Chapter 49. A Date? (13/13)

“Alright shoot, what do you propose?”

“How about I try and figure something out about you the way you figured out stuff about me.”

“Oh? Are you confident?”

“Yes.”

“I’d rather surrender now then. I don’t like competing in games I’m sure to lose.”

“Come on, just let me win~ don’t bully me- I’m not my daughter~” She spoke to me playfully.

“Fine, go ahead.”

“Well… I’m I’ll be a bit surprised if I am right about this. You have a job yourself despite being under 16, don’t you?”

“Haaaaah. It seems I’ve made a blunder.”

“Yes, while you were feeling my hand, I naturally had the chance to feel yours as well. They weren’t the hands of a child who didn’t know of work.”

“Did you figure out anything else?”

“Well… I could only think you might get away with working somewhere like at the back of a warehouse at first. But… I changed my eyes when I got a better look at your eyes. You’re wearing decorative colored contacts, aren’t you?”

“Oh? You noticed even that?”

“Yes, I deal with many people as a barista. I’m constantly maintaining eye contact. I’ve seen many people with and without such contacts so if I look closely enough I can distinguish them from normal ones. When I realized you had such an item one might use to disguise themself, I figured you were probably used to changing your hair up as well. That’s not how you normally have your hair, is it?”

“What makes you think that?”

“It only happened once, but you subconsciously brushed your fingers over your forehead instinctively as if trying to move your hair out of the way from in front of your eyes despite your hair being styled up with your forehead exposed. It led me to believe you’re more accustomed to having your hair unstyled and hanging down over your forehead, partially covering your eyes. A man who tries to hide his eyes has many other things he wants to hide from others. As people often say, the eyes are a window to the soul.”

She looked like she was having fun while exposing everything she’d seen through about me.

“So, with the idea that you disguise yourself for work, another potential job came to mind. I’d initially excluded it as a possibility despite it being an obvious choice, you work at a convenience store or something to that degree.”

She said that as if she’d cracked a murder case. I was the culprit. Her words were indicative of that.

“Well? Am I right? Am I right? Please tell me I’m right. I want to be right.”

“Haaaah. I concede. You got me. I do work at a convenience store. Please refrain from asking the ‘how.’”

“No problem. It’s just a fun little game after all. Whatever is said or happens in this car stays in this car. My lips are sealed just for you, does that make you happy?”

“Haha, a beautiful woman like you keeping my secret, I’m truly over the moon.”

“Good. Good.”

“How about we continue?” She asked.

“I’d rather not. I’m afraid of what else you’ve figured out.”

“You mean like about I don’t know… your girlfriend Rosa?”

My expression stiffened up. I had a feeling she’d seen through that. I more or less had an idea of how she’d figured it out as well.

“How about the game this time is one more favorable to you? If I just revealed how I knew it would feel one-sided like I’m bullying a kid and not giving him a chance.”

“You sure you want to let me win so easily?”

“Oh? You’re confident?” 

“Yeah.”

“Never mind then, I’d rather surrender now. I don’t like competing in games I’m sure to lose.” She returned my own words to me.

“When you were hugging me close to your bosom, you also had two of your fingers on my neck. You were keeping an eye on my heartbeat. When I heard Rosa’s name mentioned, I had a small reaction to it.”

“Booo! You can’t go and forcefully win like that. I said I wouldn’t play.”

“Then consider it a draw.”

With those words, our little back and forth game came to an end. We’d arrived in front of my place right at that moment. One win, one loss, and one draw. It wasn’t a bad result.

“Thanks for the ride.”

“No problem.”

I got out of the car and walked around the front of it to head inside. I thought that would be it, but when I was a few feet away I heard a car horn honk once.

I turned around and discovered the car window rolled down.

Alicia’s mother called out to me and said, “Hey, you forgot something in the car.”

Slightly perplexed, I tried to figure out what it was. Had something fallen out of my pocket without me noticing? I walked over to the driver seat where she had the window rolled down.

“What did I forget exactly?”

Her arm shot out, grabbed onto my shirt, and pulled me closer. Before I even realized what had happened I felt a burning hot sensation on my lips. My eyes shot open wide in shock. What the hell!

I was suddenly released with a dumbfounded look on my face.

“You see, I’m a woman who doesn’t like to lose. A draw is a rather unsatisfying result I can’t be content with, but with this, it feels like I won in the end. Well anyway, that was the reward for the naughty boy who wanted to try teasing me and getting away with it. My daughter didn’t give you a kiss goodbye, so I thought I’d give you one on her behalf. Also, consider it a bit of payback for forcefully kissing my daughter in the first place.”

With those final words, she drove off before I had a chance to even retort. I stood there stupefied. Was Alicia’s mother really okay?

Actually, if Alicia’s mother was a vixen like this, what would happen if the daughter matured and became like her? Scary! I shivered at the thought. Wouldn’t I be kind of screwed if that happened? Would I ever have peaceful days with such a woman around?

