".....?"
Shuraina had found Sdiha, just as he had wanted. She tilted her head slightly in confusion.
Sdiha checked that Shuraina hat met his gaze before he pulled his head back in and scribbled something. Then, he took out a small scribble where only Shuraina could see.
[←]
There was a small arrow. It was for her to follow him behind the wall. As soon as Shuraina saw the arrow, Sdiha crumpled up the paper and threw it away.
[Follow me.]
Sdiha's face popped up from the same position. He mouthed something and hid behind the wall again.
What was this. Was he telling her to follow him behind the wall? Shuraina scowled. She couldn't get a proper read on him. Seeing him signal her like this was him definitely trying to tell her to ditch him and head over. Shuraina turned her head to look at Yvnes. He had his arms crossed in front of his chest and looked comfortable.
Seeing Yves' reaction right now, he definitely didn't see Sdiha's signal.
The silence was thick in the room where only Yves and Shuraina remained. The sound of breathing filled the room.
"What a unique person. Was the reason you hesitated coming here because you don't like him?"
Shuraina said, hesitating if she should go or not. Yves stared at Shuraina as the silence was dispersed.
"Yeah. I don't like the people connected to my past, so I didn't want to come. My past self was disgusting–and so are the people aware of it."
"..."
Shuraina awkwardly rubbed the back of her head at his words. Her hands became sweaty. She wondered if she should ditch Yves and follow Sdiha, and if she did, what he would say. But she sat still. She decided to ignore him.
[Why aren't you coming?]
When it seemed like she wasn't going to move at all, a familiar head of ash-colored hair poked out from the wall again. When Shuraina shook her head to tell him that she wasn't coming, he hid behind the wall again.
Soon, a hand holding a belt popped out from behind the wall. The belt, once again, was placed in an area where only she could see. Next, he placed the unsigned contract and the product details on the belt. She could hear the small sound of something unzipping, and then, soon.
A stream of yellow liquid fell onto the contract. The yellow water dripped and stained the water.
Shuraina stared at the vivid yellow on the paper and smiled calmly.
"Be right back, I'm going to pummel someone into the ground."
"...?"
"No, I'm going to the restroom."
With her eyes glued to behind the wall, Shuraina stood up from her seat.
Yves was changing his schedule while he was waiting for Sdiha. Since the day that Shuraina arrived at his home, he had been marking his schedule with 'x' marks and was cancelling everything. He was only thinking about relaxing and playing around with Shuraina.
He raised an eyebrow when Shuraina suddenly declared that she was going to the restroom before nodding. Yves pointed to the back of the wall. Shuraina walked towards it. The wall that Sdiha was hiding behind was pretty far away. She scowled as she moved towards him.
Sdiha was still lying behind the wall. He had a sauce container in his hand and the container was filled with yellow water. Nearby, he had yellow paint canisters and a big container that held water that leaked from the ceiling. It was pouring rain outside, so water was filling quickly into the container. She thought it was pee, but it had turned out to be paint.
"You fell for it, right?"
Sdiha stabbed a dollop of yellow paint onto his palette knife and put it on his face. When Shuraina didn't give him a reaction, he stretched out his hand and left some paint on her ankle.
When he succeeded in his initial plan of getting Shuraina away from Yves, he sat up on the ground.
He held her hand and quietly ran to the door on the opposite side. When he opened the door, she could see a flight of stairs leading up to the rooftop.
The stairs were slightly wet from the downpour outside, but Sdiha didn't seem to care as he plopped down on a stair to sit down. Then, he grabbed Shuraina's arm and pulled her down with him.
In the end, Shuraina also took a seat on the stairs.
"What were you trying to tell me?"
His actions were so bizarre that she couldn't even get angry.
She had wanted to beat him black and blue when she thought he had peed on the contract, but she had calmed down now.
He seemed like a person with lots to say to her. She had no idea what he wanted to talk about with a complete stranger like her, but Shuraina patiently waited for Sdiha to start talking.
"I'm trying to be nice here, so listen close. Whew. You need to be grateful that I'm such a kind and caaaring person."
"...o, okay."
"I want to tell you to secretly get away from Yves and run right this moment, but…. Hmm. Seeing your personality, you probably won't do it if you don't know why."
