Chapter 6 (2/2)

Like a kite that has had its strings cut, Darhk quickly dropped off the front counter and disappeared into the darkness. Asa lowered his bat, staring after him.

In the end, it was Feisha who broke the silence: “Don’t you think one and a half thousand is a bit too much?”

“Absence without leave, extra penalty of five hundred dollars.”

“Wait, so in these three days not only do I not get this month’s salary, but somehow also racked up a debt?”

“One thousand dollars.”

“Fuck.”

Feisha was silently sitting on the open ground at front counter. In fact, he’d been sitting there for two hours now, starting from when Darhk left.

“We had salmon for dinner,” Gin said as he strolled to where Feisha was sitting with his head propped on one arm. His other hand was lazily tracing patterns into the ground. Gin added after a while:

“Hughes is your mentor. He was supposed to teach you all the precautions after the meeting. Except-” Gin waggled his eyebrows lecherously before continuing- “I distracted him.”

Feisha’s hand paused momentarily.

“This is the consequence of mocking one who comes from the noble blood clan.” Even as Gin raised his head in arrogance, his eyes were desperately glued onto Feisha’s figure, watching for a reaction.

Feisha continued to trace meaningless shapes.

Spotting Hughes’ figure frowning disapprovingly by the doorway, Gin lowered his head. “But, I have decided to graciously overlook your wrongdoings.” So thank me, worship me…

Hughes could take no more and stormed over to the duo, Gin immediately attaching himself like glue. And so, the room suddenly had one less person and one more pile of clothes.

“Hughes!” Gin groaned disappointingly. The surroundings remained still. Gazing sadly at the pile of clothes on the ground, Gin sighed:

“Make sure to put your clothes on before reappearing, okay?”

“…”

“To be honest, honey,” Gin said after a while, “don’t you think it’s time to curb that bad habit of not wearing underwear? I know it’s more convenient this way, but…”

He caught the shoe that came flying at his face and quickly added, “Erm, I’m just worried for your health.” Blowing kisses around him, Gin made to leave.

“I’ll be waiting for you in my room. It’s okay if you show up without clothes as well.” He smoothly caught the other shoe, put them down neatly side by side and left with one last forlorn gaze.

One by one, clothes from the pile floated up. Hughes straightened his collar, reappeared and sat down next to Feisha.

“I’m sorry,” was the soft greeting. Feisha raised his head.

“I didn’t do my job as your mentor.”

Silence.

“Maybe it’s because I’ve been here for so long. Doing the same, monotonous things every day and welcoming one human after another to the point where I seem to have forgotten that you all are new to this, and are quite fragile-“

“I’m not new to this.”

“Pardon?”

“I’m not new to this. I’ve had two years of work experience in a hotel, and within those two years I was promoted from a mere assistant manager to the front desk manager.”

“That’s better than me,” Hughes smiled lightly. “I’ve been here for three thousand years and still haven’t seen a single promotion.”

“I’m also not fragile. I might be human, but we have intelligence. At least, more than that titan who spent two thousand years thinking up that ludicrous plan of his.”

“Yes, that much is certain,” Hughes nodded.

“Therefore, I don’t blame you. We’re both at fault for this,” Feisha said. “I should’ve come to ask you about basic things like this.”

Hughes looked at him gently. Suddenly, Feisha thrust out a hand-

“So, seven hundred and fifty dollars please.”

“Eh?” His outburst was met with a look of surprise.

Feisha spoke through gritted teeth. “Isefel told me earlier that my mistake was grade one, and gave me a pay deduction of one and a half thousand dollars. Since we’re both at fault for this, obviously you’re responsible for half of that.”

Hughes thought about this for a moment. “Your currency is…?”

An idea occurred to Feisha. “Since you and your boyfriend seem to get up to some real interesting shit behind closed doors, how about you pay in pounds?”

“But…”

“You just admitted that we were both at fault for the mistake a moment ago.”

“But we only use gold coins,” said Hughes, helplessly.

“Pure gold?”

“No, 18k.”

Feisha gulped. “I shall reluctantly accept your offer.”

Hughes nodded: “Okay.”

“When are you going to give it to me?” Feisha was overjoyed.

“Don’t worry, I’ll hand it straight to Isefel for you,” Hughes said as he patted Feisha on the shoulder. “Oh, you haven’t had dinner yet, have you? Dinner tonight was salmon; Gin specially requested Antonio for it. There are a lot of leftovers in the fridge, make sure you go eat some, okay?”

On the way to the dining hall, one lone phrase replayed in Feisha’s mind like a broken record: I’ll hand it straight to Isefel for you…

Sitting at the place that Feisha had previously occupied, a grin suddenly found its way onto Hughes’ face as he reached out and lightly drew a circle over Feisha’s doodles. A beam of light emerged from the ground, fading away to reveal a drawing-

A buck-toothed man. There was an arrow next to him, pointing at three big words: Gin, you motherfucker.