After our goodbyes to Leanne, we scurried towards our room like weary ants seeking their anthill. Ana, bursting with the urgent need for a shower, vanished into the bathroom with a resounding thud. A flicker of annoyance sparked within me, but quickly fizzled. After all, sharing a room was just another layer of inconvenience on this already burdensome night. Despite our bone-deep tiredness, a nagging task awaited us, adding its weight to our already heavy hearts.
The divan offered a tempting reprieve, and we both sank onto it, weary travellers returning to their hay. But within moments, Ayako's exhaustion overwhelmed her, and her head dipped, finding an unexpected landing pad in my lap. Her eyes, still open, met mine, and suddenly the silence held a new weight, an awkward tension that crackled even before the first word broke it.
"So where did we stop?" asked Ayako.
"Feeling something strange about his exchange of words," I reminded her.
"Uh-huh," she yawned, cumbered from casting her wondering effort. "Especially when he shares supposedly confidential matters. Receipts, right?"
"Receipts, he had said," I agreed.
"And to think he had explained his rights to protect the club, yet later disclosing even the minutest details to you. That sounds rather… reckless of him."
"Perhaps he already knew of our plan beforehand, but who already informed him of—Wait, it must have been An—"
As soon as I began raising my voice, she rushed her hand to my mouth, then raised a finger against me, "Shh… we shouldn't jump to conclusions like that. Plus, we haven't known yet if what you had said was true."
"But I thought we could trust her… like she was the one giving us a hint about this Raiser… or at least, the whereabouts of its source. Besides, we share the same place where we eat and sleep, so why be cautious?"
"Just because we're roommates doesn't mean I could trust her completely, neh? Sure, she can be our great help in giving us a tiny hint, but she can also be our obstacle. If we heavily depend on her, it might also lead us to the trap… whether she knows or not. So we really have to dig this deeper on our own."
"Right…," then Ayako laid down her hands and returned laying on my lap. Then her brows raised twice, waiting for my spoken response. Hence, I continued, "And speaking of digging deeper, what do you think of that Liu Sheng guy?"
"Weirdo. Totally a freak of a weirdo," Ayako drew a faint grimace. "Like his entire conversation was about his experience on hooking up with different kinds of women for… 'searching his fetishes'."
"Seems a lost cause."
"Absofuckinglutely," she cried. "And to think he's an LEA agent who's only tasked to enforce the system around the nightclubs… while using that time to gaze around pretty, hot girls? Holy shit, maybe that's a cue to forward towards their department head…. No, not 'maybe', but absolutely."
"Any proof you can send?"
She pointed at her eye, "A video with audio recording. Though you can't see, it's already stored in our exclusive cloud storage."
"Video? Audio recording? Cloud storage?"
"Right, you aren't totally savvy around those techie stuff… just think of a document with moving pictures that has real-time voices… stored inside a magical depot or something."
"I see."
"Not maybe what you're expecting, but that's, at least, what I can describe at my best."
"So you'll forward a report with… that?"
"Yes," she nodded, then stood up from the divan and stretched her arms up. Yawning, she slowly headed to her sleeping chamber. "And I think that's all with my overthinking session of this night…. Sucks that it was a little help, but I hope it still is a help."