Sdiha had called her away and was suddenly telling her to run away. Shuraina raised an eyebrow at his sudden words before nodding.
Ditch Yves and run away–what a weird statement. It would've made more sense for her to run away from Sdiha.
Shuraina stared and patiently waited for Sdiha to explain his reasoning.
"You're right."
"Okay. Then I have a few things you need to know."
Sdiha raised a finger.
"So fiiiirst. Every single Lunaasha that stayed alive is a sick bastard. Even if hardly anyone surprised! All of the kids left in the estate when the guild collapsed all killed themselves."
Sdiha raised another finger.
"And secooooond. All of us have our insides and outsides flipped backwards. You can see this with me and him. Yvnes especially–he's super smart, so he's super! Super twisted."
"You look like the crazier bastard."
"No, no. Not me. I don't know about now, but not back then. Wait, am I wrong? I don't know about before, but not now. Is that right? Anyway. Right or wrong, Yvnes is the craziest bastard out of all of the Lunaasha. He's such a spine-chilling crazy bastard that he probably knew that you and I were going to have this conversation since yesterday night."
"But you know. It's really interesting. I tried to save everyone he brought here and tried to tell them the real him, but Yves prevented it from happening in an instant…..but why did he send you to me so easily? How interesting. Oh, maybe this is another one of his weird plans."
"…..that, what."
"Anyway! It's super dangerous of you to have come over here. Shhhh! He's planning on sucking you dry until you die. So many people have fallen for his good looks. They'd sold their souls for it. All of the people he brought to me were usually nobles and older….. Congratulations! You're the first one that's younger than him! What's he trying to take from a talented younger magician? Hehe, that sick bastard."
Shuraina frowned at the crass words pouring out of his mouth. It seemed like Yves had brought a lot of people to this person named Sdiha. She had come to ask for his design work for her products, but it seemed like others had different reasons. She had a general understanding of Yves' past, so her face stiffened. Her heart ached slightly.
"To be honest, he says he's done with dirty work but I don't trust it. The amount of teeth I've lost because of him are one, twoo, three."
Sdiha pulled up his lips with his finger and began to show her his gold teeth. The gold glinted in the light.
"There was this one time that I backstabbed someone so that I could survive. But that was, damn it, I can't remember very well, but it was Yves. And how many times have I been backstabbed now? One, twooo, three. I can't even remember. From what I remember, my name hadn't been Sdiha back then. What was it?"
He frowned as he tried to remember it before shaking his head vigorously. His head hurt.
"Aaaaanyway! Back to the main topic. Seeing how he's behaving these days made me think that he was getting calm, but him bringing you here makes me think the opposite. If he hadn't changed, then you're in danger."
"In danger?"
"Uhuh. Uhuh."
Shuraina finished processing the current situation. She calmly responded to the statement as if she hadn't been shocked at all.
"Anyway, it's gonna be a downright fact that you love him, right. Of course it is, you're useful so he probably made it so that you can't do anything but love him. It's such a familiar pattern that I can see it all."
"….hmm."
"But do you want me to tell you something that'll give you chills? You know how he doesn't let you touch him outside of sexual relations? He has a tiny bit of mysophobia so he hates skin contact with people. He doesn't love you, he finds you disgusting."
Sdiha told her of a time after Yves left the estate and was working in the bottom rungs of the guild. In his story, Yvnes was so cruel that he almost sounded inhuman. It wasn't just him sending a measly one or two people down to the pits of hell to survive or to climb up a proverbial ladder. But at that time–Yvnes himself was living in hell.
In the underworld, relationships with people were incredibly important, so Yvnes had to buy the goodwill of others somehow. It seemed like Yvnes had a lot of unwanted relationships with women during the process.
Sdiha mistakenly assumed that Shuraina was one of those women. He had never seen Yves together with someone normal. The humid air grated on his nerves, so he slammed his fist onto his chest as he spoke.
"He whispers about the sweetest love to you. And in his heart, he curses you to the depths of hell."
Shuraina quietly let him continue speaking.
"The curses he utters will soon come true. You'll be miserable. So many women think that they're special, but they're all the same in the end. Even after they've been wrung dry of everything they have, they'll shave off their hair for him if it'll help. And when there's nothing for her to give, he gives them a dagger."
Sdiha mimed holding an invisible dagger and placed it near his chest.