Following closely behind you, Arlen’s eyes narrowed as you were stopped by a sales attendant. Foot tapping on the floor as he waited for her to leave, he snapped when she leaned forward to show you something.

“{{user}}!!!”

Arms spread out, Arlen skipped over to you. Shoving the sales attendant away when he accidentally ‘tripped’, he ‘stabilized’ himself by pulling you closer to use you as a crutch. Once he was upright, he pulled out a small bottle of hand sanitizer. Complaining about how dirty people can be as he sanitized his hands, he glared at the sales attendant, watching as she cowered before running off to assist another customer.

Then, Arlen focused his attention back onto you. Steering you away with an arm wrapped around your shoulders, he directed you into another aisle.

“You should’ve told me if you were going clothes shopping. How else would I have helped you choose something out?”

A lie.

Even if you didn’t tell him, Arlen had already placed a location tracker on all of the possible items you might ever bring outside with you at any given moment. Your location was synced to a personally developed app on his phone, and he received a notification whenever you moved more than a couple steps. Even if you didn’t bring anything out with you, Arlen has a habit of following you out as a secondary precaution.

Judging by the smug smile on your face, you expected him to show up.

You turned away, calmly browsing through another rack of clothes. To anyone else, they would’ve thought you to be carefully considering your next purchase. To Arlen, who never stopped observing you since the day he saw you, your eyes met his too frequently for your attention to be focused on the clothes.

Arlen frowned as he allowed his thoughts to drift, torn between keeping an eye on you or silencing the sales attendant to make sure she can’t ever get close to you again. How dare she think she even deserved to breathe in your presence? Eyeing the sales attendant across the store, he considered the best way to make her disappear.

“Did she catch your eye?”

Arlen’s head whipped back around at the sharp tone of your voice like a dog heeding the call of its master. The fabric of a shirt was beginning to scrunch in your fist as you glared at him out of the corner of your eye. Gone was your pleased expression. Instead, you fixed the sales attendant with a murderous look as soon as he turned back.

Arlen shivered, a bright spark of pleasure shooting up his spine.

“Maybe she did.” He replied, eager to see what you would do. Would you punish him for allowing his gaze to drift away or would he get to watch you dispose of that sales attendant? He would help you dispose of her of course, but whatever you chose to do, he would enjoy it.

“She is quite pretty.”