaaaaah!”

Holy shit! It was just another nightmare?! Without looking, in a panic I felt myself up and confirmed everything on my body was where it should be and I realized there was nothing missing.

Thankfully for me, right before a new sort of trauma was about to be engraved deep in my heart, the alarm I set earlier came to my rescue. It was the first time my alarm had come in with the clutch play; lately it had really been dropping the ball on me, but not this time. Thank you my good man, Mr. Alarm. If you weren’t an inanimate object, I’d surely treat you to a meal instead of that scary boss of mine.

When I raised my head-

@$$#01€!

The nightmare was scary enough, yet I nearly had a heart attack the moment I woke up from it as well? It was naturally the last person I wanted to see after a nightmare like that.

“You scared the crap out of me!”

“What’s wrong Mr. Sleepyhead Genovese? You look pretty pale right now. Did you have a bad dream while you were sleeping on the job again?”

“Are you a cannibal?”

“Cannibal? Me? Hahaha. Was that what you dreamed of? Mr. Genovese what kind of lewd, perverse dreams are you having about your boss?”

“I’d like to know that as well. You literally ate me alive.”

“Well, if you want me to eat you alive, you’d have to woo me first.”

“No thank you, I have zero interest in becoming food.”

“What was it you dreamt about exactly?”

“Well… I’ve been having these weird dreams lately. When I’m in those dreams they’re so real that often times I can’t tell when any of it is for real or not.”

“Were you just trying to rip off a line from a certain video game?”

I was surprised she caught onto it and I couldn’t help but ask, “you’ve played it too?”

“I never had the chance to play it, but I did watch gameplay for it. I loved the intro song from it and I played it on repeat endlessly when I was younger.”

The bad sentiment from my earlier nightmare was suddenly swept under the rug like nothing happened; my eyes even brightened up a bit when I heard her follow up. The moment I found out she liked something I liked back in my childhood, it really put me in a much better mood. I found that I was honestly a bit happy to a certain extent. How can I possibly let myself be such a simple minded idiot and forget about how I was just eaten alive? Ugh. But none of it was real in the end. I can’t judge someone just because I had a misguided nightmare involving them.

“I loved that song as a kid as well.” I decided to be honest about it instead of trying to forcefully go against the flow for a change.

“Oh? We actually have something in common?”

“You’re giving me- complete the lyrics to prove you’re not trying to pull the ‘me too’ card Mr. Genovese.”

“-too many things lately, you’re all I need. You smiled at me and said.”

She followed up the lyrics with, “don’t get me wrong,- what was next again?“

“I love you-“

“Eh~? Aren’t you a bit bold confessing your love to me so quickly Mr. Genovese?”

Ah.

“It was a trap, wasn’t it?”

“Haha. And you walked right into it. Aren’t you a bit too easy, Mr. Genovese?”

I naturally couldn’t hide the embarrassed smile that floated onto my face.

“How cute. Are you embarrassed after playing hard to get only to later confess your undying love to your boss who you tried to shrug off at first?”

With a hand covering my face I mumbled under my breath, “this is humiliating. I’ll definitely remember this boss.”

“Anyways, you mentioned you had a weird dream about me?”

“Yeah, I did.”

Why is it she’s always able to make me let my guard down so easily, even when I try to remain on high alert? Is it just in her genetics? Is this what a socially gifted butterfly of noble birth is like?

“Well, aren’t you going to fill your boss in on the details?”

“It would probably be a better idea to wait until after we eat. It’s a nightmare that would make you lose your appetite.”

It’s likely just a nightmare fueled by my wild imagination and track record of poor romantic interests in the past anyways. No matter what angle I looked at my boss from, she seemed like someone I could somehow get along with, if I ignored my docked paychecks that is. It’s really just my trust issues that unreasonably blow up the smallest of possibilities in my head.

“Well then, lead the way Mr. Chaperon.”

I looked around the office as we headed towards the front entrance and discovered everybody except for us had already left the office. The office was closed up for the day and most of the lights were shut off already except for the ones we turned off on our way out of the building.

When we arrived at my car, I took out my keys and unlocked the door. When I pulled on the handle to open the door, I felt a tinge of pain originating from my right hand. In my confusion I lifted it up and discovered disturbingly there were deeply engraved teeth marks on my index and middle finger. I immediately realized the significance of the markings. I glanced towards the areas where the tendons in my arms were located and found long red slit marks across them. I touched at my right shoulder as well and sure enough, I felt the indentation off teeth marks.

“What’s wrong, why are you just stupidly standing around like an idiot? Aren’t you getting in? Hurry up already, I’m starving.”

Those were definitely not the words I wanted to hear right after I discovered the bite and slit marks on my body. Unfortunately, she was already in the car and I really had no way to back out at this point. I sucked it up, got into the car, started it up and backed out of the parking spot immediately while a mass of chaotic thoughts swirled about inside my head.

Calm down me. I’ve heard that things like this can happen when under a strong enough impression that something was real. There was of course, for example, that experiment where a blindfolded man was put under the strong suggestion that they were being cut when in fact a knife was only brushed across their skin. Their body had a physiological reaction to it even when they weren’t cut in the slightest. As for the bite marks on my fingers and shoulder it’s possible that I could have somehow bitten them in my sleep. The shoulder would be a long shot, but it’s not like it’s impossible to accomplish.

“Hey, Dio? ... is it fine if I call you that when we’re alone in private? I heard the others in the office have been calling you that, is it okay if I do as well?”

“Huh? Oh that? Sure no problem boss. Call me whatever you want, it’s not a big deal to me.” Of course, while I was still distracted, I’d responded to her like it was only natural and I hadn’t put much thought into where she was headed with the topic she brought up out of the blue.