Rogers blinked, and then he stretched out a finger to force Rand to turn his attention to his face.
"Hey, look at me," he said. "What did you see?"
Rand paused in confusion and hesitation before speaking.
"Uh... your foundation?"
Rogers had to intensify his tone, his hand drawing a circle in the air.
"You're supposed to be looking at a flawless face - with a face like that, I'm always going to be harassed by some boring people, and just to keep my wonderful body from being violently persecuted, you know, I Can only choose to call myself someone who is not harmed by violence. By the way, I have a legal proof of gun ownership, and then I just happened to have sleepless nights tonight... You don't know that you and your dear pet had an affair before. How big is the movement? I thought someone broke into your house illegally - after all, you have an older brother who is a billionaire. People like you shouldn't be alone in an ordinary apartment , oh yes, if you insist on doing it you better not have weird pets."
Rogers' peculiar tone and calm expression like a frightened girl made him seem more sincere than anyone else.
Sincere enough to even make Rand feel sorry for his previous doubts about him.
"Oh... Thanks for your help... As for Munster, it was just a little weird before, I didn't think of..."
"'Some'?"
Rogers raised his voice, but he quickly remembered that there was another creature in the living room, and immediately lowered his voice.
"Well, it's pretty weird."
Rand said dryly.
In fact even himself, recalling the strangeness that Munster had shown before in this situation, was astonished at his ignorance of it.
Before today, he always thought that it was just a slightly strange amphibian, but the raw materials leaked by Deep White Biotechnology at sea had caused some changes, oh, yes... Mutations...
Rand hit a jerk.
Then the whole room fell into that dead silence again.
He and Rogers looked awkwardly at each other until the other yawned uncontrollably.
"So, what are you going to do now?"
Rogers told him.
Rand couldn't answer his question at all, his head was utterly messed up like a thousand corgis were tap dancing in his gyri, and his mind went blank.
But he still shook his head slowly at Rogers.
"I don't know, maybe, just watch for a while?" he said tentatively.
"Observation? Rand Severs! Are you crazy? Have you ever figured out how dangerous things are in your living room? I don't want to see you one day wrapped in data-preservation film, in shredded form. Get it out the door across from me - and I didn't tell you my grandma used to love lizards and then one day, you know, she had a Parkinson's attack, and she probably just passed out in the house, of course it's more likely that she just forgot to feed Her darling 'Sofia' 'Sophie' and 'Alexander'...and then by the time we found out she'd been devoured by them and the neighbors didn't even smell! God, this pet of yours is better than My grandma's ones add up to the big ones!"
"I think Munster looks more... smarter than the lizard?"
Rand squeezed out a wry smile, his tone uncomfortably uncertain.
Rogers looked like he was about to faint.
"That's not the point! The point is safety, yours! Omg... we should call 911 animal control or even NASA! That thing might be an alien! Let them get it out of your living room fish tank Get it out of there, those people will always have a way to deal with that stuff, I heard that NASA sometimes mixes dissected Martians in hamburger meat for employees to eat so that they will be better for aviation adaptation syndrome in space. Resist…”
"No, no, Rogers, don't do that."
Rand raised his hand and shook it slightly in the air.
Despite the sheer nonsense of what Rogers said, Rand couldn't help but think of something else.
In the laboratory of Deep White Biotechnology, he had occasionally seen some experimental items there. They were just very ordinary things, but they made him feel very sick and uncomfortable. Rand was more certain than anyone else that once Munster was exposed to the public eye, it would be the subject of a co-owner's study.
Dissected, then gutted, and finally put in a fluid of formalin…
Rand felt a cold sweat run down his back, the base of his tongue started to tingle and he felt faintly vomiting.
He wasn't quite sure why, but just thinking about it, his reaction always seemed to be quite violent.
And when those elements were associated with Munster, his resistance became even stronger - he had raised it for so long after all, and...
"Let me think about it, really, I think I just need a little time to… deal with Munster better. It's looking good now."
Rand said.
"Hey man, it almost killed me!"
"I know, but at that time you shot, and it was quite obedient afterwards..." Rand said bitingly, then pointed to the slippers on the floor. "It was even afraid of slippers."
…
Rogers had a toothache-like look on his face.
"You know what? Rand, the way you look now reminds me of my grandma, her cat peeing in my shoe but she insists that was just a way for the cat to show her love to me."
"I thought your grandma kept lizards..."
"Oh, she had lizards and cats, and of course the cat was eaten by the lizards." Rogers shrugged and said, "Well, if you insist on keeping your monster in your house—please Come to my apartment and try the new cookies, that's all, and protect yourself from being eaten."
Rogers rubbed his fake hand and said to Rand, and he unconsciously lowered his voice in the last sentence. Of course, Rand did not hear this.
To be honest, Rand is still apprehensive about his decision.
Rogers eventually rolled out of the bedroom window and climbed down some pipes to his apartment to avoid passing through the apartment's living room.
Rand was very sorry to him... More grateful, of course. Because Rogers said he would help Rand keep a secret, and he would still provide Munster with feed in the future (but only if Rand had to go to his apartment to get it himself).
When he left, Rand realized that his apartment was unbelievably quiet, and the sky outside the window had turned pale...
For Rand, he seems to have no such happy time to sleep directly.
After wandering around like a trapped beast for a long time in the room, he finally mustered up the courage to remove the obstacles placed at the door, and then, trembling, he walked out of the room to the living room.
In the dim light, Munster was struggling to be trapped in the aquarium in a twisted posture.
The moment he saw Rand, the feather-like tentacles on its head bounced up and began to shake slightly, because the thing was so big that Rand couldn't even convince himself to ignore it.
Well, the monster is still awake.
Rand stood tremblingly on the diagonal farthest from the aquarium and looked at it.
Compared to his master's horror, Munster looked joyous and happy, and he looked like he could have just crawled out and threw his tail into Rand's lap.
And it is obviously impossible to do this in the state of the oil-soaked can. In the bathroom, it can only beat the aquarium wall with the exposed tail. The pitiful aquarium let out a sour groan that Rand had to stop Munster.
"Stop, stop..." he shouted. "I mean, stop, Munster."
Munster's tail immediately froze in the air.
It stared at Rand in confusion.
"Stop... stop..."
it says.
Rand twitched his nose.
Come on, Rand, now that you've made a decision, you should face this.
He said to himself inwardly, and he took a tentative step toward Munster, and then another.
The day dawned quickly, and the living room was soon filled with the pink light of the morning sun.
Rand saw Munster's face more clearly now than before - still as ugly as he remembered, but there was something wonderful here too, and he found that he didn't seem to be as frightened of it as he thought.
Especially when you actively start approaching it.
Rand walked only about forty centimeters away from Munster. Munster's four eyes never left it, and when you get used to being watched with four eyes... Well, you are got used to.
Just like Rand.
He swallowed, forcing himself not to look at the wildly waving tentacles on Munster's head.
"Hey, Munster."
he said to Munster.
"I... I'm Rand, you know what I mean? I'm Rand."
Munster's nictitating membrane slid past its eyes, perhaps the monster's wink - thought Rand.
Then he heard Munster's low voice.
"Rand."
Not a mechanical gossip, not a weird chirp.
Rand shuddered slightly at the call, and he looked at Munster in shock, a little unbelievable.
His heart began to beat faster, and he pointed tentatively to his face.
"You know who I am?"
This is an interrogative sentence.
…
After a brief silence, Munster's tail twitched involuntarily.
It looked straight at Rand.
"Rand."
It answers this question.