“Your complexion wasn’t very good last time and now, look at you; you’ve lost weight. Are you sure you’re not pushing yourself too hard?”
Gilbert looked Genos up and down then he clicked his tongue twice in pity.
He looked just like…
Like a grandma or grandpa who was seeing their grandson after a long time.
Genos agreed with him and spoke as if he was exaggerating his pain.
“You’re right, honestly, my friend makes me work too much. He said there’s no other talented person but me so I’m doing it all for now.”
“Oh no! Even if there’s no one else who can handle it, they shouldn’t make someone work till their face is this thin, right?”
Even though they were only meeting up after a long time, the two of them got along very well.
Gilbert showed his worry by telling Genos that even if it was a close friend, he had to be very clear with them about things like this. He even added that the closer the friendship was, the easier it was to wheedle out of money issues, but he should never allow that, and he also advised him to make sure he got paid for over time.
It seemed that Gilbert was worried that the forever unemployed and innocent(?) Snow would go into a business with his friend and foolishly take a loss.
As before, they looked like warm-hearted and friendly neighbors.
“Ai, come, come, have a seat. You look like you can hardly stand, you’re almost as thin as a paper doll.”
“A paper doll? It’s not that bad…By the way, there’s almost no empty seat today.”
Gilbert led Genos to the remaining seat in the inner corner of the store. Genos looked around for a bit, like he was looking for someone.
However, Yuri had already entered the kitchen earlier, so he wasn’t able to see the person he wanted to.
Even when Genos ordered, it was Gilbert that took it.
Then after a while, Yuri approached Genos with a tray carrying a lemonade and some sandwiches.
Genos was already watching her by the time she came out of the kitchen so as she walked over, their eyes met.
Of course, Genos’ eyes were hidden behind his bushy bangs, so it wasn’t visible. However, Yuri instinctively felt that her eyes had met his.
“Hi, Ms. Yuri. It’s been while.”
“Yes, it has.”
Once she reached the table, they exchanged brief greetings with each other.
“So those heretics…”
While Yuri was putting the things on the tray in front of Genos, she heard heretics, the hot topic of the day being discussed by the side. Perhaps Genos also heard it because his body flinched for a moment.
“It must be noisy because of what happened yesterday.”
“Yes.”
“I heard the scale of damage was quite large this time too…”
As he said that, Genos’ voice was a little gloomy unlike how he usually spoke when ‘Snow’ came to the coffeehouse.
Yuri glanced down at Genos who was covered with a layer of gloom.
If Genos’ recent job was helping Kalian then it was very likely that his work was related to the explosions. As it was now, it looked like the previous incident at the shopping district and the incident yesterday were related to each other…
So maybe he was blaming himself for not being able to prevent another explosion.
In the novel she read, the character known as ‘Genos Sheldon’ was such a person. Besides, even though Yuri acted like this, Genos Sheldon was her favorite character in the book, wasn’t he?
So it was safe to say that she knew his personality quite well. On top of that, when she took a closer look, his jawline was certainly sharper than before…
Like Gilbert said, he did look little thinner than before and his complexion wasn’t very good.
‘If I knew something, I’d give him a little hint but…’
Unfortunately, Yuri didn’t know anything about this incident. This was because these kind of explosions had never happened in the novel.
“Well, no one expected this to happen after all.”
Still, Yuri spoke in a passing manner like there was no reason for Genos to be depressed.
She seemed to be saying that even if Genos had the ability of foresight, such an incident was difficult to prevent but it looked like her words didn’t reach him properly.
However, if she said anything more, it would seem unnatural or like she was being nosy…
So while Yuri’s brows furrowed slightly, she picked up the empty tray and stepped away for a moment.
Of course, when she saw Genos in reality, she felt like she had woken up a bit, but he was still her favorite character, so an inner sense of friendliness had already formed for him.
And so when she saw him sitting there seriously instead of smiling flippantly like usual, she was a little bothered by it.
Who knows whether she should be thankful or not, but Genos didn’t seem to notice anything strange about her behavior instead, he changed his expression and opened his mouth again.
“That said, I’m glad Ferret Street wasn’t harmed directly.”
“Yes, as a matter of fact, Mr. Gilbert has been worrying a lot about that.”
Yuri felt bad to see him trying to smile so she replied to him instead of ignoring his words like usual.
“Um, Ms. Yuri. Actually, there’s something I really want to tell you today.”
