5

You shut your eyes so tight, gripping against the pillow you had before you, silencing your heavy scared breaths so as not to give you away. The knocks echoed through the dark room of your unit, reaching the confines of your locked bedroom.

It was the second night Wanda had been knocking on your door and you didn't answer. Ever since the night of the surprised visit from the police, you had been avoiding your next door neighbor, scared of what she might do next to you.

You knew you had no proof that she killed someone, aside from that vivid memory of her dragging a lifeless body into her bathroom nights ago. And if she did ever decided to make a food out of the corpse, you didn't want to consume your thoughts with it and make yourself more miserable.

It gave you paranoia to the point that you stuck with eating dry food such as biscuits and chips, anything that would make you forget of the slimy texture you prayed was chicken. You had tried to eradicate what you had eaten from her out from your system. If it was chicken or something else, it hurt your stomach like hell the following day.

When the knocking stopped, you had managed to succumb yourself to sleep, tired from work and endless overthinking.

On the third night, luck finally ran out on your side. You didn't expect Wanda would be there the moment you came home back from work, groceries in her hands as you two climbed through the stairs, hoping against hope she wouldn't turn her back around and see you.

Unfortunately, the noise from your stupid shoes scraping against the stairs gave it away.

"Y/n, hey," Wanda greeted, stopping as she waited for you to reach her.

"Hi, Wanda!" You replied back, close to a nervous shout, exuding a forced smile and a tensed posture. It brought some confusion to the brunette. She still looked as effortlessly beautiful as she was the first day you met her. You wanted to kick yourself mentally for that.

"I...." You could tell she was hesitant to ask you something. "Were you not home for the past few days? I tried knocking but you didn't-"

"Oh, I'm so sorry," you immediately interrupted, coming up with an excuse. "I got caught up with work and stuff... I might had come home so late recently... Why?"

Wanda shook her head as she let out a sigh of relief. "Nothing, I just... I.. Well, I made something for dinner tonight, maybe we can eat it together and continue watching the series, if you want..."

But your shocked face made the brunette's voice falter. You swallowed a lump nervously. At another universe maybe, you wouldn't pass up from this offer. But sadly, this was a cruel world. "I'm... I'm terribly sorry, Wanda... I... I actually brought my work home with me and still got to finish it for tomorrow's deadline," you lied so easily. "Another time, maybe?"

Upon seeing hurt and disappointment flashing in Wanda's eyes, you never really thought she had ever killed someone. She looked so innocent, like she had just been rejected.

You immediately felt guilty the moment you said it. You wanted to take it back, but memories of that night went running to the forefront of your head, reminding you that things weren't exactly what they were.

Thankfully, it looked like Wanda got the memo as she nodded back, avoiding your gaze. "It's okay... Yeah, some other time, then."

She waved goodbye at you as she hurriedly went into her apartment, never meeting your eyes again. And you wanted to stop her, to tell her that you were just scared, to ask her if she really did what you thought she did. But she was already gone before you managed to take a step forward.

Wanda hasn't knocked your door ever since. The utter silence from her end made you more upset than you were afraid. It would be stupid to deny that you missed the brunette's presence, you knew you'd only be lying to yourself. But what would that make you? Was it normal to still like someone who could be a serial killer?

To give yourself some credit, she was your crush at first. But that should had changed everything. Killing someone changes everything.

"Steve?" you asked, stopping your fingers from typing the quarterly report for your boss. You and Steve were seated at the table of the conference room, where meeting was just adjourned and you both decided to stay to finish some reports.

"Mm?" Steve was busy too, writing the minutes of the meeting.

"I have a question," you began. "Totally unrelated to work."

"Carry on," he answered, still not looking up from his laptop.

"What if you liked someone... someone w-who has done some b-bad things in life, would you still like them?"

You could see Steve's shoulders shrugged as he went on typing. "That depends... How bad was it?"

Leaning your back against your chair, you tried to think how to tell your friend about what Wanda did but not totally telling him what you thought she did. "Let's just say, it's kind of significantly bad, like the worst kind there is, unforgivable."

It made Steve stop and glance at you, his eyebrows raised in speculation. "How much do you like them?"

You only grew silent. Would it be crazy to admit that you liked her a lot even after all?

