Music to my ears

He had the low morning sun behind him, which shone in through the open curtains, but I recognized him against the light as the madman from Tanaka's office. His fingers gently brushed the tears from my cheeks. Normally he would have lost a few teeth for this, but instead of planting my fist in his face, I just smiled at him, distant.
If I had ever heard something better than what was coming from the headphones to my eardrums, I couldn't tell when it should have been. I was hypnotized, wanted nothing more than to listen to these sounds that made everything that had burdened me so far tiny and insignificant.
My guest nodded in satisfaction, rolled me from my side onto my back without my having defended myself in the least, and examined me carefully. It didn't bother me that, as a complete stranger, he put his palm on my chest, although I hated nothing more than to be grabbed by people I didn't know.Should he switch and act as he wanted. He had given me these notes. As long as he didn't take it away from me, he could do whatever he wanted.
Concentrated, he closed his eyes and crouched down next to my bed for a while. His lips moved, but I didn't hear him, the music was too loud and far too haunting. Incidentally, I noticed the light, pulsating burning in my right shoulder, exactly where Lavande had left her signature on me.Ai. Was that what she had written when I was with her? I dreamed about it before Nick showed up. If the deaf-mute was real - and I was now sure that it was him - was that vision a real memory too?
The redhead seemed to feel the change in the shoulder area clearly. He took his hand from my sternum, squeezed the earplugs gently, almost tenderly, then placed the MP3 player they were connected to a little away, turned me on my stomach and pushed up my T-shirt.I usually only slept in shorts, but after discovering the sign, I decided it was good to hide it. In front of Rick, in front of nocturnal visitors, in front of myself.
The burning and throbbing grew stronger as he put his hand on the painted area. I left him anyway, just too dazed to react. Absent-mindedly, I buried my head in my pillow, still grinning idiotically. After a few seconds he took his hand off my shoulder again, sat down next to me on the edge of the bed and did not move. Something was bothering him.
I got restless. Did he want to take his music back with him? Was he thinking about the quickest way to pull the headphones out of my ears? I turned my face to him suspiciously, tried to read his gaze, but I had hesitated too long. He had already come to a decision.
He got up calmly and disappeared from my room, leaving the door ajar.I looked after him. What did he want in my apartment? Maybe he was looking for the ashes? He could like her. I didn't need her, didn't need anything anymore, I was perfectly happy. Completely carried away by the sounds, I didn't even find it worrying that he came back with a ball of parcel string and tied me to the bed with it in peace of mind.
It was all the more painful when I finally understood. He put both hands on the painted symbol and suddenly I thought my arm was going to be torn off. I cried out in pain, roared over all other noises around me, tugged at my bonds like a man possessed. He didn't care. I shook the plugs out of my ears furiously. "Rick!" I called and as if on cue he took his hands off my back again. Immediately the pain subsided.
With stoic calm he gathered up his electronics and then crouched down next to my bed to look me in the face. "No point calling for him," he informed me with his crooked smile and waved my key ring back and forth in front of my nose so that it jingled softly."I'll be gone by the time he got the door to his room. I just wanted to quickly apologize to you."
"What, really?" I snapped, "What for? For tying me to my bed, for fumbling with me without asking, or maybe for half pulling my arm off ?!"
"For the slap," he replied dryly. The gentleness with which he had just got me out of my nightmare had vanished to the last. His words were so cutting I could almost see them parting the air. "I thought you were ... well ... obsessed is probably the closest thing to that. But you knew how to defend yourself, as I can see." There was a dangerous flash in his eyes. "You have an interesting tattoo there."
"Not half as interesting as your MP3 player," I hissed and was startled when I realized that, although I now knew about its dangerous effect, I would have liked to continue listening to the music from the small device.
"On the edge of the night," he muttered and stood up.I stared at him with wide eyes. Did I just hear that right?
"Don't look like that. You wanted to know what the piece is called," he said calmly, while he seemed to stroll aimlessly through my room. "You're a really strange guy ..."
He seemed particularly interested in my desk. He started looking through the things I had dumped out of my backpack that evening and left there.
"Likewise," I smirked back. “Click-click-click-beep!” He laughed, but completely humorless.
"Oh that," he mused, bored, "My father wants me to take over the company. That's why the 'computer phobia'." He went through my notes from the evening at a leisurely pace. "Yami doesn't exist," he quoted tonelessly from my table. "Not anymore ..." he added. Then suddenly his face lit up and he turned to me, in hand the dagger I had got from Eliphas. Orion's half eye, which must also be somewhere on the desk, had either not been found or it was of no interest to him."That should work," he announced happily, was on my bed with one jump and made himself comfortable on my back. I tugged at my bonds again.
"No, no," he laughed. “I know this looks a bit misleading here, but I'm not a pervert.” He slowly ran the blade up my spine, but without applying enough pressure to hurt me. "At least I think so," he added as he hooked the dagger under my t-shirt that was pushed up and split it in half with a jerk.
[i]This is what hell feels like, kid, Lavande giggled somewhere in the back of my head.
My mind stopped. The fear rolled over me like an avalanche and buried every clear thought under itself. My heart was racing. I gasped in panic, like a fish out of water. A wave of heat went through my back and I felt the remains of my severed wings shoot out of it. I got warm.Incredibly warm. I let myself fall into this warmth while everything around me seemed to happen in fast motion.
Orion's eye began to glow brightly on my desk. I heard the boy cry out above me and immediately fall silent.

