Chapter 6: Volume 1 - CH 2.3

There was drama that very night. After visiting Seymour’s family, they had visited all sorts of places, buying almost all the necessities they needed for the time being.

As the first shadows of dawn peeked through the window, telling the kinfolk of the night to scurry back to their burrows, Seymour felt that it was about time to head to bed. He mentioned it to Lumi as he headed up to his loft. Only to be confronted with her suddenly asking, “But, Mr. Seymour, am I not a bother, occupying your bed?”

He almost reflexively replied with “You bet,” but managed to hold it back at the last moment. Waving his hand to dismiss her concerns, he made Lumi sit on the bed, and leaned against the nearby desk. Several tools were dislodged by his butt and fell on the floor with a loud clatter.

Startled by the noise, Seymour jerked his shoulders together, and then, after calming down, answered, “Having said that, there’s only one bed in here either way.”

“What do you do when your friends come over to stay? You give me the impression that you have many friends, Mr. Seymour.”

“Hmm, well, if I have to choose between many or few, I’d probably say that I have many friends.”

“Then why don’t we just do what you usually do then!? I’d feel guilty if I was the only one getting special treatment!”

Lumi probably thought that there was at least one more bed stashed away somewhere, that could be lent out to friends who stayed over. Seymour corrected her misunderstanding as gently as possible.

“I do have friends that come to stay over, but look, they’re all women, okay?”

“…….? Regardless of their gender, everyone requires a bed to sleep on, right?”

“I don’t know how it works when a man stays over, but usually, you see, when a woman stays over, you don’t really need two beds.” With a flick of his finger, he gestured at the small single bed, “Man and woman are normally entwined on top of one.”

“…….nh!”

Apparently she understood what he was trying to tell her. In an instant, Lumi’s cheeks were dyed crimson.

Seymour tilted his head with a grin, “So, you want to do it as usual?”

“────That’s indeceeent!”

Seymour’s face was immediately hit by a pillow. He guessed that the clattering and banging sounds he heard afterwards were from Lumi turning over the bed’s mattress after imagining all the body fluids that had seeped into it over the years.

By the time Seymour removed the pillow blocking his view, Lumi had wrapped herself in a blanket and curled up, looking like a bagworm. Seymour could vividly imagine Lumi’s face scrunched in shame beneath the blanket.

“Thought so. Good night.”

“Have a good night! And sorry for throwing a pillow at you!”

He smiled wryly at her honest apology, placed the pillow down where Lumi’s head was probably situated, and lightly waved a hand despite knowing that she wouldn’t see it.

❖ ── ✦ ──『✙』── ✦ ── ❖

He woke groggily. For a moment Seymour felt as if he had returned to his teenage days. It was a feeling of nostalgia that came from sleeping with his knees squished up against him in the driver’s seat of his Essex. His body remembered the time he had spent on the streets with just this small car as his home.

His internal clock told him that he had slept for about half a day, making it evening now. Sitting up, he stretched and cracked his stiff neck. The discomfort wasn’t so bad; it was proof that he was alive. And then he noticed that the coldness that usually accompanied getting out of bed was absent.

There was a knock against the window. Looking outside, his vision was filled with hair that was more transparent than sunlight. Realizing that Lumi was peeking into the car, Seymour rolled down the window.

“Good morning. Did you sleep well?”

There were two steaming cups of coffee in her hands, indicating that she’d probably made use of the gas stove in the corner of the garage. Seymour extended his hand towards the mug she held out to him, though it was rather excessively slowly since he had a vague fear that the peaceful state he was in, which made the room feel like it had been heated just for him, would be dispelled once he woke up fully.

“……”

However, Lumi apparently interpreted his silence to mean something entirely different. Noticing that she had bent forward towards the window, she quickly lifted her head, pressed the cup in Seymour’s hand, and used her free hand to cover up her chest. With a faint, red tinge on her cheeks, she pulled up the collar of her loose sleepwear.

“……Pervert. Things like that…are not allowed.”

The last traces of his peaceful sleepy state leaving him, Seymour smiled bitterly, confident that he wasn’t in the mood for that right now anyway.

“I was just about to see something stunning.”

“It would have been better for you to have remained asleep, Mr. Seymour, if you are going to say such things.”

“That’d be a waste. After all, I wouldn’t be able to see your lovely face that way.”

Lumi was openly embarrassed by Seymour’s flirtatious ramblings. He snorted at her innocence, but it was also true that it wasn’t such a terrible feeling.

Bringing the cup to his lips, he opened the car door, and stretched once more.

