“Ack-, Crime man!”

  Damn it, damn it, damn it! She should have known!

  Not from the start of course, but she stared at that map for half an hour straight when she had to guide that-, that criminal here! Had she completely forgotten what the house looked like in a mere two days?!

  Well, yeah, but admitting it to herself felt wrong. Instead, she decided to follow the false narrative that she had thought it couldn’t possibly be about the same guy.

  Totally, yup. She was not a forgetful woman, otherwise she’d never be a teacher!

  Ah, lost in her thoughts, she had completely forgotten where she was. After all, she wasn’t just anywhere, no, she was standing outside the door of the crime man she had given directions to, clutching her heavy handbag and trembling like an aspen leaf. Thoughts racing, she stared as the crime man took a step to the side, bidding her entry.

  “N-, no, that’s… Hey, see, heh, funny coincidence! But, um, I’ve got a high school kid to tutor here, and I’m definitely at the wrong door, so,” Erica said. “-Bye!” With a well-trained spin on her heel, she readily turned around, trying to ignore the immense hand that softly landed on her shoulder. She leaned her head a little, a trembling smile on her lips, “yes, what is it?”

  “I’ve been expecting you.” That voice again. Monotone, broad. And, somehow, against all odds… unthreatening. Soft.

  Erica swallowed. Damn it, she should just go! Who knew what kind of hellhole was in there? For some reason though, that old curiosity of hers pulled at her. It was a horrible idea, so uncertain it made no sense. But, still, she had to take it. “Say, you, uh, wouldn’t happen to be ‘Kreig Wiedemann’, would you?...”

  He nodded. Fuck.

  It was the right address, she was staring at the right man, and according to the contract she’d signed, if she didn’t turn up to one of the tutorings, she’d be charged on the spot. Maybe she should have spotted a few signs there, but, damn. It was a sweet deal. It even had dental! Far from the normal kind of tutoring, more of a long-term deal… And she’d taken it. One way to pay the rent and quell her growing student debt.

  This was just another reason why she hated teaching. Should’ve never gotten into this hellhole of a profession…

  “Is that so?” Erica said, trying to smile somewhat genuinely but she really couldn’t. This guy, Kreig, was just as silent and terrifying as when she’d guided him through the city. High schooler her ass. Nevertheless, he waved her inside, and damn if 27 years of learning how to act polite didn’t overtake her entire nervous system. She went inside, even giving Kreig a kind nod as he closed the door behind her.

  But it wasn’t as though she had entered his lair or anything, no, this place was… Remarkably typical. A bit rough on some edges, that battery-powered lamp seemed really weird, but other parts were just plain mundane.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  Even beyond that, in some ways.

  The living room, connected to the kitchen, seemed as if decorated by someone who had just left home. A hideous lime-green carpet clashed horridly with the robust leather couches, and although the telly was big, it was barely modern at all, despite the PS4 sitting right next to it, alongside a wide assortment of games for it. Going by the titles, Kreig here had pretty good taste. And then, the only detail of the living room that her eyes truly fell on, that she truly stopped to look at, was a painting. Hung up above the telly.

  It was excellently made, really. Erica would know, since she had once planned on just becoming an art/music teacher, but this was beyond anything she had ever so much as tried to make. It wasn’t the scope of it, either. A simple portrait of three people in a warm, firelit room. Who else but Kreig in the middle, with a woman on one side and a man on the other. All three had this serene, unapologetic joy to them. Not happiness, nothing so bombastic, just the gentle joy of loving and being loved.

  To portray such a complicated emotion through such a simple picture was awe-inspiring, and at a single glance, Erica knew she had to know who made it.

  “Tell me, crimi-, err, Kreig. Who did you commission to paint that portrait?” When Erica turned to the man, her eyes were glittering like blazing stars. She had no intentions on commissioning the fantastic artist herself, she just wanted another painter to add to her to-love list. The many commissioned and ready-bought paintings in her home aside, she was one who enjoyed looking at art just on the web. Be it simple or complicated, with enough skill, she found herself loving it all.

