“Ah.”
“If you’ve come all the way here, everyone has their stories. It’s about not doing things that burden each other.”
Winking one eye slightly, she maintained her initial cheerful and outgoing impression, but the words themselves carried weight. Surely Nasthenka herself had her own story.
“I’ll be careful not to be rude.”
“It won’t even come up as a topic anyway. Everyone’s busy just talking about what they’ll do going forward. So the advice I can give ends here!”
Saying her stomach had completely emptied from all the talking, Nasthenka stood up with her tray.
“I’m going to get food one more time. You?”
“I think I’ll stop eating now.”
Since fullness makes the body sluggish, Chris always consumed only a moderate amount of food. Especially during missions.
“If you’re worried about being noticed, you don’t need to think that way. No one says anything even if you go get food several times. The staff here are all businesslike rather than kind, but that actually makes it more comfortable.”
“That’s a useful tip. I’ll keep it in mind next time I’m hungry.”
Chris nodded without withdrawing his smile.
“See you in class.”
“Sounds good.”
Nasthenka waved her hand lightly and moved away. Thinking he was fortunate to have met a friendly person, Chris stood up from the cafeteria.
On the way back to the dormitory after getting an outing application form from the center’s administrative office, Chris deliberately took a wrong turn toward the addict section.
When he’d looked at the aerial view Andrea had sent, one of the corridors connected to the administrative office side led this way. Even if he encountered someone, since it was his first day, an excuse of getting lost would work best, so he needed to take care of it today.
Just because it was called the addict section didn’t make it particularly darker or brighter. It didn’t look that different from the room Chris was currently staying in, so he thought someone making their first visit might get lost.
Though there must be a few people beyond those doors, the corridor was silent. No presence could be felt, but mixed scents of nausea, bleach, and medicinal odors wafted through. The degree wasn’t strong, so unless you had a sensitive nose like Chris, it was a smell you might pass by without noticing.
‘It seems to be well-managed.’
It seemed difficult to confirm the identities of those staying here. Then, one of the doors burst open and three people in blue clothes rushed out pushing a wheeled bed.
“Moving patient!”
“Please step aside!”
Even upon discovering Chris in the corridor, rather than being surprised, they focused on swiftly pushing the bed past.
The person lying on the bed was unconscious with eyes rolled back. Even though they’d lost consciousness, seeing the hand sticking out from under the blanket trembling violently, it seemed like a seizure had occurred.
As the bed passed through the corridor and disappeared, Chris turned his head at a whirring sound.
The moment he saw the thickness of the door that had begun automatically closing where they’d passed, Chris could understand why no sound had been heard despite such a commotion happening beyond it.
‘The door is thick. Are the walls also built with soundproofing material?’
There were at least three or more wheeled beds visible through the door gap. Each bed had a nameplate hanging from it, and before the door closed, Chris was able to confirm the name of the person whose foot stuck out from under the blanket.
[Walter Evans]
Chris, who barely memorized the spelling, confirmed the presence or absence of surveillance cameras at the landing halfway down the corridor, then activated the terminal attached to his arm.
After requesting an investigation into Walter Evans and deactivating the terminal, he returned to his dormitory room as if nothing had happened.
The next morning at dawn, when Chris visited the communal shower room early again, he confirmed that the data he wanted had arrived before removing his terminal.
[Operated a furniture store in the December Continent until 2 years ago. Went missing after the store was completely destroyed by a fire of unknown cause. Presumed to be a fire caused by Esper manifestation rather than spontaneous combustion.]
An Esper…
Chris’s eyes narrowed slightly, having found something suspicious about the Reeducation Center. He had a feeling that Walter Evans wasn’t the only Esper staying in the addict section.
When lecture time came, Chris naturally greeted Nasthenka in the practice room and took a seat nearby. By the end of class, he had naturally mixed into Nasthenka’s group.
“Wow, Chris, was it?”
“Yes. Please take care of me.”