The silence was deafening until he let out a sigh. "Look, if you liked them so much, and that person would be willing to change for the better from whatever the hell they had done before, you'd be able to look past through it... I mean, what if that person could be your soulmate?"

You doubted Wanda was your soulmate, but Steve had a point, even when he was not the exact person who had the right to say that given he didn't do relationships.

Sometimes, you wondered if you had indeed fallen for her because you couldn't seem to get rid of her from your mind. To the point that you sometimes found yourself wishing she'd come knocking on your door again, swearing you'd open it this time and willingly welcome her into your apartment.

Wanda hadn't bothered you for days until that weekend. You just came home from a night having spent with Steve and Gamora, who fortunately didn't hold a grudge on you when you didn't appear to your date. Apparently, Gamora met a guy that night named Peter, and she was grateful you didn't show up for she might had missed the chance to meet him.

When you noticed Wanda was crying at the foot of the stairs, crouching down the floor like a lost neglected child, the guilt in you overpowered the fear of getting killed. You just wanted to hug the brunette.

"Hey, what's wrong?" you asked, genuinely sounding worried, cursing yourself for caring for her this much.

She immediately wiped the tears on her face with her hands as she sniffled a reply. "Nothing."

You hesitantly took a seat beside her, noticing the bag she had before her, which contained oranges. She must had liked oranges that much.

After a moment, she finally broke the silence and asked. "Do you not like spending time with me?"

Your eyes widened upon her question, never expecting you'd get interrogated like this.

"I.. Well, I..." You had no valid excuse this time. You just knew you didn't want to scare her again, that you suspected her murdering someone, that she made you eat something you shouldn't be eating. But you also didn't want to alarm the brunette and make her want to kill you too.

"I'm sorry for being busy-"

Wanda shook her head as she stopped you. "There's no need to lie, Y/n... I know you absolutely hate spending time with me."

Then she stood up and walked back towards her unit, making you abruptly stand from the stairs, torn between staying and following her. Don't tell me you have fallen for a murderer, even a cannibal, who knows?

But then an idea struck inside your head. Maybe you could check and investigate on your own, maybe you could find traces of the lifeless body in her apartment, some proof that you could report to the authorities. But do you really want to put Wanda behind the bars and not see her for eternity?

You felt like an accomplice as you quickly offered the moment Wanda was about to close her door. "How about we order pizza tonight and continue watching the series together in your apartment?"

There was a happy glint in her eyes as she nodded back, and you couldn't help yourself but wonder how stupid and unfair the universe was if it decided to give you a killer for a soulmate.

And as Wanda opened the door to her unit wider for you to enter, you smiled back at her, happy she wasn't sad anymore. What are you doing? You're going to get yourself killed.

After you paid and received the pizza from the delivery boy, you and Wanda started to watch the series together in her apartment, where she had a much bigger television than yours. But the wide screen didn't prevent you from noticing she was leaning closer towards your body on the couch she had in her living room. The close proximity made you realize one turn of the head, and you could almost kiss her. You could even smell how good she was but you stopped yourself. You were here for a different purpose, not to fall in love with Wanda.

"I... Can I use your bathroom?" you excused yourself, making Wanda straighten in her seat as she nodded and pointed to where her bathroom was, offering she'd prepare the pizza once you're finished.

Upon entering the small room, your mind shifted into gear. You hurriedly checked the surroundings, what seemed to be out of the ordinary, any sign of blood you knew was there. But you found nothing.

Everything was all clean, even the items in the room were properly organized, with colors that matched to earthy tone of green. Well, except for an empty blue flower vase just above the sink. It looked so out of place like it didn't belong there. You decidedly picked it up just to check, but the sound of Wanda's voice gave you a jump.

"What's taking you so long?" she asked, peering through the door. Wanda was holding a knife in her hand and you thought that was it. This was finally your end.

You dropped the vase on the tiled floor, breaking the fragile item into pieces. "Shit."

You couldn't breathe, your hands trembling as you crouched down on the floor, attempting to pick up the shards of glasses, trying to find the exact shape that you could use as a weapon as you muttered apologies. "I'm so sorry-"

What made you confused was Wanda kneeling before you as she answered, urging you to let go of the glass. "Y/n, it's okay. This was an old gift, anyway. You don't have to worry about it... Here, take this."

