130 – Bait – 4
It’s as refreshing as if you had a tooth pulled out. With a satisfied expression on my face, I fiddled with the pillbox and note in my pocket. These are nothing special, but the feel of them on my fingertips was very satisfying.
Anyway, these are the things I got through all that hard work. Patience was bitter, but the fruit was sweet. Although it is precisely the seed of that fruit, I had no doubt that this seed would bear sweet fruit.
It was not too late to return to the dormitory room. I closed the door gently so as not to wake the student in the next room, and sat down in front of the desk without going straight to bed. My body was a little tired, but I still have to pay my bills. I took out a medicine bottle and a note from my pocket, and put the medicine bottle in the depths of my desk drawer.
It’s a hard-earned item, but in the end, the important thing is this note. In a way, it is not an exaggeration to say that I bought the next meeting point and password with expensive money, not medicine. The note the merchant gave looked like a blank piece of paper with nothing written on it. If I hadn’t been told that I had to burn it with fire, I would have become a nuisance even if I forcibly obtained it. I slowly smoked the merchant’s note with a candle. I don’t know what the principle is, but something slowly appeared on the note that looked like it was just folded blank paper.
A rough-looking map and a note that reads, “A Banquet for Rats.” I laughed at the contents of the memo. It’s a banquet for rats, so they seem to be aware that they’re rats. I had the directions and passwords clearly stored in my head. When the business was over, he folded the note again and threw it next to the medicine cabinet.
After finishing my work, I jumped into bed. I tightened my whole body and stretched it out. After a long time, I stretched my legs out and thought about getting a good night’s sleep, and I laughed out loud. No matter how superior my physical abilities were, sustaining without sleep for several days was tiring of my mind before my body. Even then, during the day, I had to pretend that I was normal and that nothing was wrong. My mentality was eating away at me like this.
To be honest, it’s still too early to be relieved, and the plan is just taking its first steps, but how can you sleep soundly without worrying for a few days?
But there is one thing that worries me a little. I didn’t want to be suspicious, so I quietly buried it, but I wonder if the cat sounded earlier was a real cat. I think that cry is the sound of a cat. However, no matter how much I thought about the sign before that, it was hard to think of it as a cat’s. It was a human sign. I thought that the drug dealer was probably a cat earlier, and passed on without checking properly, but what was really on the other side of that alley?
It doesn’t make much sense to think about it now, but it’s a pity that I’m missing something. It’s a subtle feeling that I’m out of the house and I’m confused whether I’ve turned off the gas valve, or I haven’t finished checking the OMR card yet, but I’m worried that it might have been overwritten.
However, the accumulated fatigue in my body couldn’t lie, so I fell asleep while agonizing over various thoughts. It was a deep, restful sleep without any dreams. The next morning, I woke up feeling more refreshed than anyone else. Isn’t there such a day? It was such a day when I woke up in the morning and woke up feeling strangely refreshed. For me, today was like that. It’s such a beautiful day that yesterday’s awkwardness feels like a lie. Birds are chirping, flowers are blooming….
“I am waiting.”
“Aagh!”
“How can you be surprised every time you do it?”
I almost passed out as soon as I woke up. I tried to hold on to my surprised heart and checked the uninvited guest early in the morning. No, there was nothing to actually check. There was only one person who came in and out of my room as if the window was the front door of some kind of school.
As if she didn’t understand, Lyra shrugged her shoulders and came down from the window sill of her room with a light gesture. She said that somehow she heard the birds singing louder than usual, and she said it must have been because she left her window open.
“What is this?!”
“I didn’t do anything. I never woke up, I just watched when he woke up.”
“The world calls it a crime.”
She lightly ignored my protests and laid her own body in her chair. Maybe it’s because I’ve been doing it so far, the story of crime doesn’t work anywhere. I asked her to deal with her rough and let her go quickly.
“What happened in the morning?”
In fact, it was her first time seeing her since her last incident. To be honest, it was a bit uncomfortable. It’s because I haven’t come to see you for a week since I left as if I was quite sincere, and I wonder if I was talking too much. I still thought that she was a dangerous person, but she was still a person, so I couldn’t help but worry about her.
“Are we the type of person who only sees each other for a reason?”
“… “
“What is that stupid reaction?”
Lia made a bad joke. While I was contemplating what answer to give back, she shrugged her shoulders saying she hadn’t expected her answer in the first place and stood up. She walked slowly to and fro my room with her hands behind her back.
She looked the same as before, as if nothing had happened. It’s hard to believe that she was the one who left while showing off her squeamishness openly. No, I think it’s a little more sly.
At that time, Lira’s expression subtly changed. It’s like a child who doesn’t know what to do with a fun toy in her hand. The corners of her mouth rise, her sneering snort leaks out, and her voice quivers slightly with joy. Why is he like this, has he finally gone mad?
Lyra put her hand on her chin, and she said very unluckily.
“Hmm? Did you think I was pissed off?”
“What?”
“Isn’t it? I guess that’s right. Like the way I look right now, isn’t I very uncomfortable?”
After she said that, she suddenly burst into laughter. She laughed so loudly that you could see her uvula dangling through her throat. While I was embarrassed, she laughed so hard that I wiped away her tears.
