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[Third person's POV]

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Disregarding the raccoon who was in the process of lifting his basin to hide in it, there was now 3, well, technically 2 people who were facing each other in the corridor.

On one side a man whose skintone had a toffee-like shade of brown, about 2.60 meters tall, with curly and thick short raven hair extending his already impressive height by almost 5 centimeters...

On the other a woman with pale white skin whose stature was, taking the standards of a woman, just as monstrous as that of her counterpart, even though she was dwarfed by him by almost 25 centimeters.

An abnormal height wasn't the sole noteworthy physical aspect in these two giants...

In fact, for many people, it might even only be the second thing that would strike them when looking at these two, so much their nearly unearthly beauty was bewitching.

Their faces, their bodies, everything was way too symmetrical, way too well-proportioned, way too perfect for one to think that what they were was humanly possible...

Regarding the woman, despite her recluse starter pack consisting of an oversized white t-shirt stained with an unidentified green sauce, pyjama shorts that were also white, her short chestnut hair in a mess and her bare feet whose soles were dirty, her baby face with angelic features and her dazzling ocean blue eyes made that despite her unkempt appearance the word neglected wasn't the first that was coming to mind when looking at her...

As for the man, his attractiveness was of a diametrically opposed nature, an animalistic charm further accentued by the toothy smile he had right now was radiating from him. His eyes of a color that could be described as a mixture between brown and gold had a glimmer of both predation and warmth, his salient and imposing but not excessive musculature barely concealed by his pants and his black tank top had an aura of protection but also of threat, and the expression of his face whose random yet harmonious features made it difficult to determine his heritage, was inherently wild.

All in all the body langage of the man was either menacing or reassuring depending on whether the person facing him was on his good side and considering that the face of the woman in front of him lit up as soon as she saw him, determining whether there was an enmity between the two wasn't complicated.

After a short moment of pause in which the woman was gazing with an unchanged enthusiastic expression at the passed-out child that the man was carrying on his left shoulder as if she was treating the boy's presence as trivial information not worth spoiling the happiness she was currently feeling, she walked towards the man and hugged him tightly while still taking care not to envelop the child in her embrace to not hurt him. "I'm glad to see you too Lise." The man said with a tenderness uncharacteristic of his appearance before wrapping his left arm around the woman's back. "Who said I was? I'm just glad there's someone 'competent' around again to do the cooking." The woman retorted playfully with an emphasize on the word 'competent' and without breaking her embrace, revealing then a naturally upbeat voice slightly muffled from the fact that her left cheek was pressed against the man's chest. The man's eyebrows furrowed, "Remind me which one of us has a chef's degree?" He inquired rhetorically with an annoyed tone. The woman abruptly detached herself from the man, turned around, then cupped her left hand around her left ear as if she didn't heard him right, "What did you say? Were you suggesting that I am a decent cook? That's funny because I don't remember you complimenting my dishes once. Quite the contrary in fact." She said with a tone of both bitterness and derision which made it difficult to determine if she was actually serious.

The man rolled his eyes in such a manner that someone seeing him could instantly guess that the words coursing through his mind right now were 'here we go again'.

In a heartbeat, the woman turned back with an outraged expression on her face and pointed at the man accusingly, "End of July 2022, I was going to move in my apartment; I was preparing a feast to thank you for coming to help me with my boxes and you found nothing better to do than to criticize my crepe batter for 2 minutes straight! You couldn't value my skills back then, you couldn't after and I will definitely not give you the opportunity to do it again in the future, you junkyard dog!" She rambled angrily with such passion, that it was now a certainty that for her it was in fact not really a subject of amusement. (The insult is kinda strange, but there is a reason for that)

Instead of trying to calm things down, the man matched the woman's energy and in turn pointed his finger at her, "Ah! Ah. That one doesn't count! That was before you went to cooking school! And what did you want me to say about your fucking batter full of lumps except that it was crap?!" He answered with a mocking smile, a smile that remained on his face for only a short time before his expression soured, sign that he had just realized something was fishy, "Wait! Don't tell me that was the real reason why we had salad instead of pizza that night?!" He asked with indignation. The woman shrugged while maintaining a puzzled expression that was suggesting that she had no idea what the man was talking about, then she allowed a deranged smile reaching her ears to form on her face when she saw that he wasn't buying her act, "All you had to do was look over my shoulder when I opened the fridge and said 'Oh shit! I completely forgot to buy pizza dough'. Instead of that you chose to put your trust in me Harry, you chose to..." She started saying with a much less good-natured voice than before.

As the woman was spouting her sadistic babble, the boy's body twitched a bit, "And you will... Wait. What was that?" She asked, her expression becoming puzzled in the course of her sentence, her interrogation having nothing to do with the sign of the child's imminent awakening but with the fact that she noticed that the man's reaction to this event was to look caringly at the child.

"What. Was. That?!" She repeated with a terrified face, her whole body shaking for in the many years of fellowship she had shared with this man she had learned the hard way that his love could be as dangerous as his rage.

In response, the man smiled as creepily as the woman just before and looked at her intensely, "No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, whatever you have in mind, leave me out of it!" She shouted with a movement of recoil.

"Come on, why such a violent reaction? All I wanted to do was ask you to become the boy's mother." The man said in a tone that was anything but reassuring as he took a step towards the woman, "All I'm asking for is a lifetime commitment, what are you afraid of?"

The woman slightly regained her composure, giggled then decided to 'play along', clinging to the slim chance that what he had just said was a joke, "Oh okay, I would be the mother, and I guess that in this configuration you would be the dad then? Ha ha, that was a good prank my guy, kidnapping a child for it was a bit too much, but still a good prank." She said while laughing, hoping that the man would also start laughing to confirm that it was indeed a joke.

To the woman's despair, the man's laughter didn't come, instead he put his left hand on her right shoulder and displayed a falsely moved expression while looking at her straight in the eyes, "You will thank me when you have tasted the joys of motherhood."