Extra is the Heir of Life and Death

Sebastian Nekros

I came down the hallway in a mood so offensively cheerful it probably violated several cosmic regulations. Humming. Actually humming.

Every few steps I did a little hop, like some overcaffeinated forest sprite. If anyone saw me, I would simply drop dead on the spot to preserve my dignity, but until then? I was practically levitating.

Why was I so happy?

Simple.

I had successfully escaped team politics. I got to annoy Liam. And now I was on my way to see Belle, my emotional support roommate, culinary test subject, and the only person whose lap I would willingly die on.

In short, life was perfect.

I reached the dorm entrance and keyed in the code with unnecessary swagger, like the door had personally wronged me and I was showing it who was boss.

The lock clicked.

The door slid open.

I stepped inside and announced myself like a triumphant hero returning from the battlefield.

"Belle, I'm home~!"

Nothing.

Not even a disappointed sigh.

Suspicious.

I scanned the living room with the vigilance of a raccoon breaking into a campsite. The couch? Empty.

Coffee table? Immaculate.

Blanket? Perfectly folded, meaning Belle had not been here recently, because she didn't fold things even by accident.

Alright. Room check time.

I bee-lined to my room first because optimism is important.

Empty.

Next, the kitchen.

Also empty.

No Belle. No food. No signs of Belle trying to cook and nearly setting the stove on fire. It was strangely unsettling.

I paused, tapping my chin thoughtfully.

If Belle wasn't in the living room, or my room, or the kitchen, or the bathroom…

There was only one logical place left.

Belle's room.

I marched straight to her door.

I didn't knock. Why would I knock? I lived here. She lived here. Privacy was for people who didn't adopt blindfolded sword prodigies as emotional roommates.

I opened the door smoothly and stepped inside.

And immediately the smell hit me.

That soft ink-and-paper scent, edged with a faint sweetness I'd long ago mentally labeled "Belle-smell."

Comforting.

Soft. Like returning to a place I hadn't realized I missed.

Her room was dim, curtains drawn just enough to let in a thin ribbon of light. Papers were spread everywhere, organized chaos, emphasis on chaos. Books, documents, diagrams, sticky notes with scribbles that looked like battle strategies written by a tired goblin.

And in the center of it all…

There she was.

Belle.

Sitting at her desk in her usual all-black attire, hoodie, trousers, the perpetually unbothered blindfold, and curled slightly forward over her laptop.

Asleep.

Head resting on her folded arms. Hair falling across her cheek. Slow, steady breathing. A faint, adorable little line of drool sliding toward her keyboard in a way that promised technological disaster.

Stacks of documents surrounded her like a fortress she'd collapsed defending.

She looked exhausted.

She looked peaceful.

She looked like I had just stumbled upon a Renaissance painting of "Patron Saint of Overwork."

And I…

I just smiled(and took a picture).

A soft exhale of something dangerously close to fondness slipped out before I could stop it.

Gently, quietly, I closed the door behind me, as if the world outside didn't deserve to intrude on this moment.

I stepped forward slowly, painfully slowly, the kind of careful movement usually reserved for bomb defusal teams and people trying not to wake a sleeping cat. Every footstep was deliberate, controlled, and silent. If stealth were a religion, I had just achieved enlightenment.

Belle didn't move an inch.

Good.

I reached her bed and plucked one of her blankets, black, of course. Everything in her room was black. If Belle ever unleashed her full power, I was convinced the entire color spectrum would simply apologize and collapse into grayscale out of respect.

Blanket acquired, I returned to her desk and gently, very gently, draped it over her shoulders.The kind of gentleness usually reserved for handling ancient artifacts or touching a soap bubble.

She didn't even twitch.

I allowed myself a big smile.

Then, without a sound, I slipped a hand into my space ring and pulled out a chair, also a gift from Belle, because apparently her love language was "extremely practical spatial treasures."

I unfolded it quietly, set it down beside her, and sat.

Hands on my knees.

Chin resting on my palms.

Breathing steady.

Eyes fixed on her.

And then… time just stopped mattering.

I didn't know how long I stared.

Maybe one hour.

Maybe five.

Maybe long enough for entire civilizations to rise and fall somewhere out in the void.

She just looked… peaceful.

Her shoulders rising and falling under the blanket I'd placed there. Her hair shifting slightly whenever she breathed. The tiny droplet of dried drool on the corner of her mouth. Her blindfold soft and unmoving, like it was guarding her dreams.