“I totally thought you were Nacha’s younger brother.”
“I only met Nasthenka-ssi for the first time at the center.”
“True, the more I look, your features seem different. But your hair and eye color are strangely identical.”
Avoiding becoming too much the center of attention, Chris waited for an appropriate topic to come up. Then, at the question of whether he’d adapted to the dormitory, Chris deliberately complained.
“The bed is really, no joke.”
“Why the bed?”
As expected, a woman with brown hair and impressive freckles showed curiosity at Chris’s words.
“Because of my height, it’s a bit small for me, so I have to cram my body in. I had trouble finding a bed even back home, but it’s chaos here too. I think it’ll be painful until I get used to it.”
Though not prying into past history was an unwritten rule, no one gave Chris any looks since he’d brought up the story first. Nasthenka giggled and said,
“True. I was really surprised when I first saw Chris. Your eye level is really…”
“Even though it looks good, just finding a bed to lie down and sleep in is a struggle. I remember a mishap that happened from only looking for big beds.”
“A mishap?”
“I asked the furniture store to take the absolutely biggest bed, but the owner ahjussi said I should take an assembly-type bed instead. My desire to sleep a bit comfortably was like a chimney fire, so I insisted on taking the big bed. But… I couldn’t get it into the room at all. I’d spent the money, but to bring the bed into the room, I’d have to tear down the door.”
Chris grumbled, shaking his head.
“Ahjussi Evans clicked his tongue saying he knew that would happen. ‘There’s nothing bad about listening to adults,’ he said.”
Chris rather skillfully mixed lies with truth. Actually talking about a recent incident when the bed was too big to enter the house and deliberately frowning, most listeners burst into laughter.
However, one person among them frowned slightly.
“Evans?”
As expected, someone had taken Chris’s bait.
“Do you happen to know that person’s name?”
Chris shrugged his shoulders and answered as if it were nothing special.
“I know him as Walter… -ssi.”
“My goodness.”
The man covered his mouth.
“Walter-ssi was attending lectures until recently too.”
“Uncle Walter was here? That’s impossible. He went missing after his store caught fire, and it’s already been two years…”
Chris slightly trailed off. The man who’d said he knew Walter Evans seemed to have let go of even a shred of doubt at those words.
“If he’s from the December Continent and ran a furniture store, that’s Walter-ssi. When he was here, he entered baking education. He used to say like a habit that his dream was to return to his hometown and open a new store after learning all the skills here.”
“Baking? That bear-pawed Uncle Walter?”
As Chris, who’d never exchanged a word with Walter Evans, couldn’t know whether he really had bear paws or not, he deliberately reacted strongly. Chris inwardly thought he was lucky.
In fact, what he’d aimed for was for someone who knew Walter to appear while his story circulated within the center. But he hadn’t expected to hook such a big catch this quickly.
Since the group hanging around Nasthenka were among the veterans at the center, it seemed coincidence upon coincidence had overlapped.
“Yeah. Until about three months ago.”
“Oh my. It seems he already completed the course. If I’d come a bit earlier…”
When he muttered regretfully, the other person’s face clouded.
“Walter-ssi didn’t complete the course. He was always unwell, but it turned out he’d been using dangerous drugs. I heard he collapsed during practice and was moved to a nearby hospital.”
Chris deliberately hardened his face. Sometimes a momentary expression sways the other person’s judgment more than ten words.
He needed to truly appear to be acquainted with Walter Evans. Only then could he cut off unnecessary suspicion.
“Don’t worry too much.”
Perhaps pitying Chris’s agitation, Nasthenka spoke consolingly.
Humans are bound to read others’ emotions and thoughts from their actions. Because through life, they learn the reactions others show when happy, sad, angry, or flustered. This could be deceived plenty.
Deception was ultimately the act of displaying to others the emotion you’ve chosen. Therefore, it wasn’t difficult for Chris to put this into action.