(This warmth, this wonderful warmth ...)

His weight was taken from my back, almost thrown off of me.

(I'm safe. At least for this one moment, nobody can harm me in the slightest. Not even ...)

"Kori!" Rick shrieked hysterically. He sounded distant, as if he were speaking into an endless tunnel. How did he get here anyway? "Kori, stop for God's sake! You'll kill him if you keep going! It won't go out if you don't stop! KORI!"
An acrid smell rose to my nose and from one second to the next the warmth that enveloped me was no longer pleasant. I recognized them as my fire.Recognized the smell as the stench of burnt meat. I was on fire and so was the violinist. I sat upright in my bed, completely unharmed. The cords had long been burned. Without paying attention to what would happen to his arms, Rick grabbed me and was shaking me incessantly. "Kori!" He shouted again and actually I stopped burning again. The tips of the wings disappeared again. The green glow behind me also dimmed, and with it each of the flames that burned somewhere else. No, not anywhere. I was puzzled to find that it was only Tanaka's son who had caught fire. Even Rick, who had just touched me, was unharmed.
Quite different my uninvited guest. The lower half of his body was no longer visible. There were tears in his eyes. The way he looked up at me with them made my blood run cold. He wanted to scream, I saw that, but the pain was too great even for that.The sight went through my marrow and bone. "Help me, quickly!", Rick's voice tore me from the freeze. He had kneeled next to the young man and put his hands on one of his legs. "You take his other one and then repeat after me!" He instructed me.
I hurriedly dropped to the floor and did the same for Rick, placing my hands on the unrecognizable mass that had once been a leg. My roommate looked me over carefully. When he finally started to speak, he sounded like he was praying. "Ya aëmus vela ravem enis"
"Ya aëmus vela ravem enis", I echoed, far less solemnly. One of Rick's hands lay on mine and then the feeling flowed through me that I already knew from the few times he had healed me. A calm, steady pulsation that made me sleepy and content.
Infinitely relieved, I watched the shapeless remains in front of me become legs again, how the destroyed tissue of healthy skin gave way, until finally only the pants, which had mostly fallen victim to the flames, reminded of the gruesome sight.My dagger clanked from his hand, which had just clenched him tightly in pain. The redhead sighed deeply, did not move. Rick crawled to the side until he was sitting next to his head. "Cunno", he said directly in his ear, whereupon he fell asleep immediately. He lay there peacefully, with relaxed features and steady breathing, and now again reminded me of the one who had graciously woken me from my nightmare.
"That was damn close," my roommate admonished me quietly. I nodded in agreement. That was it in every way. The two of us heaved the sleeping person onto the bed. There was no danger that he would wake up, as I knew from my own experience. A firmCunno, said about the right thing, was more reliable than all sleeping pills combined.
“I'm sorry I was there so late,” Rick protested, “He locked me in and I didn't have my own key in the room.” He rubbed the