“I was abandoned by my parents and abandoned by my owner, but I was fine. You wouldn’t have thought that I would have gotten angry just because I heard something like that? You didn’t feel guilty because you said something bad to me, did you? You are overly self-conscious.”
“No, you were really upset at that time, so how could you say such a thing….”
She started laughing at me. But I was more embarrassed than embarrassed. No, at that time, with a face that looked like it would explode if poked at it, who was the one who was talking about basic sincerity and heating up, suddenly pretending to be fine like this….
“Go!!!”
At my words, she let out her lion’s roar. She acted as if she believed she never really said that. No, I clearly remember those sad eyes, but you stick out your flippers like that?
“Then why haven’t you been here in a while?”
“Are you lonely because I didn’t come?”
“That’s not what I mean now.”
“I was busy with some work.”
“I know what you are doing, but such an excuse that doesn’t work…” .”
It’s not that the work she does isn’t very difficult, it’s that she suddenly has extra work, so there’s nothing more busy. Academy, we always go back to the same routine unless there is a special event. You won’t be so busy that you suddenly go to sleep for over a week. In the end, it’s all just excuses.
“Anyway, I never did.”
“If you insist on saying no, isn’t everything?”
“I’m not insisting, I’ve never really been like that.”
But my logical rebuttal soon lost its usefulness. Because Lyra covered her ears and started repeating her own words like a broken tape recorder. There is no point in arguing any longer. Tired of her hardline self-hypnosis, I decided to just raise her hands and feet and admit that I was overly self-conscious. I don’t know why the girls around me behave so childishly when things go against them.
Still, while she was arguing with her like a child’s play, her discomfort toward her had subsided before she knew it. Yeah, it’s funny how I feel uncomfortable when she says she’s not upset. I don’t know if she’s aiming for this and acting so childishly, or if it’s just her nature….
I thought that far and saw Lira who was still covering her ears. Well, no matter how much I think about it, I think that’s just nature. That vibe is too natural to say that it was a job designed to not be uncomfortable out of deep consideration for me.
As I raised the white flag, she finally removed her hand from her ear and began to show some willingness to talk.
“Ehh. Yeah, I didn’t think so. So, what the hell is going on with this morning wind?”
In the end, it turns around and tells this story again. Although it feels a bit far back. Considering the fact that he had been looking at me since this early morning, even before I opened my eyes, I wonder if he was waiting for me because he had something to say. Actually, if you think about it, isn’t it the first time that she came to me from morning like this? Is there something important to say?
“No, there is no such thing. I just came to report survival.”
“Get out.”
I tossed her pillow that was lying roughly beside her head and ordered Lyra to celebrate. She stuck her tongue out at me once and disappeared back through the window she came in. I really have to put a secom on that bastard’s window, really.
–
After the swordsmanship class. Suddenly, I remembered something I was wondering about Cordelia. Come to think of it, she bought her medicine too, and she might have gotten a note with her place and code to meet her next time. I don’t think she would have said anything after accepting it, but isn’t it a little strange that she didn’t receive what I received?
“Come to think of it, Cordelia, you bought the medicine too.”
“Eh, huh?! Uh. Yes.”
“Did I do something wrong? Why are you so surprised?”
It’s a question I casually asked without thinking about it, but he reacted so suspiciously like that? I stared into Cordelia’s eyes. Her pupils moved to and fro incessantly. It seems that he never wants to make eye contact with me because his eyes are moving.
“Write… , suspicious. Aren’t you hiding something?”
“There is no such thing!”
“Really?”
“There is no such thing!”
I can’t help but believe you when you say that.
“Anyway, didn’t you hear something like that when you bought it?”
“A story you heard together?”
“Well, where do you come next time, something like that.”
Cordelia closed her eyes for a moment, groaned, reviewed her memories, then shook her head.
“No? There was no such thing But why?”
“Just. There must be people who go back to buy it again, but I want to know how to find such people. It’s not a person’s job to be ignorant like you and search the alleys all night for a week.”
I don’t mean to say that I did the ignorant thing myself. Cordelia lightly pinched my forearm when she said I was ignorant.
“I’m not ignorant.”
“It’s not that you’re ignorant, it’s that the method is ignorant.”
“That’s it.”
Her hand pinched her forearm with a little more strength. I spread her fingers one by one and removed them from my arm.
By the way, it seems she didn’t get a note similar to the one I got. If you don’t ask directly, it doesn’t seem like they’ll give it to you first. Maybe I thought it wasn’t worth teaching to someone who couldn’t even think of that much.
Cordelia narrowed her eyes. This time she started staring me in the eye.
“Looking at it now, I think it’s you, not me… ? It’s really your last chance. What are you hiding?”
“Because it’s not.”
Cordelia wondered if she had smelled something. This time she asked me backwards. However, after I hit the iron wall a few times, it quickly fell away as if it had lost interest. She said it as if to patronize it.
“Huh, I got it.”
“When people say something, trust me.”
I was pretending nothing was wrong, but inside I cleared my chest.
But while I was so relieved, Cordelia was looking at me and her eyes were shining, which she did not know at the time.