  Kreig made no changes in facial expression, but Erica knew in a second that something was strange. “I painted it myself.”

  ...Nah.

  Nope. No. Nuh-uh. No way.

  Erica let her head whip back and forth between the phenomenal painting and the so-called ‘artist’. He was a large, bear-like man whose hands were defined by callousness and scars. The painting was made with the softest and warmest strokes possible. Then, too, the artist of the piece must be of a similar nature. Calm. Quiet. Soft-spoken. Mysteri-, damn it, it fits! Shoot! No, no way these had anything to do with each other, she couldn’t accept it!

  “-It’s nice!” she said, making the false assumption that he was either lying to her or pulling her leg. Damn students. Never a kind thought in mind. “Will you show me where we’ll be working?”

  Kreig stalled for just a moment, as if her off-handed compliment needed time to sink in, but once it did, he briskly turned his back to her, as if to hide some little expression of embarrassment. “Follow me.” What a strange man. And he was a man, too. Sure, his face seemed youthless in a false sort of way, but everything seemed to tell her that he was older than her. High schooler. Bah.

  Following his back, Kreig brought her down a hallway and into a door on the right. As expected, not a canvas in sig-,

  Ah, though, on the wall, she did see a few paintings. Two, to be exact.

  One portraying a young, mud-stained boy raising his arms in futile defence against his aggressor, namely oneself, the observer, the point of view. There was a very strange duality to the painting. While Erica felt rightfully horrified to be seeing the situation from the eyes of the one who is likely causing the fear and pain of the young boy, there was also a strange sense of nostalgia to it. The boy seemed painted with loving, careful strokes to get almost every aspect of him right. Almost. He wasn’t quite a full person, the one who painted it didn’t know the entirety of him, but… Enough to draw this.

  The other painting was… Not as intense. It was just a portrait of a man. The only odd aspect was that the man couldn’t possibly be human. His skin was rendered in a non-blooded absolute white, same with his hair and eyes. There was something off about him. But with the loving, heartfelt strokes, it didn’t feel wrong. He felt more divine than cursed. A beautiful man. For some reason, that phrase seemed to pop out to her. The man himself seemed far from pretty, hardly even average, and yet it felt like the right phrase to describe him.

  She didn’t comment on the paintings verbally. There were other paintings in the room, but they were drab landscapes of no soul. No emotion.

  Kreig showed her a desk with a single chair, and while she sat down to get more comfortable, he excused himself to go get another chair from the kitchen. This gave her ample time to examine the desk itself. Or, rather, what was on it. There were lots of papers, a few envelopes, an ink pen, and, most importantly, a few solid sketches. A few were rougher, some were less so. One or two were immensely clear, showing the artists’ immense grasp of proper anatomy and shading.

  In grim horror, Erica felt the facts of the matter sink in. Kreig was, despite everything, a fantastic artist. Even better than herself, too!

  Kreig soon returned, chair in tow. He placed it by the desk, and faced her, clearly expecting her to do something.

  She just pointed at the sketches. “Did you do this?” He nodded, flustered. She poked a blank paper over to him, curiosity once again killing the cat. “-Could you show me?”

  AN HAZELNUT?? Thank you for reviewing, Mr Hazelnut! I love making my readers cry! (It proves that my writing can evoke emotion, which is the hallmark of a better-than-bad writer!)

