The upstairs hallway had become one of Kansas' favorite places to hang out. He'd discovered this after the few hours he'd spent up here reading to Amata a few weeks ago on that empty night. The happy memory of the time he'd spent with his girl made the place comfortable and special to him. In the daytime, there was relatively little traffic up here because everyone was either downstairs or outside of the Manor. It wasn't that he was avoiding company (which would have been the case several months ago, actually), but that he didn't want to get in anyone's way while he relaxed with a book or his CD player. There was something unsettling about trying to read or listen to music while another Crimson Dreams wolf likewise tried to do their own thing around him.
He set his book down, something he'd grabbed while at the library called "My Antonia." It was a nice book, with beautiful, flowery language; but he couldn't resist the pull of the CD and player that rested beside him. Now that he'd been introduced to music, it was an obsession. He couldn't go a day without hearing something. And, also thanks to Giggle, he now had a large stockpile of CDs on a shelf in his room, some of which worked and others which didn't. They had created a time-consuming hobby that consisted of flicking through the different tracks to see which ones actually worked.
The CD he had beside him, sitting with the silvery side facing up so it wouldn't get scratched up any more than it already was, had become one of his favorites. He couldn't read the lable well because it was scraped and faded, but the last part of the single word on it was "oath." He called it his "Oath CD." Kansas felt giddy as he dog-eared his book and set it down on his other side, rearranged his legs so that he was sitting criss-cross-applesauce, and loaded his player with "Oath." The headphones slipped easily over his ears, and the boy grinned widely as he pushed the forward button, looking for his favorite track.