The Novelty of Emotions

A few hours have already passed. My coffee has long been finished and it has been a while since I have started drinking my whiskey. My mind which was originally fuzzy since morning with useless thoughts was remarkably clear. While what they say about alcohol impairing your mental capacity is true, it does remarkable things for allowing your mind to have a single focus point.

With a glass in my hand, my gaze lands back onto the sheets of scribbled paper below me, with only a few, empty ones left. With my other hand, I spread the scribbled papers across the tables as I begin to skim through their contents, shaking my head in disappointment. There was yet to be a person of interest, or anyone who stood out of the norm in one way, or another.

Putting the glass back down on the table, I decide that I've had enough of a break and that it was time to check whether or not any new customers have arrived, ready for my breakdown.

The first of which I noticed were a couple. A peculiar one at that, in the sense that it was a mixed couple, that of a male dwarf and a female human. What perplexed at first sight were not the emotions that both of these individuals expressed, but the sheer quantity of them. As I gazed further at them, I noticed their body language and couldn't help but feel disturbed.

While the introduction of various races that clearly had longer life-spans, than us us humans, made the notion of an "age-gap" a thing of the past, it still felt like the male dwarf, who was at least in his fifties, was an absolute predator on the young lady who was, at worst, in her late twenties. While this wasn't exactly what made me feel disturbed, it was a part of it. Frankly speaking, majority of my issue is that I could not see how these emotions of his actually operated. Sure, I could identify them, and understand them, but how can anyone live with so many of them?

In his eyes, I could see a clear look of affection towards the lady, one which looked as if he would protect her. The contradiction laid in his body, his muscles were tensed up, especially the ones on his arms. They would especially do so whenever she made body contact with him, which further confused me. At first glance, one might say he was attempting to portray his strength to others who wished to be her suitors. Yet my previous observation breaks that assumption. It would almost seem as if he wished to predate on her himself. In simpler words, he lusted for her. As such, the only logical conclusion I could make from him was that he was fighting his lust, favoring his affection towards the girl.

However, to me, this was an even more perplexing matter. How could one not control their emotions? Is it not simple to simply choose one thing over the other? Could he not just choose his lust? Or even his affection and protective tendency? For as long as I could tell, people in my line of work were always decisive. Even those who were like me, disobeying their orders; if we did so, we simply moved in that direction. Yet now, I see these people, all filled with various emotions I have barely even scratched the surface of entirely, and not only that, they cannot be linear with them.

How do individuals make decisions in their life if they do not know what exactly they desire to achieve?

It was a perplexing notion to me, an individual who always desired a certain outcome at the very end, with everything else being a side-goal I can choose to achieve at will.

Are these people that are normal, the same people around me who live in this chaos that we call emotions, are actually some sort of weirdos?

Or is it so that I am the weird, outcast individual for not being capable of exhibiting the very things that make most people feel alive?

Forcefully stopping my dilemma, I pour myself more whiskey as I proceed to then bring the filled glass to my lips, taking a sip out of it, hoping that the whiskey would give me a sense of warmth, as if it would support me.

It did not.

══☩══♛══☩══

A couple of more hours have passed, and unfortunately, my dilemma has yet to pass despite drowning the wretched feeling with alcohol. I hadn't a clue on how to deal with it, not once have I had the freedom to actually doubt myself and my beliefs.

How can I create a story that would touch the hearts of people, if I do not have one of my own?

I began to doubt whether or not I can fulfill her dying wish. I began recalling my investigations and spying of her. What she did in her free time, and how happy she seemed with the world around her. She used to carry a notepad with her wherever she went and with magic, allowed her pen to do the writing for her with just her thoughts as she would walk around the city, or the park, or even sit inside a restaurant. She looked what people would call "passionate" and her eyes held a flame which I couldn't comprehend the nature of.

Remembering her bright, ginger hair grow darker from the blood that was leaving from the wound inflicted by me on her neck; or remembering how she, even her final moments smiled and began comforting me, I felt something. Despite being alive for only a while before breathing her final breath, she say things that made me almost feel as if she were my mother. She noticed things about myself I have never thought to notice. She called me handsome, and that she is happy that she is dying in a relatively painful way.

Her final words were of her aspirations, and for some reason she felt confident that I would continue them.

When she longer spoke, I felt something in me, crack.

Suddenly, I feel someone's arms wrap around me which wake me up back to reality. With a genuinely confused expression on my face, I shift my head to the side to see who it is that appears to be hugging me, only to feel more confused as I recognize the silhouette of the new worker hired by Barbara.

At first, I wished to call out to her by name and ask what she was doing, only for it to dawn on me that I never bothered to ask her for it. This in itself, forced me to politely address her without it.

"Excuse me, miss. Exactly why are you doing this?"

Surprisingly, the anxiety and lack of confidence she displayed in the morning when facing me was nowhere to be see as she continued to hold me in her arms, though awkwardly so as it was not a full embrace.

I haven't heard an answer until a few moments had passed, evidently, she was trying to form some sort of excuse, since I could not possibly see the reason why she would do this.

"Your eyes. You were crying, and the fact that you weren't aware of it compelled me to do something to make you come back to your senses, leading me to do this, in the hopes it would also comfort you."

If any of my former colleagues were here, or anyone who was adept at reading micro-expressions were in the establishment, any of them would surely notice a complicated expression on my face as it exhibited a sense of shock and surprise.

The same contradictory nature of emotions I bore witness to earlier, though to a lesser degree.

The shock came from the fact that after using one of my hands to touch my face, I did indeed feel that my cheeks were wet, as were my eyes watery.

The surprise, on the other hand, came from how refined the answer that she had given me, was.

She had granted me a straight-forward and reasonable response. While the refined nature of her answer was surprising, what surprised me more was the amount of confidence and will she exuded from her words as well as body language. Both of which she lacked severely just earlier today, and just as I was about to make mention of it, she interrupted me, as if reading my mind.

"Shhh... There is no need to overthink such silly things."

I dislike this woman.

Some unknown woman being capable of reading me to this extent as well as possibly having a great control of her behavior made me suspect many things. Immediately, I grew untrustworthy and was about to nonchalantly cast a sleeping spell, only to almost outright attack her as she managed to instantly cancel my spell.

All the more annoying was that her tone did not grow cold, just more softer.

"I am just here to comfort you, no need to get so hostile towards me, so relax."

I felt no hostile intent, so I was forced to remove any hostile intentions of my own.

I am annoyed by her.

I dislike and am annoyed by her due to the fact that the warmth I desired from the alcohol throughout the last several hours, was being granted by her. It annoyed me how nonchalant she was about this. It annoyed me how far she was willing to so as to cancel my magic in order to continue embracing me. It annoyed me how she treated me as if some broken child.

It annoyed me because I, Louis Durand, killer of hundreds of people of people, am not weak to be in need of something called "comfort".