She was quiet.

Warm.

Alive.

Here.

And for a long moment, the world felt steady.

Then... A little sound. Barely audible.

"Mm…"

Her fingers twitched.

Her head shifted.

Belle stirred.

Slowly. Sleepily. Like someone surfacing from deep water.

Her brows knit faintly beneath the blindfold.

And I straightened up slightly, my heart doing something stupid and traitorous.

She was waking up.

Belle blinked herself awake with that soft, hazy confusion unique to people who'd just climbed out of a coma disguised as a nap. Her head lifted a little, turning instinctively toward the warmth around her shoulders. I watched her fingertips brush the blanket, then the edge of a paper, then hover in the air as she slowly realized there was a me sitting right beside her.

And then it happened.

A smile.

A big one.

A real one.

The kind that pulled at her cheeks, made her nose scrunch just barely, and sent her already-messy hair springing in even wilder directions. Strands stuck up like she'd tried to fight a thunder spirit and lost beautifully.

"...Good morning," she murmured, voice thick with sleep, warm, rough around the edges, like velvet dragged across gravel in the nicest way possible.

There was a pause.

She tilted her head.

"...It is morning, right?"

I choked on a laugh.

"I have no idea," I admitted. "Time is fake."

She let out a little hum of acceptance, the kind that translated roughly to fair enough and stretched. Fully. Completely. Like a cat greeting sunlight. Her arms lifted, her back arched, and the blanket nearly fell off her shoulders before she caught it and swaddled herself tighter. Then, with the dignity of someone who definitely did not just drool on official documents, she pushed herself to her feet.

A second later she wandered over to her bed and flopped onto it like a rag doll thrown by a bored child face-first, blanket still wrapped around her like a cape.

She turned her head toward me under the blanket's hood and lifted a hand.

A little beckoning gesture.

Silent, expectant, utterly impossible to refuse.

I stood, and the moment I stepped away, my chair dissolved back into my space ring no flash, no sound, no sparkles. Just gone.

Belle patted the spot beside her on the bed.

And I moved to sit next to her, because honestly, how could I not?

Belle, who was now fully awake and properly cocooned in her blanket like a judgmental black marshmallow, shifted so she was sitting upright beside me. Her blindfold faced in my direction, head tilted in a way that meant she was focusing entirely on me, even if she couldn't see me, she always seemed to look right through me.

"So," she said, voice calm, quiet… but with that subtle edge of interrogation only Belle could pull off. "Why," she continued slowly, "were you staring at me while I was sleeping?"

I blinked.

Then I blinked again.

Because, of course, that was her first question.

"And," she added, as if sprinkling just a little extra pressure on top, "for how long?"

A lesser man might have panicked.

I, however, am not a lesser man.

So I smirked, just slightly, just enough to be annoying, and said, "Long enough to confirm that you look really cute when you drool."

Belle froze.

Absolutely froze.

Her face didn't change, her expressions rarely moved much but the tips of her ears? Yeah, they went red like someone dipped them in boiling embarrassment.

There was a beat of silence.

Then she deadpanned, "I do not drool."

"You absolutely drool," I countered, leaning back just a little. "Like… artistically. Very elegant. Ten out of ten."

"That's not a compliment," she said flatly.

"It absolutely is."

A tiny huff escaped her, somewhere between indignation and flustered acceptance. Her hands, still clutching the blanket, tightened for a moment as she tucked her chin down.

"I was working," she muttered defensively. "I wasn't planning to fall asleep."

"And yet," I said, "you passed out so hard the documents surrendered."

Belle let out an embarrassed groan and buried half her face in the blanket. "Sebastian…"

I softened, just a bit.

"I'm not lying, though," I murmured, letting the teasing fade into something more honest. "You did look cute."

"…You're impossible," she whispered, but her voice trembled slightly at the end warm, soft, almost happy.

I shrugged. "You should be glad I didn't take pictures."

Another beat. She slowly turned her head toward me.

"…Did you take pictures?"

I snorted. "If I did, do you think I'd admit it?"

She thunked her forehead lightly into my shoulder, the Belle equivalent of punching me.

"I hate you," she said.

"Liar."

"…Yes," she whispered sleepily, leaning a little more into me, "I'm lying."

And for a moment, just sitting there with her tucked against my side, blanket around her shoulders, room smelling like hyacinth and ink, it felt like the most peaceful place in the whole damn world.