# Chapter 6. A Welcome Guest
In the morning, the moment sunlight touched his cheek, Chris awoke in his own bed. His body was completely naked.
He had no memory of the early morning hours. All he could recall was falling asleep curled up deep in the mountains in his wolf form.
It was an incomprehensible situation. There was an empty void in his memory, as if there were holes in it.
How did I get in here without a key?
His body had never felt this light. Was this how someone felt when they were first freed after constantly dragging hundreds of kilograms of weight? Or was this the sensation of someone who had always walked in water finally walking on land? The sense of liberation and stability was indescribably abundant.
‘Is this what full Guiding feels like, the kind I’ve only heard about?’
He couldn’t be certain since he’d never experienced it before. He could only vaguely guess, having heard that an Esper’s senses became this calm when they received Guiding from a compatible Guide.
He had no idea how he had encountered a Guide in that mountain that night. In those final moments, his Guiding energy had clearly been running out.
It was fortunate enough that it hadn’t led to a Rampage, but the fact that his body was this stable was unbelievable luck in itself.
Chris stood up, wrapping the sheet around himself, and first grabbed some clothes to put on. Without his terminal device, he had no way to contact anyone to report his safe return.
Just then, there was a loud knocking sound from the door. Chris walked toward the door, then looked down at the floor when he felt something catch on his foot.
The shape was unfamiliar, but he recognized the color.
‘A handle…?’
Why is it on the floor?
Bang bang bang!
At the harsh knocking sound, Chris opened the door without even needing to unlock it. The man from next door was standing in front of it.
“What’s the matter?”
“What’s the matter? After making such a racket last night.”
The man snapped at him.
“If you were going to drink, you should’ve gone in quietly. Why make such a fuss? I didn’t dare look outside because it was dawn, but now I see the door handle’s been ripped off and is gone somewhere. I thought the apartment building was collapsing. Really.”
At the neighbor’s grumbling, Chris frowned. The neighbor seemed to be focusing just on the fact that the door handle had been pulled off, but Chris’s gaze was directed at the handle lying on the floor.
It looked like clay that a young child had kneaded. Chris couldn’t fathom how much force would need to be applied to a brass handle to get it into this state.
“I’m sorry. I must have had too much to drink.”
Chris bowed his head without revealing his agitation.
“Be more careful next time.”
Apparently quite satisfied that the intimidating person had meekly bowed his head, the man shot back a remark and went down the stairs. He seemed to have judged that Chris, drunk, wouldn’t wake up early, so he came to give a warning as he was leaving for work.
The memory gap itself wasn’t strange. After all, Chris had started from a complete blank slate. He had at least considered the possibility that his memories might disappear again at some point.
However, since it had happened in the middle of a mission, this couldn’t help but be troublesome. From the circumstances, it seemed he had made the door handle look like this and entered the room to sleep…
Whether he had crossed through residential areas in wolf form or climbed up the apartment completely naked, either situation was terribly inconvenient.
Judging from the neighbor’s words, it was fortunate, if anything, that he had moved at dawn.
‘Did I overuse my abilities and overload my brain?’
Even psychic Espers couldn’t claim to have perfect control over the brain. The brain had such a delicate yet complex system. So Chris couldn’t know what mechanism his body had used to do something like what happened that early morning.
What Chris did know was that this state of his could become an unstable element for the mission.
‘Once a team member who secured a terminal device comes to find me, I should request to return first.’
He felt he needed to go back to the June Continent first and have a psychic Esper examine him.
His heart sank at the thought of having to leave the November Continent. If his reason chose to return to the June Continent, it was his emotions that held Chris’s ankles.
After quickly scanning his surroundings, Chris gathered up the books scattered on the floor. Though they were fairly bulky and quite heavy, he could easily lift them with one arm.
As he organized the books, he thought of Yuri. Since he planned to return as quickly as possible, he wouldn’t even have time to stop by the Magnolia bookshop after meeting up with his team members.
It wasn’t that he was trying to say goodbye or anything. Since infiltrating Aurum City in secret was the mission, he had to slip out without anyone knowing. He couldn’t possibly say goodbye to Yuri, of course, or to acquaintances like Nasthenka whom he’d met at the reeducation center.
He simply wanted to capture him in his eyes one last time.
Chris gauged the time. It was still work hours. The November Continent’s postal worker would need a bit more time to retrieve the terminal device.
After that was delivered to the Northern Light branch and they contacted his team members from there, it would still take time before someone like Andrea or Jay came looking for him.
If he could borrow this brief reprieve to steal even a glimpse of Yuri’s shadow, that would be good.
Having made up his mind, Chris stepped outside. He felt buoyant. Like a child who had promised to go to an amusement park with their parents the next day.
Or like an addict high on drugs.
If there was a difference from the first time he’d encountered Gentle Poison, it was that the current Chris didn’t even realize his senses were floating. He simply moved forward with an excited heart.
At the end of the road, the Magnolia Antiquarian Bookshop came into view. There had been times when that faded, dark-colored shop had seemed gloomy. But now it seemed as if a sparkle that only he could see was leaking out from Magnolia.
Since he was visiting earlier than usual, Chris thought Yuri might not be there.
But as always, Yuri stood in a scene that seemed like it would never change.
The antique, elegant wooden floor and bookshelves built in layers of deep brown solid wood, the gramophone with its graceful lines, and the cozy bookshop Magnolia where the scent of the cigars Yuri smoked drifted hazily.
Yuri, wearing white gloves, was turning pages as usual. Chris blinked at the delicate face hidden behind glasses.
‘…Glasses?’
Chris somehow felt an incongruity he couldn’t shake off from those glasses. As if he’d seen him without them before.
Ignoring the incongruity forming in his hazy mind, Chris opened the bookshop door and stepped inside.
When he breathed deeply, he smelled old paper and dust, and freshly opened ink. Chris felt a faint thirst at the air filling deep into his lungs.
Between the slow chanson melody flowing from the gramophone in his ears, he heard Yuri’s voice.
“No trace?”
[… …. …]
“Yeah, got it. A customer just came in, so hold on—”
Yuri, who had been on a call with someone, looked up at the sound of the bell. The moment Chris filled his vision, he pressed his lips tightly shut.
At the gaze that lingered on his face longer than usual, Chris hesitated, forgetting even to greet him. Yuri’s violet eyes were fixed on Chris’s face without blinking for even a single moment.
Finally, Yuri’s lips moved.
“…No. I’ll hang up for now.”
His hand pressed the call end button.
Watching Chris, he blinked for the first time. Today, his long, delicate eyelashes seemed to blur his vision.
“Hello.”
At the greeting he barely managed to utter, Yuri stared at Chris.
A deep smile bloomed on the lips of the bookshop owner who was always expressionless. It was an expression unlike Yuri, who always remained blank-faced despite having looks that could captivate anyone.
Chris found himself staring at him in a daze without realizing it.
“A welcome guest indeed.”
Yuri was sincere.
From the day Chris appeared at the door of the Magnolia Antiquarian Bookshop, he had always been a welcome guest.
***
In front of Room 404, Yuri naturally took out a key and inserted it into the door handle. The old, worn key created a strange discord with the sophisticated black leather gloves.
Click—when the door opened, a piece of paper fluttered down through the gap. Though it was small enough to pass by unnoticed, Yuri’s gaze caught it.
It seemed he’d used his head, since installing a security device would draw the attention of those around.
Yuri manipulated his terminal device to give a simple order to his subordinates, then entered the house.
The interior was barren, with hardly any proper furniture to be found. Just one dining table and one chair—that was all. There was a room, but all that could be seen inside was a single bed.
