小嫂子的味道

Chapter 343  An Original Character [2]

"Anya! So you are here! We were searching for you all over the place, you know," the unknown guy said as he greeted Anya with a smile.

"Ah well, my brother is back as you can see so I had a few things to take care of," she replied.

"Your brother?" he mumbled while his eyes searched the area around the table before finally setting on me. "Ah, so you\'re her brother."

"So I am," I said.

"Zero, this is Akumi Kotsusube. The guy I was talking about," Anya said.

"Ah, I see. I\'m Zero," I said while I stretched out my hand toward him for a handshake. For the time being, I\'d decided to behave normally and observe him before deciding on anything.

However, he was spacing out—even though he was perfectly normal a second ago. No, that probably wasn\'t the case. When looking closely I observed that he was staring at me with suspicion in his eyes, as if he\'d seen a ghost.

"Oh…yeah. I\'m Akumi, nice to meet you," he replied, finally snapping back to reality and shaking my hand.

\'Akumi, huh? That\'s a weird name if going by the standards of this world. In fact, that totally sounds like a Japanese name,\' I thought to myself. Although someone having a name like that wasn\'t totally out of place since loli_pop had added a few Japanese characters.

"Why don\'t you all have a seat too?" Anya offered. The table we were currently occupying had enough space for five people to sit.

And that did end up happening, accepting her offer the three of them dragged chairs from the side and sat around us. And just as I had anticipated, the new guy sat beside Anya.

\'Why did I expect it in the first place? Perhaps because it\'s way too obvious?\' Still, I was not sure of it therefore I was stopping myself from taking any action immediately.

"I heard that you took care of my sister while I was gone, thanks for that," I said to Akumi.

"No no, don\'t mention it, please. That\'s what anyone would have done. She was so depressed at the time I couldn\'t help but support her," he said and then glanced at Anya with a smile.

"Gloominess doesn\'t look good on such a beautiful face, after all," he added. Anya being polite laughed it off, but it got on my nerves, making me form a first under the table.

\'Control Zero, control,\' or so I told myself. But it was relatively hard to do so when the matters were related to my family.

Still, I somehow calmed myself down while keeping a poker face.

"Excuse me for a bit, I\'ve to go get a refill," I said while I stood up along with my coffee cup. As I moved away I pinched Ellyn on her back—who was sitting next to me—before I went toward the stalls.

Finding the coffee stall I waited after ordering a cup. A few seconds later I saw Ellyn coming over to me.

"That wasn\'t really a nice way to call," she said and stood next to me.

"Hmm? It was the best way to call you without anyone noticing," I replied. "Moreover, I have something important to talk about."

"What is it?" she asked.

"About that new guy, Akumi. I want you to tell me everything you know about him, everything related to him, every single detail," I said.

"That much…?" there was a sense of hesitation on her face. Of course, asking for this much information about a person was creepy in its own way but I didn\'t care about things like that.

"I get it, but I can\'t tell you everything right now. I mean, I don\'t even remember every single detail about him. Plus, it\'d take a good amount of time," she said, signaling toward the table where Anya and the others were sitting.

"That\'s true," I said as I took my new cup of coffee. "Fine, meet me at the rooftop tonight," saying that I left.

It felt like I heard her saying something else but I wasn\'t able to hear it clearly. Maybe it was just my imagination, and even if it wasn\'t I\'d said all I wanted to hence I went straight to the table.

As I got closer I saw Akumi chatting with Anya casually, looking at them made it obvious that they had become close. After all, I\'d known Anya for a long time now and she wasn\'t the type to open up to just anyone.

If she was doing it with him that meant she had acknowledged him and felt like she could let her guard down around him. And that was something I didn\'t really like.

After that, I went and chatted with them for a while, although I was mostly listening to the conversation they were having.

"Still, how did you make it out alive? I mean, from those demons," Leon asked.

"Yeah, I\'m curious too!" Akumi said. "Did you fight them or something?"

"No, no, there\'s no way I could fight them. Have you guys even seen just how powerful those demons were?" I replied.

"Yeah, I\'d heard people talk about how it was even hard for the teachers to fight them," Ellyn added.

"Exactly, for me to fight them would\'ve been impossible," I stated.

"Then how did you manage to make it out alive?"

"Well, it\'s not anything great. I just ran away," I said. "I knew that fighting those demons is impossible that\'s why I hide and ran until I was far away."

"Hmmmm, even so, running away from them sounds like a pretty impossible task in itself," Akumi said.

"You are right. When I came here I was in a half-dead condition. If it hadn\'t been for the healers here I would\'ve been dead by now," I stated.

"Well, all\'s well that ends well," Anya said. "The most important thing is that you made it out alive, and right now you are here between us. I couldn\'t ask for anything more."

"Don\'t worry, I won\'t go anywhere now," I said, looking her in the eye.

That was right. Now that there was this unknown person around her, there was no way I was going to leave her alone at all.