"Beautiful", as she was busy admiring the remarkable piece of art, she forgot that she was standing on a stool. She shifted her weight from one leg to the other when she couldn't maintain her balance and slipped off the stool. She closed her eyes waiting for her back to be landed on the floor but it didn't happen. Her eyes remained shut, dismissing the anticipation of what's can't next.
'Am I dead? Already? But I wanted to be famous. What about my underwriting book on Webnovel? I haven't had my first kiss yet. Wait! Did I really die virgin!', the absence of expected impact which was to be produced by her body collapsing on the floor initiated a train of thoughts inside her head. While contemplating on thoughts she started feeling a grip around her waist. Upon opening her eyes she laid her sight at a familiar face. All of the drawings were scattered in the air, slowly streaming down towards the floor after a loud thud produced by a book hitting the floor.
Two faces were only inches apart that the hot breaths were fanning across each other's faces. The closed proximity flashed a memory in Ellen's brain from the night when she came home drunk stumbling on her feet. The scenes replayed in her mind one by one, from the moment she tripped and grim held onto her before leaning down close to her face to the moment when she went into a deep slumber on his chest after crying buckets of tears. She kept staring into the dark brown orbs. Grim didn't tear the gaze either.
Had she missed Ellen during his stay in Realm of Skies?
Before a few days
"Ian wants to have some words with you", when grim came out after changing his clothes, Jeremy told him how urgently the spirit of air had called on for him. Grim spread his wings wide opened on the terrace of the building and flew to the realm. Jeremy, on the other side, also reached there in a flash of light.
When both arrived at the place, they were greeted by the gatekeeper of hell.
"What was he doing there?", Jeremy asked Shawn who also happened to have the same question in mind. They walked inside and met Ian sitting on a chair, uncertainty and tension reflecting through his facial expression. Ignoring that, grim continued with his usual ranting.
"Why did you call me? You should know that I cannot come anywhere, anytime when you're the one summoning m-", Ian's voice came crashing through the dark and husky voice of grim when he had not even reached halfway through his conversation.
"Kol ran off the hell."
"What! How!!", Jeremy exclaimed in utter shock. Terror apparently lacing in his voice.
"Some demons helped him escaped the place. They attacked the gatekeeper of hell when the rest of the subordinates were called upon by another spirit. We cannot say anything on who called them because they are found dead in the barren fortress in the South. Seeing their planning, I can tell that someone from outside helped them. I'm not certain who but it has to be someone who a high rank because the subordinates would've never gone to the south without informing the gatekeeper."
Grim expressions didn't change a bit. He stood there quietly, listening carefully to the spirit of the air.
"A black sheep among us?", Jeremy asked to which Ian only nodded.
"The other spirits are looking for him and the escaped demons everywhere. I need both of you to stay here until he's caught", Ian stood up from his seat walked towards the duo.
"Who are you to order me around?", grim exhaled a cold scoff at the spirit of air for even thinking that he would listen to him.
"We all know this is a serious dead a*s matter", Ian spoke up. If he had to, he would make grim lockdown in the basement to keep him safe.
"I don't f*cking need your pampering. I can deal with my matters for your shitty information. I'm not afraid of-", grim being grim, refusing to think of the consequences rationally continued when Ian shut him off again.
"It's your life we are talking about you stubborn piece of pride!"
Jeremy felt himself squeezing in between the two rolling balls of fire. They all remembered what happened between grim and Kol thousands of years ago. It wasn't something they could forget, ever.
Ian walked out of the place. Grim threw a punch on the wall in frustration. After that, he also walked out. When he was about to fly back to the earth, bluntly ignoring the spirit of air, Catherine walked up to him.
"You just came back. Already leaving?", she asked with worry that grim might yelled at her. Furious grim wasn't a joke.
"I want to relax", grim thought flying back to earth and have a long drive would ease his mind. Deep down he also wanted to see Ellen. The latter proved to make him forget everything every time they had got to be together by doing her silly things, especially her pissed-off reactions at grim.
"Come on. Let me help you", holding his hand, she dragged him inside her bedroom and stripped out of the single piece of clothing that was covering her private parts.
"F*ck me, Shawn. I want this to be raw and hard", she guided grim's hands to her waist, moving them there in a circular motion.
Grim needed to distract his mind from the fresh piece of information he just got to know. He could feel himself getting violent. Rage, anger, resentment streamed through his veins. He remembered. Every minute of the day, that changed his life thousands of years ago.
Distraction. That's what he needed.
A distraction to hold back the extreme agitation of mind.
A distraction that made him give in and smashed their lips.
"She knows that he uses her body, still keep offering him to use her", the goddess of flowers mumbled in sadness for her best friend. She was observing the scene from distance.
"That's what people on earth call true love", Jeremy replied also not liking how grim had always treated the goddess of beauty. She could've refused him but she didn't so grim wasn't the one guilty there.
"This is insanity", she turned to face Jeremy.
"In love, people tend to forget their selves for their loved one. They are willing to do anything and everything for the only one. They get hurt, go through pain, suffering just to have the person feel safe and sound", during their stay on earth, Jeremy watched many sad and romantic movies. He loved movies of this genre very much. He always picked to watch romantic though.
"Love is an ethereal emotion", he said remembering a scene from a movie where the two cancer-afflicted teenagers fell in love and the boy died in the end.
"Something grim would never feel", the goddess of beauty uttered feeling worse for her best friend now.
Grim and Jeremy stayed there for a few days until the situation wasn't calm down. Well, things weren't to get back to normal track until Kol was put back in hell. Grim told Ian that he would go to earth to finish the undone business.
Present
When he reached the library, he was about to take the Death Note out and write the name of the girl who was standing there smiling, sun rays making her face look brighter when she fell off the stool. This time he confirmed in his mind to put this all to an end. There was a new chapter being opened in his life. To move to that one and take tough decisions, he needed to close previous ones. You can't move forward if undone tasks keep chasing you. They prevent your actions to a certain level, consequently, changing the whole course of your future. That's why he flew back to earth with a firm mind, at least until he hadn't come across this little fawn.
Thanks to his quick reflexes, he made it out of the shelves on time and caught onto her before the catastrophe would hit the poor floor.
"Missed me?", there was something strange inside grim every time he would see this little fawn. As if the heavens and hell never existed. As if it had always been this earth with ordinary, stupid humans living. As if there were only this little fawn and him. He wasn't sure about it either.
"Where have you been!", Ellen pushed herself off him and stood on her feet.
She didn't realize what she said until grim let out a low-audible chuckle at her statement.
"I mean why did you come back!", this time his smile grew wider.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Benson came out of her room in the corner of the library.
"How many times on earth do I've got to tell you that this is a library and keep it quiet here", she gritted her teeth at Ellen who was boring daggers at grim for creating all this fuss. Well, that was the opposite. Grim saved her from falling. But she thought if grim hadn't appeared, she wouldn't have yelled and Mrs. Benson wouldn't have come out scolding her. Someone tells the poor girl that the same would have happened with the thud of the book hitting the floor and stool colliding with the shelf.
"Hello there beautiful", grim took Mrs. Benson's hand and gave it a quick peck.
"Oh you naughty boy", she smiled sheepishly.
"May I take this little fa-- I mean my friend if she has completed her work here", he asked looking at Ellen.
Mrs. Benson glared at Ellen, envying her for having such a hot friend then switched her gaze back to the wristwatch.
"It's half-past five. She's already off to work", she said smiling at grim.
"We shall get going now. It was having a great pleasure seeing you again", grim winked at the older making Ellen cringed at the sight and both of them walked out of the library.