"What?" Wanda was giving you the knife, her knife. Was this a pretend game to her?

Your surprised expression rendered her softly chuckling. "The pizza wasn't sliced when I opened the box. Can you slice it for me while I clean this mess you created?"

You had no idea what was happening but you finally calmed down the moment you were out of the bathroom, with the knife in your hand.

"You okay?" You jumped in surprise when Wanda appeared behind you. "You're really jumpy today."

"Yeah, I'm fine...," you hurriedly answered, almost a squeak. "I'm just... well, don't mind me, maybe I'm just hungry and all." You went to slice the pizza so she wouldn't be able to see your face slightly sweating.

Wanda sat beside you as you both began to eat the food. You tried to focus on the series instead, even when you couldn't find yourself able to concentrate with the small space between you and the brunette on the couch. Your heart was beating fast for a different reason.

"Y/n?" She broke the silence after laughing on some silly scenes from Barney in the series.

"Mm?"

Wanda licked her lips nervously as she leaned closer. "I... I want to do something but I'm not sure how you would like it."

"What?"

Not knowing why but you were suddenly closing your eyes when you felt her moving towards you. This was it. This was the part where she'd kill you and drag you to her bathroom. While waiting for your inevitable end, you didn't expect you'd feel soft lips against yours.

Finally opening your eyes, you realized Wanda was indeed kissing you. Kissing you!

The immobility from your part made her pull away and curse. "Fuck, I'm so sorry... I don't know what I was thinking... I-I thought you were feeling the same..."

Shit. Does she like me? "Wanda..."

"I...," she said, stopping you as she stood from the couch. "I think I'm gonna head early to bed now, tired and all. Can we do this some other time instead?"

You found yourself hesitant to leave as Wanda dragged you towards the door instead of the bathroom, where you thought she'd take your life.

And you no longer heard from Wanda since. She didn't knock on your door and she didn't sit by the stairs anymore. You couldn't even wonder what happened, couldn't move on past the wonderful feeling of her mouth against yours.

You tried to knock on her door twice, even thrice when you wouldn't want to admit it, but you met no answer, not even some movement behind the door.

You missed Wanda so much, you suddenly became scared of your own sanity. If this was still normal. You even went to Google about liking someone who could be a serial killer, and even when you found out you weren't alone in this predicament, you still felt it wasn't right.

Other nights, you found yourself praying you'd get short-term memory loss so you wouldn't feel guilty about liking her.

It had been two weeks since you and Wanda kissed in her apartment and the radio silence afterwards. You were on sick leave that day since you were unexpectedly hit with fever and bodyache. You thought the medications were making your head crazy but you suddenly heard faint knocks on the door.

When you went to open it, Wanda was there with widened eyes the moment she noticed you covered in blanket and face pale. She immediately violated your personal space as she touched her hand on your forehead and the other one on the side of your neck, leaving you breathless. And it wasn't because she could strangle you at any moment. But because you missed her, and her touch, that you craved for her and just her. The drugs must be doing wonders to your head.

"You're sick," Wanda cooed softly. Even her voice and her accent, you had started to miss.

"I'm-"

Before you could utter a reply, she was pushing you back inside your apartment and urged you to lay on your bed. The softness and warmth from the sheets made your eyes droop to a close.

Without even knowing it, Wanda was taking care of you, waking you up to feed you with something to eat, thankful she only reheated the dish you cooked earlier in the kitchen. She woke you up at times when you needed to take your medicine, even awakened at times when she hummed you a lullaby while she placed cold compress on your temple.

Wanda took good care of you that the following day, you finally felt yourself better. You noticed movements behind you, making you turn to look. The brunette was there, laying beside you on the bed, mouth slightly open as she slept.

Somehow, you found yourself staring at her peaceful state, looking so beautiful and innocent, making you wonder how someone as nice as she was could kill someone like that. And damn all the good conscience out there for making you feel sorry for the brunette.

It took you a moment to realize as your eyes opened wider, suddenly getting scared on the realization. Because you were indeed falling in love with Wanda when you shouldn't.