Captive Mate BL-Chapter 509: + - +

Angelo woke up hungry, he blinked blearily as he tried to figure out how long he had been asleep for.

"Finally up?" Nikolai’s voice came from across the room, making him look over. "It’s almost midnight," He tagged on, his displeasure evident in his voice.

Angelo sat up and just blinked into space for a few moments, with all they had done the day before, he wasn’t surprised at how much he had slept. He felt great, most of his aches were gone... his stomach rumbled, he was just hungry.

He glanced over at Nikolai, who was seated in front of a laptop, waiting patiently for an answer.

"I’m hungry," Angelo muttered, ignoring the rest of Nikolai’s words.

Nikolai rose to his feet despite being pissy that Angelo had slept for so long and left him all alone in the apartment. At first, he had waited for the assassin to return to the living room after a few hours, but as a few hours turned into a lot, he came to his room to see for himself what was going on.

Angelo rose to his feet and followed after him, reaching under his hoodie to rub his side, feeling the warmth emanate from his skin. "Did you eat dinner?" He asked.

Nikolai slowed down to let Angelo catch up with him, the sweet scent of cherries preceding him, "I was waiting for you," He said casually.

Angelo’s brows furrowed. "It’s midnight," He pointed out. He had just asked to be polite, he didn’t actually think that Nikolai hadn’t eaten.

Nikolai had completely forgotten to eat, too occupied with waiting for Angelo to wake up. "You haven’t eaten dinner, either," He reminded, sounding justified.

"Because I was asleep," Angelo muttered, picking up the pace and walking past him to make the call himself. He paused as he lifted the phone, "It’s midnight, do they still offer services?"

They did in fact offer 24/7 services, after all, Nikolai had the most unsightly schedule, it was pretty common for him to make requests at uncommon times. "They don’t," He lied with a straight face, "Are you going to cook instead?"

Angelo took him at his word, dropping the phone. "You say that like you’ve got anything to eat in here."

Nikolai would beg to differ, vodka and a cigar could be a very filling meal. But he was too distracted by the fact that Angelo hadn’t blatantly turned down the offer of cooking. "Can you even cook?"

Angelo looked thoughtful for a moment and then started for the door, "Passably," He replied humbly, "Come on, we’re going to the twenty-four-hour store down the street."

Nikolai was already going after him even before he heard what he had to say, "Do they sell food?" He had to ask, wondering why they had to go to the store when they could just order from a restaurant.

"Food we can cook? Yes," Angelo specified, deftly putting his messy hair in a quick braid so that he didn’t look insane.

He wore a hoodie and the bottoms of one of Nikolai’s night robes that had ended up in his room, while the Mafia King was dressed in a full set of night robes. They both looked like they had just rolled out of bed.

Angelo had to fend for himself for most of his life, learning to cook was for survival. For tonight, they would be eating instant ramen. He was far too hungry and lazy for anything more complex.

"Cook?" Nikolai repeated, slightly concerned. He had never learned how to cook, and he couldn’t be less disinterested in learning.

"I’ll do the cooking," Angelo corrected, going down the stairs with focus.

The foyer was empty, and the parking lot even more so. He knew that Nikolai’s men were constantly on duty, but he couldn’t see them as they made their way across the parking lot, and he didn’t ask.

Going on a late-night grocery run was something Nikolai had never done before, much less in his night clothes. The night was cold, but he barely felt it, Angelo sticking close to his side, the assassin constantly on alert despite this being Nikolai’s home turf.

There was only a single sleepy staff member behind the counter, a young Alpha who looked barely past his teens, yawned behind a hand as he watched them approach, only to immediately go wide awake at the sight of Nikolai.

"Grab the noodles," Angelo directed, already walking off, "I’ll get everything else."

Nikolai paused at the task he was given, scanning around the store. It was a family-owned store so it was far from large but he had no idea where to begin his search.

Soon Angelo had disappeared behind rows of shelves, he had only been tasked with a single thing, he didn’t want Angelo to return and find out that he hadn’t even made an effort.

He walked over to the counter, the kid behind it shrinking as he approached. "Where’s the noodles?"

"D-Down that aisle," He said hastily, pointing him in the right direction.

"Thanks," Nikolai muttered, heading in the direction he had been pointed out. It was just noodles, it couldn’t be that difficult... but he couldn’t have been more wrong.

Nikolai stood in front of the entire shelf, he had been expecting to have to search the shelf but there had been no need to because the entire row of shelves all had noodles on them,

How was he supposed to choose? Why did there have to be so many options? With nothing else to do, he picked up a packet and scanned it, not exactly sure what he was supposed to be looking for.

If he had known that picking out noodles would be this involved, he would have asked Angelo more questions...

Like the assassin could hear him slowly losing his mind, he appeared around the corner, bagged produce in his hands. "Get the cup noodles," He saved him from his dilemma, "You can get the spicy ones if you can handle it."

And just as quickly as he came, he went off to keep shopping, Nikolai’s gaze staying on him until he couldn’t see him anymore.

With instructions, things moved much smoother. Nikolai was neutral to spice but he grabbed some spicy noodles just because, starting to think that he should have thought of taking a shopping basket to hold all the cup noodles he got.