“Looks like my place has managed to avoid exploding overnight.”

“Ehh!?”

“I mean, it was quite possible. That’s what it means to be chased by the mafia.”

If he were to be honest, Seymour would need to admit that a part of him hadn’t expected to wake up today.

Being told this by an indifferent Seymour leaning on the car startled Lumi. Recalling the cup in her hand just as she was about to start gesturing, Lumi stop herself just in time.

“B-But Mr. Seymour, you didn’t mention a word of any of this yesterday!”

“Well, the probability of it happening was fairly low. First of all, we don’t know if the other side is even aware of me, right?”

They might have noticed that someone had taken Lumi Spike away, but it wasn’t clear as of yet whether they had identified Seymour Road as that person. The only one who definitely knew about Seymour’s involvement was the wolf-like man, but he had allowed Lumi to get away. It was hard to believe that he’d spill the beans about a courier.

“Umm, low probability means…?”

“The mafia bombs some place every day. The police tolerate that. However, the bombings have been limited to businesses that don’t belong to familia ── trade associations created by the mafia.”

Nominal trade associations had been set up by the mafia – the protection money, which was collected as a membership fee for the trade association, was a source of income for the mafia.

Seymour raised a finger after noticing that Lumi still looked confused, “『The shop was blown up because it didn’t belong to a trade association』. The police can look the other way on this. If you want to know why, it’s because the police don’t need to worry about getting bombed since there’s no familia for them to join. But, 『A private home was blown up because it sheltered someone being chased』. This is something they can’t look the other way on.”

“……Because then it’s possible that they themselves might get blown up as well?”

“You got it. If bombings start happening due to more and more reasons, the police can no longer shrug it off as someone else’s problem. That’s how this works. In that case, the police would put the screws to the mafia, and the mafia doesn’t want that to happen.”

He dramatically thrust a finger in her face 1 , then leaned back and sipped on his coffee. It tasted pretty good for the cheap stuff, a sign of how carefully it had been brewed.

“And at present there aren’t any trade associations for couriers in existence. Therefore, blowing up an ordinary person like me, at least on paper, is a huge risk for the mafia.

────but then again, everything comes down to weighing the advantages and disadvantages.”

The question is why the mafia is chasing Lumi. If the benefits of obtaining her exceed the time and effort of dealing with the aftermath and having some friction with the police, the pursuers might boldly opt for a bombing in the end. Or rather, they should have already chosen that option. In other words, it looks like Lumi’s value to them isn’t all that high,

“──────Hmm, wait?”

The explosion from the day before yesterday suddenly came to mind. The destroyed remains of that private residence lay clearly before his mind’s eye. It didn’t look like a place of business. It was pretty obviously a private residence.

The owner of that house was a merchant who did not join a trade association? The destruction of the house itself was part of their objective? Did the need to pursue Lumi change in a short period of time?

Several possibilities crossed his mind, but none of them seemed to jump out as the answer. He lacked too much information to even make an educated guess.

“…Mr. Seymour?”

“It’s nothing. For now, let’s get ready to leave once the sun goes down. I’ve still got a job to do.”

The income of one courier job couldn’t be called generous by any standard. It’s often said that there’s no leisure for the poor. Even if I were to take a break from my job, I’d still need to coordinate it with my frequent customers.

“While I’m working……well, I suppose I’ll have you stay at the Holiday. It’s a small, dirty, and rather smelly diner, but it’s safer than being with me.”

In response, Lumi sighed lightly, “A-.”

She lightly lifted a hand, but lowered it right away. Seymour was pretty sure he knew what she was about to say anyway. She was probably worried about being left behind in an unfamiliar place while Seymour went off to another unknown place.

However, he ignored her feelings on this. Even if she were to be tormented by unbearable feelings of loneliness, Seymour would still head out for work without hesitation. Loneliness was an illness, but no doctor could cure it. On top of that, he couldn’t bring Lumi along with him; confidentiality being key to his line of work.

Seymour yawned as he thought it all through. “────By the way, Lumi, are you hungry?”

Hearing the question, she hid the dejection in her eyes with a smile, “It’s okay. Vampires don’t need much food to sustain themselves.”

“Hmm? Which reminds me, I’ve never heard you talking about wanting to suck blood or anything like that.”

“It’s because it’s not like I have to drink every day.” Fiddling with the cup in her hands, Lumi added, “Besides, I can reduce the amount of blood I need if I eat normal meals.”

“You don’t feel an urge to…suck blood?”