  You wrote it, with all your own biases, focusing on your favourite characters, using your favourite tropes... Of course you'll like it. So, usually, it's very fun! I once read my old God Usopp story and it felt like a reawakening. Why am I saying this? I, er, uh. I might have binged my own fanfiction the other day. Just the surface stuff, like the spy romance thriller and the last few chapters of the Busopp story. And then, for some stupid reason, I read a thing. See, I once got my eye on, let's say, a "challenge". What you did was you write down twenty characters you like (surprisingly hard), and then they get arranged into five groups of four each. Simple, right? Well, not all these groups get placed in little scenarios. Prompts, if you will. So, I was smitten on the spot. Did the thing. Wrote down my most beloved characters (90% of which are killers/serial killers). Took the first group, consisting of Usopp from One Piece (duh), Sweeney Todd from the original Penny Dreadful, Freaky Fred from courage the Cowardly Dog, and Ichi the Killer, from... Ichi the Killer. In other words, we got a pirate, a serial killer, a madman, and a perverted assassin. The scenario? They were in a situation where they lost their memories. So, I put them all on a deserted island, and got writing. Close to 9000 words and 18 pages later and I had my first chapter. And then I just sort of... Abandoned ship. For no good reason. So, since I just finished reading that wack-ass first chapter (it was good, y'all) I figured that, "hey? Why not finish the second chapter at least?" because, see, I had started on it. I even had a really good plan, too! See, the prompt was that the characters were in a fantasy setting, so I decided to not do the obvious and just drop them there all random-like, but to have their characters a little modified to fit the fantasy world. Which was a fun idea and even more fun to plan! Alright so, the first character I had was Jean-Baptise Grenouille. Don't recognize the name? I mean-, if you do I'd be a little surprised, but, hey! Always glad to know another Perfume fan! Okay, so, Grenouille is a really weird character. He's got an incredible sense of smell. That is-, that is his primary character trait. There's more, but I'm better at writing them than explaining them. He's very good at smelling, and he's also a serial killer. Only the third one in this group of characters, isn't that great? Okay, so, his lean into his character, I've decided to make hi a half-pixie just for the sake of it. It's fun! The second character is Mouri Kogoro. From-, from Detective Conan. I really like that guy, he's fun! These two characters will have a fun dynamic where Mouri is the chief of police in Magic Kingdom ?, and is therefore trying to catch Grenouille. Because Grenouille is killing young girls and extracting their scent from them in order to create a perfume. Did I not mention that-? Well, that's what he does! And Mouri is trying to catch him. This is very important at the end of the story. And then we have the third character! Namely, Bruce Banner. The Hulk. I love that guy. In this story, he's a former wizard/scholar who, after an experiment went awock, making him turn into a ravaging beast when angered, was banished because he destroyed many parts of the kingdom. He sets up a wizard tower just outside it, trying to take it easy. Right. And then, we have who I'd consider the protagonist of this short story, namely... Nobuo Tanaka. The main character of one of a collection of short anime stories. Wherein he accidentally killed like over ten million, I think? The entirety of Tokyo, at least. He's a nice guy. Smells bad. No, I'm serious, thats-, that's the plot. He smells so bad he kills people. Sounds stupid? Well, it kinda was, but... But! In this story, he's the apprentice scholar of a court wizard, just trying to get by. And, after exploring a hidden room in a library, he becomes a Plague Walker. Basically, he Smell Bad. When he's anxious, at least, it basically follows the logic of the movie (Memories, Stink Bomb). He goes to his master, and is told to go into the forest and find Bruce Banner to have him cure him. Obviously, this is more of a Monster VS Aliens situation, where they hope that one of them will kill the other. So, Nobuo gets there, and the perspective shifts to Bruce, who is very cool about it. I mean, he's been alone for like five years, of course he welcomes company! That is, until he asks Nobuo about his former girlfriend, Betty Ross. And Nobuo, the Clutz, asks if she wasn't the latest victim of the Pixie Ripper. Bruce transforms on the spot and Nobuo books it for the kingdom, his anxiety making his smell flare-up. We switch perspectives again and find ourselves with Grenouille, who realizes on the spot that something Bad is coming his way. And he only has one girl left to finish his perfume, namely the princess of the kingdom, Ran/Ren Kogoro (memory bad), daughter of the chief of police. So, he stashes all his little bottles of Girl Essences (less sexual, more Karen) and books it for the castle. Where he finds the police chief on high guard, ready and anticipating. Their meeting was just a coincidence, but Mouri won't let Grenouille pass, and just as Grenouille is prepared to run... Something happens, we switch to Mouri's perspective, and then through Clever and Cunning, he realizes to use Betty Ross' essence to still Banner, which works. End of story. Or something. I'm not sure of I'll write it, but if I do, that ending is gonna be wack.