A bead of sweat rolled down the side of my cheek as I contemplated over all my decisions in life up to date. As for this kiss… there was no way I dared speak a single word to anyone, not even Rosa.

As Irene said, whatever was said or happened in her car, stayed in her car. That was for the best.

I raised my hand and placed it over my chest. My heart was beating abnormally fast. Had I been excited? I felt like such a trashy person thinking that Irene, Alicia’s mother had sent my heart racing. I mean, it’s her mother, right? Her mother. The immorality of it was no doubt the allure, that much was obvious.

Today, I had to admit though, I learned something rather significant. This lesson had provided me with a much better understanding of the term cougar. And in a certain sense, Alicia’s mother was far more dangerous than any woman I’d encountered to date.

A barista though… who would have thought?

What a terrifying profession.

I’ll never underestimate a single barista ever again in my life. I constantly had my guard up throughout our interaction, but she’d torn through it effortlessly, one piece at a time. The term barista was now firmly ingrained in my heart as being a wild untamable beast.

As I remorsed over such senseless things I returned to my empty unit all alone. There was nothing here as usual. Nothing had changed inside for the last three months. It was still empty and hollow.

That heavy feeling crept into my heart and encroached upon it. I’d returned home, but there was nothing sweet about it to be found.

I was a far cry from Alicia’s place. This was where I belonged. Alone.

Whatever I’d been doing before slowly faded away to the back of my mind. All the previous thoughts I had drifted away to some far-off land never to be heard again.

I let out a sigh and heated up a mass-produced meal devoid of any love. The taste… there was none. It was tasteless, bland. But it was food to me. It filled me up, it was cheap, took little time to prepare, and was convenient. That was all that mattered at the end of the day. Things like meals filled with love, I can’t taste it at all. I simply put in the motions to act human and pretend I can.

I still can’t comprehend such irrational things. Love is simply a result of chemical reactions in your brain. It does not add anything additional in terms of ingredients. Because I couldn’t rationalize it in my mind, I couldn’t taste it, that thing called love, in food.

Though… recently… maybe that’s not the case. It wasn’t the act of putting something physically in to change the taste, but rather the simple notion in one’s mind that love was inside. Simply put, it was the placebo effect at work. If one strongly believed enough that there was love inside something and convinced themselves that that would make it taste better, then their brain would simply do all the work and make it seem like it really did taste better.

So by my rationale, I’d come to the logical conclusion that when someone said they were putting love into the food to make it taste better, it was a lie born out of someone’s kindness to invoke a placebo effect.

Well, none of that really mattered.

Once I’d filled my stomach, I laid down on my bed and stared up blankly at the ceiling. I took out my headphones and plugged them into my phone. I searched for the first song I’d heard back at Alicia’s place online and I listened to it on repeat while I patiently waited.

Time ticked by ever so slowly, one second at a time. I was confident I’d soon receive a text. I was certain the ‘arrangements’ I made would be more than enough to scare that child who was peeking from the corner of the stairs while thinking I hadn’t been aware.

Everything I’d done while interacting with his elder sister and his mother was to invoke a sense that I was up to no good. That they were part of the arrangements I’d referred to.

For example, the simple action where I fed his mother and sister a cookie by hand, in his mind, I’d intentionally done that to show him that I could easily accomplish such feats. If I wished to poison them or make them I’ll, I could easily gain their trust to do so without them realizing a thing. Everything was done with such hidden intent. Of course, I’d never actually do something like poison them, but he perceived me like a fiend with the way I’d presented myself to him.

These sorts of actions were the kinds of things Alicia’s mother said she couldn’t see through. It was for the simple fact she didn’t know the interaction I had with her son. She lacked the prerequisite information, thus she could not comprehend the intent being the resultant action.

Right now that child was likely letting his imagination run rampant. The act of a devil I presented to him was what made it run wild in this fashion. If I hadn’t put on such a show, the same actions would not have had the same intended result.

Even if he went to his sister to try and warn him about me, she already knew everything. I’d allowed her to see and hear everything just for that purpose. She knew my intent to help her little brother and chose to trust in me, her self-proclaimed enemy who she wanted to see as a friend.

If he went to his mother, she’d just think he was jealous or felt displeased that a boy had gotten so close to both his mother and sister.

He was trapped. Nobody would believe him. Thus, he could only surrender and accept my assistance.

It took all the way until the very deadline I set at midnight before a text message finally came in on my phone. It was received right at 11:59 PM. He’d spent all this time trying to convince his mother and sister I was a bad person and not to trust me, but it seems his efforts were in vain. He’d wracked his head and toiled over it for over four straight hours to think up some sort of solution until the very last second, but he couldn’t come up with anything in the end. He’d surrendered and sold his soul to the devil.

‘I agree to your offer for assistance. Don’t you dare touch my mother and big sister.’

That was his text.

I responded with a text of my own.

‘Your wishes shall be granted.’

With a satisfied smile, I closed my eyes, then finally put an end to this unreasonably long and tiresome day.