Yuri felt puzzled when she heard that. Now that she was paying attention, she noticed that Genos was playing with his hands on the table like he was a little nervous.
“I hope you’ll be careful for a while.”
And when she heard him say those words in a serious manner, Yuri felt a sense of déjà vu.
‘I thought Kalian was like Dominic’s avatar, but now it’s Genos that’s like Kalian’s avatar.’
What he said was similar to what Kalian told her yesterday. But when Yuri frowned a little, Genos seemed to realized he might have said too much out of the blue, so he quickly spoke again.
“I know you might think I’m saying nonsense but…”
“Yes, you know it sounds strange but it’s difficult to explain the circumstances, right?”
“Uh…”
“But it’s almost certain that something serious will happen to me so you can’t just act like you know nothing.”
“Hk, how…”
Genos was bewildered when Yuri repeated exactly what Kalian said to her yesterday. For a moment, he seemed to wonder if Yuri had the power of foresight too.
Seeing Genos acting like this, Yuri felt uncomfortable. There was the reaction Genos had when he came to the coffeehouse last time and there was also Kalian’s words to consider…
‘…Did I trigger a new death flag without even knowing it or something?’
At this point, it was kind of difficult to just ignore what they were saying.
While Yuri was feeling deeply suspicious, Genos asked her a question while stuttering a little.
“By any chance…has someone else told you something similar, Ms. Yuri?”
“Yes, some high ranking noble said that.”
Genos quickly realized that Kalian was the person Yuri was talking about.
‘That punk, after telling me off so coldly.’
That said, he felt more relaxed than before. As expected, even though Kalian spoke icily to him, he wasn’t the type to sit back idly when someone he knew was going to be in trouble.
Genos looked at Yuri who was wearing a strange expression and added in a firm voice.
“Ms. Yuri. When the praying ceremony is held sometime soon, don’t go out.”(1)
* * *
After getting off work, Yuri headed to the monastery where Leo and Siren stayed.
In her mind, the words Genos said to her earlier were playing over and over.
‘I don’t know when this praying ceremony is but either ways, he’s saying I should expect the dangerous flag there, right?’
Even so, Genos’ warning was more detailed than Kalian’s. Of course, it looked like even Genos didn’t know the specifics behind what would happen to Yuri but having a rough estimate of the timing was beneficial in its own way.
While mulling over Genos’ words, Yuri arrived at the hideout.
“Is this more elegant? Or maybe this angle is a little better…”
Once Yuri arrived at the entrance to the monastery, the first thing that came into her sight was Siren.
For some reason, Siren had climbed onto a broken pillar and she was moving this way and that.
Yuri tilted her head as she watched Siren who looked focused on what she was doing and didn’t even notice that Yuri was here.
“I think it’ll be better if they can see my wings more…”
Flutter!
Siren was immersed in her thoughts and as she mumbled something to herself, she stretched her wings a little further back. With that, her captivating wings were exposed more clearly than before.
From where Yuri stood, she could see Siren’s profile and her posture looked a lot like a statue she had seen in a photograph from her past life.
‘Is she Rodin’s ‘The Thinker’ or what.’
“Siren, what are you doing?”
“Ack, that surprised me!”
When Yuri spoke up, Siren jumped in surprise and her body shook.
“Arachne!”
But soon enough, Siren saw Yuri and looked delighted.
Yuri stared at Siren who was flying with her wings spread out.
“You’re playing by yourself?”
“Ah, t-this is…my wounds are all better now, so I was just exercising my wings!”
It didn’t look like she was stretching her wings but seeing Siren try to make excuses with a red face, Yuri simply acted like she believed what Siren said.
“What of Leo?”
“The watchdog isn’t here right now. He should be back soon, I think?”
It seemed Leo went wandering outside again.
Yuri looked at the feathers flying above her and remembered how Siren spread out her wings earlier, like there was someone she wanted to show off her wings to.
“Do you want me to get you another hair growth solution?”
Only
“What? Wha, What do you mean?”
Yuri brought it up since Siren seemed to care a lot about her feathers but hearing that, Siren looked shocked.
“Do my wings look bad?!”
“No, I was wondering if you needed anything else while staying here so I just asked. Like you said, your wings really do look all better.”
But when Yuri added those words, Siren’s expression quickly relaxed. [2]
Translator’s Corner:
[1] Praying ceremony: It seems to be something like a mass prayer to chase away evil and call for good fortune. If I find a better meaning or definition, I’ll change the translated term.
[2] Lol, it says her expression stretched.
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