“Ah…let’s see, how do I say this…to suck blood, I have to touch and press my lips against someone’s body, so, umm…” She subconsciously lowered her eyes, her expression reminding him of the first time they met. “How do I put it…? These kinds of things…they feel really vampiric, don’t they…?”

“…Do you hate these things?”

“No, I don’t. I mean, my mother was a vampire, too.”

Lumi’s earlier replies hadn’t been fluent. But, there was a pointless fluency to her words just now, as if to emphasize that she had prepared this answer in advance.

“……”

Unfortunately, the vocabulary of a courier didn’t include any convenient responsesfor times like these. Not to mention that Seymour wasn’t actually sitting in his car, but was just plain old Seymour Road right now.

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That’s probably why.

Noticing his speechlessness, a fleeting smile crossed Lumi’s lips, “No, I don’t…hate them.”

❖ ── ✦ ──『✙』── ✦ ── ❖

A merry humming came from the back seat and reached Seymour’s ears. He looked into the rear-view mirror, and cast a smile at Lumi even as he idly thought that she was reflected awfully clearly in the mirror for a vampire.

“You like them? I was worried what you’d think since they’re old and a bit revealing.”

Noticing him staring, Lumi quickly stopped rocking her legs in time with her humming.

“No, absolutely not! I can’t even express how thankful I am to receive such cute clothes!”

Lumi’s outfit was drastically different to what she had been wearing a while ago. Her extremely long hair had been parted into two and held with ribbons, and her skirt was now knee-length. That alone had changed the entire impression she exuded from something old-fashioned and anachronistic to something hip and modern.

“These blue ribbons are truly wonderful…my mother used to buy a lot of blue clothes for me, saying that blue suited me. These remind me of her.” Lumi stroked her hair as she said that.

None of the strong, complex emotions she had shown earlier towards the word “Vampire” could be seen now. Seymour wasn’t sure whether she was hiding it well, or whether it wasn’t much of a problem to begin with.

Still, Seymour smiled wryly, the shirt’s collar looks way loose at the base of her neck, and those thick tights only make her legs look all the more too thin. It’s almost unreal how slender they are.

“I’m happy to hear that. For the time being, since you’re wearing all these, put on the cap as well. Just in case, okay?”

“Okay!”

Sincerely nodding at each and every little thing, Lumi put the newsboy cap on her head. The cap would do little to stop her pretty face, silver hair, and golden eyes from drawing the looks of others, but Seymour believed that it was still better than doing nothing.

Just like that, they arrived at the Holiday. Seymour beckoned Lumi over when they got out of the car, pulling her away as she looked up at the unfamiliar building with keen interest. He knocked against the thin metal door, hearing the clerk shout, “Happy!”

“Holiday.”

A cipher. At least, on the surface.

The Holiday was a diner that served alcoholic drinks, technically violating the laws. It had been good practice to have ciphers that needed to be answered before entry was granted, though it had lost most of its purpose nowadays.

Seymour pushed open the door, which wasn’t even locked to begin with, and entered the diner. Lumi followed him nervously. Her fingers were fisted around the trailing edge of his cloak. Feeling like a mother bird leading around its chick, Seymour shook his head. He might have laughed back home, but here Seymour was no more than a simple courier. A fully fledged courier did not thoughtlessly laugh at such things.

The instant Lumi entered the diner, there was a multitude of whistles, several of which were low while others were loud and clear, directed at them. The tug of her hold on his jacket became a little stronger in response.

Just as usual, Seymour headed to his seat, second to furthest in, and lightly pulled back Lumi, who tried to sit on the furthest seat, and made her sit on his right side. That was the rule in this place.

“Anyway,” Seymour stretched on his seat, “Madela! How’s business going today?”

The usual old woman sitting on her usual chair answered without looking up from the crossword puzzle she was doing, “So-so, I’d say.”

“I see! Thank you!”

The clerk, who was standing behind the counter like a decoration, revealed a teasing smile.

“Welcome. Your companion is quite the looker, isn’t she?”

“Coffee, please. As hot as possible. What about you, Lumi?”

“P-Please give me the same.”

“『Please』! To think that this word could still be heard in this city!” The clerk immediately pushed two big cups of coffee towards them, accompanied by exaggerated gestures.

Seymour guessed that she had prepared them the moment they entered the diner.

“So, were there any calls for me while I was out?”

“There were several, but most of them expired when you didn’t take them yesterday. There’s just one case still open. They called a little while ago, but didn’t give any details. If you feel like accepting it, umm, I think you’ve got to wait another five minutes? They were quite impatient, and said they’d come over to ask you in person, so it would probably be better for you to wait in front of our diner?”

