#that he's jealous and suspicious of her achievements. that wants to curb her power down for... Reasons i guess

[harrowscore]

and yet we're supposed to believe that losing her powers and living as mal's housewife in la casetta in canadà is a happy ending for her?

it's... fascinating how the grisha are both reviled and venerated as saints in the same country. they're extremely powerful in many ways, and yet objects of superstition and even outright discrimination and fear by ravkans, their own countrymen. it's contradictory tbh. i would like to call it "complex portrayal" but... heh.

[narrators-journal]

A hiccup in the process

cw: breaking and entering again, more stalking, that’s not gonna go away for this story lol, I think that’s the big ones to note. enjoy!

Previous part: here

First part: here

Sadly, Illumi couldn't keep an eye on you 24/7, which he found irked him slightly. More-so when Milluki would give him updates while he was on his mission. It wasn't like Milluki himself irked Illumi this easily every day, he was his baby brother, he was allowed to annoy the long haired assassin, that's what family does, but for some reason knowing that the rotund young man was using the spy cameras he'd installed for his own surveillance to check in on you every few days to ensure nothing bad happened ate at Illumi in a whole new fashion.

Despite this, the assassin focused on his work as best he could, not that it really required much focus, a pretty textbook political hit, easy enough. However, when he came back, he was not greeted by an equal amount of ease.

He'd stopped by his home, doing the usual after-job reports for the client, than told his mother that he'd return to keeping an eye on you until his next job, he also stopped by Milluki's room and rather coldly told him he could stop spying on you. Than, he headed over to your place, curious to see what fine details his brother didn't find necessary to relay. However, when he got to your home and peeked inside, careful to ensure no possible neighbors saw him, he found it suspiciously empty. Milluki would've told me of any new people coming around, so (y/n) isn't on a date or anything. It's not a weekend, so (f/n) surely doesn't have her, and (y/n) isn't the type to just up and leave.. he mused, a bit down the street now sitting on an empty bench in the spring air so he didn't seem super suspicious to anyone around by lingering around your home.

He mulled these questions over for a while, most of the day it seemed since the next time he returned from splitting his attention between puzzling out this issue of emotions and closely watching your home it was evening and the temperatures were cooling. What drew his attention completely to your home was the unfamiliar car that pulled into your driveway. A car pulling up wasn't super odd to Illumi, (f/n) occasionally came by after all, but this car didn't belong to them, and it definitely wasn't yours, as you either didn't have one, or it was at your home, so the sight of a new person immediately put Illumi on the defensive. This boiling feeling of out of place anger worsened when you lingered by the strangers car.

On the bright side, the long haired assassin used this opportunity to meander over and eavesdrop to figure out where you may have been,

        "-Thanks for taking me out!" you were saying, leaning a bit towards the drivers window, where a man, or maybe woman, illumi couldn't quite tell from where he was paused to listen, sat, waving your gratitude away nonchalantly,

            "Nah, it's cool. You were pretty fun to hang out with, I'd be happy to take you out again another time if you'd want." the person said, making you giggle, the sweet sound acting as gasoline on his already ill mood.

Sadly, Illumi couldn't linger around any longer, you were noticeably getting tenser and had thrown a few skeptical glances at the assassin while he was paused on his phone, so he didn't catch the remainder of your conversation before your 'friend' left.

Illumi walked around the block to calm down and refrain from any rash decisions that night, returning to his usual hiding place afterwards, watching you as you happily lounged in your home. While the darkness of night crept in around him, Illumi tried to figure out what to do and why he was so annoyed to see you with someone else. Did he want to kill you? Was he mad that you potentially going on a date made that goal harder to achieve cleanly? No, that didn't seem to be correct, the explanation not seeming to cover all of the prickly emotions he felt at the moment, but it was the best explanation he had. He didn't have a lot of experience with the 'softer emotions' as his mother sometimes called them when she had given him a basic course on wooing himself a wife, and he was an assassin, a trained killer, surely he had no need to learn about these things. Though, he had to admit, combing out those pesky barbs of maybe I'm jealous and maybe I'd like to be the one she has a fun time with from his already crowded and busy thoughts was annoying. Every other emotion he could neatly package away, he could temper his lust, curb his anger, and suppress sadness, guilt, shame, and the like. But this situation, you, seemed to have this aggravating power to flip the lid of Pandora's box and pick out the worst of the bunch to bring to the surface.

After some contemplation, the assassin decided that he did, in fact, want to kill someone, but not you. You were still an entertaining little puzzle to burn away the time, at least, even if you did aggravate him. so, instead of killing you, he waited for you to go to bed and than slipped inside once again. This time though, he wasn't there to peek at your sleeping body, Though I bet she's wearing something risque again a dark little voice whispered in his head, but no, he could not indulge in that tonight. He was there on a mission to find information on your friend and the person who took you on a date. Peeking beneath your covers to catch a glimpse of your soft thighs or chest could wait.

He focused on his task, digging through anything he found that could potentially hold information about those you knew, but nothing proved useful. He found a picture with (f/n)'s name on the back, but he already knew their name, he needed their address or full name, or at least their phone number to have Milluki trace it. Sadly though, you didn't make a habit of writing down police-interrogation level notes on your few friends and leaving them in the open, so Illumi had to collect himself and get a good grip on his hormonal reactions before going into your bedroom for your phone.

Your room was as quiet as before, with, at most, a white noise source that the lean assassin made a mental note to ween you off of once if he had you as a wife. It wasn't an impressive room, dotted with a few articles of dirty clothes or other signs of life, but his dark, empty eyes still zeroed in on a pair of your undergarments on the floor in particular. Part of him was repulsed by how slovenly you were to leave a few articles of dirty laundry on the floor, but another part of him knew that he himself wasn't an exact neat freak and he only thought you were messy because he had butlers, you didn't. No, instead that devious side of himself focused more on what was on the floor, and how that might mean you were...less modest than he might have first thought.

He stopped himself, repressing the nasty urge to check and than punish you if you really were so brave as to sleep without panties and just scooped up your phone and left your bedroom to staunch any other distractions. With a deep breath to clear away the lustful thoughts, Illumi easily hacked into your phone, really, your password was so easy, and dug around. He tried to find your friends contact information, and while he didn't find a phone number, address, or anything like that, he did find their online profile, which was enough for Milluki to track them down. However, he didn't stop snooping after that. Instead, he looked around in your photos, other messages or DMs, anything personal or potentially holding lewd info or images, but the most he found was a google search for an adult toy you seemed to be contemplating buying. He swiftly deleted that from your search history and returned your phone to where it had been.

Now he only needed to let his brother do his job and look into (f/n) and than your date. Of course, he'd have Milluki do that after clarifying why the shut-in gaming nerd should've told him you had a date of any sort.