Emergency Situation

"We're here!" Calix announced as his motorbike slowed to a stop in front of a dingy-looking apartment.

Klein hopped off of the motorbike and roamed his gaze around the neighborhood he never dreamed to live in.

While there were decent-looking houses here and there, the majority were made of unfurnished hollow blocks, recycled plywoods, rusting sheet of iron roofs, and old tarpaulins with faces of politicians or celebrities. There was no mistaking it. They were in—

"Welcome to Tondo."

—in one of the well-known slums of Manila that had quite a reputation of high criminality rate and poverty.

Thankfully, a gate of a decent-looking apartment opened and Calix rolled his motorbike in. With a jerk of his still helmet-covered head, he beaconed for Klein to come in.

Klein wasted no time and followed Calix inside the gate because he's not going to stand in the unfamiliar, potentially dangerous street any longer. Though he was still questioning himself for coming along with this stranger instead of hearing Khalil out.

The middle-aged woman, who opened the gate for them, locked it again as Calix turned off the engine of his motorbike. She studied Klein with apparent interest before turning to Calix. "So, who's this, Calixto, honey?"

'Calixto?'

"Ah... Klein, this is Miss Victoria. Our landlady." Calix gestured to the woman with short, curly hair. Then he rested a hand over Klein's shoulder. "Miss Victoria, this is Klein," he introduced. "A friend."

'Friend?'

"Friend, hmm?" Miss Victoria echoed Klein's thought, her tone intrigued and dubious.

Klein didn't remember them agreeing to being friends, but he shelved any protest and just smiled politely. "Good evening, Ma'am. Sorry for coming over unannounced."

Miss Victoria's eyes swept him from head to toe. She even reached for his hand. "Soft. Beautiful fingers. Flawless white skin." She grabbed the back of his shirt's collar. "Designer bag and clothes." She tittered like a witch. "You're from a wealthy family, aren't you?"

Klein applauded her incredible observational skills, but it's truly making him uncomfortable, so he retracted his hand from her grasp. "My parents just take good care of me, Ma'am."

Miss Victoria slapped a hand over her forehead and sighed dramatically. "Yet, you choose to elope with this rascal? What would your parents say if they find out?"

'Elope?!'

"No, that's not—"

"Come on now, Miss Victoria," Calix interrupted. "He's just a friend, and he'll just stay here for one night because of an emergency situation. So if you'd excuse us, we want to get some rest."

"Alright, alright. Go on. I don't really want to get in the way of your business." Miss Victoria shooed them inside the apartment, but not before handing a packet of condom to Klein. "For emergency situations."

Klein's face burst into flames as she walked away, mumbling about Calix defiling another rich kid on her property. As she disappeared into a door, Klein shrugged off the hand on his shoulder and sent Calix a warning stare.

Calix raised both hands in surrender, then gestured to a dark hallway leading further to the back of the apartment. "Let's go?"

The room Calix led him was just as Klein expected. It's a studio type room, which was attached to the main house of the owner, but had its own bathroom and kitchen. There was a single bed next to a white wall with questionable stains. Surprisingly, the floor had clean tiles, but he could tell it was made of cheap ones.

"Sit down." Calix offered, pulling a beige monobloc chair next to a foldable table. He had removed his helmet and baseball cap, revealing his platinum blond-dyed hair.

With nothing obstructing Calix's face, his facial features became more accessible for Klein to appreciate—to identity. He meant identify. He needed concrete details to describe him to the police if things went south between them.

"Ah... do you want something to drink? Are you hungry?" Calix asked.

"I need answers," Klein said as he took a seat on the monobloc chair. He pulled a random notebook from his bag and a pen.

"Getting straight to the point, I see."

"I'm not really well-versed about werewolves. I have an acquaintance I can ask because she's a huge fan of them, but I'm not sure if everything she knew was based on facts or fictions. More often than not, it's the latter, so I'd appreciate if you can explain it to me in details—what?"

Calix smiled, lopsided, showing a shallow dimple. "Nothing. You're just... taking the whole thing differently than most people I've helped."

So, he wasn't the first person Calix brought here. Not that it mattered, of course.

Klein cleared his throat. "I'm a future biologist. Normally, I wouldn't be interested in werewolves because I think of them as just a pigment of people's imaginations. But since I've witnessed it firsthand, I'd like to know more about them."

"So you're interested to know more about werewolves?" Calix asked, pulling another chair in reverse to sit across from Klein. He rested both arms on its recliner.

Klein wouldn't call it an interest with a sense of wonderment. But having an understanding about them could be beneficial to him in the future. If he could put a body in a dissecting table, he would be glad to explore every bit of it down to its molecular structure.

"It's for research purposes," Klein said simply.

"I see." Calix stood from his chair. "If that's the case, I don't think I'm the best person who can explain it to you. What I know is how to fight them, not how to understand the complicated stuff about them."

'Then what did I come here for?'

Klein closed his notebook and tried to think of what to ask the guy that brought him into this dingy apartment. To his utter mortification, however, Calix reached for the hem of his shirt and lifted it off. "W-What are you doing?"

Calix paused, his arms caught in the fabric, his well-sculpted stomach exposed for Klein to look at. He smiled again. "I need to get rid of my smell. Didn't I tell you that a werewolf can sniff you even from miles away?"

"O-Okay?"

"So we need to wash off our scent using a special powder."

"We?"

"Yeah, especially you. You've been marked as a property of a werewolf, so between the two of us, you are likely to be trailed." Calix finally removed his shirt. Then he placed his foot on the chair to untie the lace of his combat boots.

"W-What should I do then?" Klein bolted up straight, alarmed, not knowing where to put his gaze on. He settled on the shelf with bottles containing multi-colored liquids.

"What else? You need to undress too."

"Hah?" Klein snapped his gaze back to Calix, which was a huge mistake. His eyes gravitated down just as Calix's jeans fell on his ankles, exposing everything there needed to be seen.

Calix met his eyes and smirked in a way that pumped all of Klein's blood into his cheeks.

It's an emergency situation, indeed.