As the clerk nonchalantly told him this, Seymour sighed lightly.

I wish she’d have told me before taking my order, if she knew all that.

Looking down at his coffee and then at Lumi who had frozen after sipping a mouthful of hers, he silently pushed his cup towards her.

I’m pretty sure the sweat on her forehead isn’t because of the coffee’s temperature.

Seymour took out some small change, counted the coins, and placed them on the counter.

“Oh, right. Please allow this girl here to stay until I come back.”

“Does this place look like a daycare to you?”

“No, I know. It’s a diner, right? Of your place.”

Now that Seymour had indifferently pointed it out, it was now the clerk’s turn to sigh. In other words, Lumi’s safety here was as sure a thing as getting the answer, “So-so, I’d say,” when you asked Madela how business was going.

Of course safety couldn’t be guaranteed if something like a mafia shoot-out took place here, but there was next to no need to worry about vicious pick-up artists or kidnappings of any sort in this diner.

“Got it.”

“I leave her in your care.” Seymour stood up.

He reached for the coat he had put down when he sat down, but Lumi beat him to it, holding it up. He was about to tell her to stay seated, but faced with the abandoned puppy look, he sighed in his mind. Seymour headed out the store, judging that it wouldn’t be a problem for her to see him off, at least.

As they stepped out onto the street, Seymour spotted a woman running their way. He asked her, “How far does it need to be transported, and how fast?”

The middle-aged client, who had just reached them, scrutinized him doubtfully. She exhaled white clouds as she gasped for breath, trying to recover from the trip she had apparently made on foot, in the absence of a car.

Seymour was fully aware that he looked like an unreliable teenager, despite his best efforts, and as such felt somewhat irritated at having that reality thrust in face like this.

“…Is it true that you’ll definitely deliver to any place?”

“As long as it’s feasible, yes. It’s a fact that I haven’t failed a single delivery to this day.”

The client wavered for a bit, but lost to her own impatience, retrieving a small package from her bag.

“I’d like you to deliver…….this to my nephew. As fast as possible.”

“Where can I find your nephew? Also, it will make the delivery easier if you have a photo of your nephew.”

“Oh, Mr. Seymour, here.”

Since Lumi was holding his coat out to him, Seymour put his arms through the sleeves. He was just going to get in the car anyway, but he’d feel bad if he rebuffed her polite consideration. Seymour figured that this would be a regular delivery job, but the client’s next words resulted in his eyes widening in shock.

“He’s going to get on the next ship, and head back to his hometown.”

“Hah!?”

“My nephew, who had been overseas, came back to visit me after all this time, but I completely forgot to give him his souvenir, and then, since I heard that you’d reliably be able to deliver anywhere, I────”

“Which harbor is it!? When is the ship going to depart!?”

“It’s the harbor in the upper area. The San Marina. It’s going to depart……in ten minutes.”

Seymour pulled up his mental map of the area as he looked down at his wristwatch. At the same time, he recalled the typical traffic situation on the streets around this time of the day. His imaginary Essex raced through the city in the blink of an eye.

It was quite clear why the woman had come to Seymour. It was an impossible time frame even by car, to say nothing of the fact that she was on foot. You could even say that this woman was lucky to have coincidentally found Seymour at the Holiday at this time.

She took Seymour’s hand, and asked, “………Is it going to make it?”

All things considered, this was going to be a reckless endeavor. Depending on the circumstances, Seymour might get arrested by the police, or worse, his car might get damaged.

At a glance, the middle-aged woman didn’t look particularly rich. In other words, Seymour didn’t have much hope of receiving substantial compensation for this. As a courier, Seymour reserved the right to refuse any work that did not appear to be profitable.

Just as Seymour plastered a faint smile on his face, about to speak,

“……If I miss this chance, who knows how many years it’ll be before I meet him again.”

the whispered comment stopped his rejection in his throat.

These weren’t consciously voiced words, much less an attempt to gain his sympathy. They had merely slipped out as her heart ached with the thought. Her lips were tightly pursed and she was chewing the inside of her cheek. He had barely been able to make out her mumbled words.

“…… Understood. I accept. It will be delivered on time.”

“R-Really!? Umm, sorry for troubling you with such an unreasonable────”

“Nevermind that. Just hurry and pass me the photo and the present. I’ll leave rig────”

“────Mr. Seymour!” Lumi interrupted Seymour who had interrupted his client.

At the same time, Lumi shoved him from behind, so hard he was actually sent tumbling instead of just staggering forward.

————– End of Part 3 —————

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