It was around 8 in the morning. The whole red light district was quiet. A man stood in front of the building at the corner of the street with purple and gold ornaments decorating it. It was William who stood in front of the purple rose. The red light district was bustling with activities all night and most of the establishment is open until around 3 or 4 in the morning. Due to this cycle, the whole district is awfully quiet in the mornings. Activity will resume around noon when the workers would wake up and get ready for the night.
Due to his two pals who lent the book hiding the precious pack of Cinnabar dust, William had decided to come back and retrieve the book now. He thought of how to do it, since Cinnabar dust is a dangerous material commonly used in poison. It's not supposed to be sold openly and traded around. He got the pack after pulling some strings and was supposed to sell it tomorrow, but Roche just had to do a bad job keeping the book. He hadn't told the two men that he hid the pack inside the book to avoid other people from knowing. The dust is powerful enough to kill a person in 5 minutes after direct contact. He'll be in trouble if someone targeted the pack from them. To think that it's in the hands of a girl now, William can only sigh and curse at his bad luck.
William racked his brain on how he's supposed to get the book without making the girl curious. In the end, he couldn't find any ideas and decided to sneak in to steal the pack from the book himself. He knew this time of the day is the quietest in the red light district so he decided to sneak in now. No one is in the streets and almost everyone should be in deep sleep around this time of the day.
He looked around and climbed the walls of the establishment to reach the gardens. There is a tall tree in the garden that he could climb to reach the third floor's roof. He started climbing and jumped off the branch to the roof. He surveyed the windows for a while and noticed all the rooms at this side are occupied with sleeping women, but she couldn't find Lulu. Perhaps her room is at the other side of the establishment but he can't walk across the roofs to that side as the side connecting the two only has walls that he can't thread on. That means he needs to sneak inside the building and look for her room. How troublesome he thought.
After pondering for a while, he decided to sneak in from the room at the far end corner of the wall because this room doesn't have the window locked so he had less work to do. He's afraid of waking the girl inside so he needs to be extra careful when he goes inside.
He looked inside and saw the woman sleeping soundly on the bed. He carefully slid the window panel open and jumped inside. With a light thud, he landed on the bedroom safely. He looked over to the bed again and the woman appears to still be sleeping. He can't see her face because it's hidden underneath the blanket but the sound of breathing seemed steady and calm, indicating she's fast asleep.
William walked towards the door and tried to open it when he noticed the door was locked. Strangely, the key is not attached to the door. Where is the key? He looked around to the table and the nightstand in the room but he couldn't see any keys. Is it inside the drawer? But opening the drawers might wake up the woman. William sighed and decided to go outside again and sneak in from another room. If the woman woke up, everything would be for naught.
Just when he turned around and started walking towards the window, he noticed the woman on the bed had short breaths now instead of the steady calm breath she had when he first entered the room. He saw the slight tremble of the body on the bed as well, the hand clutching the blanket could clearly be seen and it's trembling quite hard. "Is she having a nightmare?" he thought. "Oh well, not my business" William thought to himself and shrugged, he just needs to grab the pack from the book without waking anyone up.
He walked until he reached the front of the window. He glanced at the woman on the bed again when he saw faint red color on the white blanket. He noticed the woman was clutching her hand so hard the nails dug into her skin and made it bleed. The wound seemed quite deep as the faint red color had turned darker and spread across the white blanket.
"Ma… ma… A… qua… Es… me…"
He could hear the woman's faint mumble under her short breath. The breathing seemed as if she had just finished running across the kingdom. The hand that previously clutched the blanket is out of the blanket now and is digging its own nails until it created wounds on her hand which painted the blanket red.
"No… NO!"
The woman yelled louder under her short breath and her two hands are both bleeding because of her own nails now. William is stunned at how the woman is hurting herself in her sleep. The wound she dug with her nails should hurt her but somehow she is still asleep. The man's eyes grew wide when he suddenly saw her two hands moving to her own throat as if wanting to choke herself. Okay that's it, he can't just stand here and watch the woman kill herself.
"Hey! Hey!" William tried to wake her and pulled her two hands apart from her throat. He held them open so that she can't dig her nails on her palm again. He holds the two delicate hands that are covered with blood. He can't believe a delicate lady would hurt herself in her sleep. What kind of crazy woman would do that?
He noticed the woman was covered with sweat and had tears in her eyes. She batted her eyelids softly for a bit and opened them. "Huh?" she opened her green eyes and noticed a man standing at the side of her bed holding both her hands. An assassin? she thought. She was running away from assassins in her dream when she was caught and tortured by them. Unable to bear the pain, she wanted to kill herself by choking her own throat when she felt someone yanking her hands away. She realized it's a dream and opened her eyes to only saw another man in front of her.
William noticed the woman looked at her meekly. He expected her to yell or call her a pervert or something, but the woman just looked at him without saying anything. Her beautiful green eyes just continued to stare at him silently.
"Are you here to kill me?" She finally opens her mouth and says something with no change in her expression. She just looked at him blankly.
William got a shock from hearing her response. She really didn't expect the woman asking him if he wanted to kill her. Heck, he expected a normal response a woman would give when she noticed a man barging into her room unannounced while the woman was sleeping. He wascaught unprepared and doesn't know what to say now.