NOVEL NEXT Chapter 24.
Chapter 24. ~Rewards for Her Efforts~ (2/7)
Without waiting any longer I headed over to the stairwell and started descending it one step at a time. It only took five seconds to get down a flight of stairs at my fastest pace. I did the math in my head, if there were 30 of these in total it would take 150 seconds altogether, in other words, two and a half minutes.
There would be a bit under five minutes by the time I got to the bottom. I frowned as I began to wonder how she would ever make it on time. She would need to descend down the stairs even faster than me when I’m already considered quite fast. How though?
When I was almost at the bottom I heard a door open above. By this point, there were five minutes before we’d be late for class.
I was curious as I descended how she thought she’d catch up so I looked up while still going down and saw something that genuinely scared me.
A girl falling through the gap between each flight of stairs. She’d grab onto the railing during her free fall and stopped her descent for a second before she continued down. She rapidly closed the distance between us at a ridiculous pace. When she landed on the railing beside me, her black red plaid skirt and similarly colored blazer fluttered about wildly in the air as she hopped off of it directly to my side and grinned triumphantly. Her tied red hair which had risen up in the air behind her soon followed and returned to its original position at rest behind her back.
“You were saying?” She taunted while casually chewing on something in her mouth with her bag over her right shoulder.
“You’re… crazy.”
“Haha, whatever, hurry up, let’s go.”
She grabbed my hand tightly and ran forward dragging me along without any explanation other than saying, “Jump.” She didn’t go down the steps one by one but rather jumped down an entire flight in one go pulling me along in tow.
I somehow reacted in time, but my heart nearly leaped through my chest during our descent. She didn’t stop or slow down at all. She gracefully landed lightly on her left foot while pushing off the wall with her right spinning around the corner to quickly change her momentum.
She did this two more times while pulling me along before we dashed out the stairwell exit sprinting full speed ahead.
It was honestly hard to keep up with this ridiculously agile girl. Sure, I might have beaten her once in a straight line, but I was sure she had a lot more stamina and was much more agile on her feet than me.
I was really only able to keep up with her while we were running in a straight line on our way to school. She was much faster at changing direction around the turns and had to pull me along while laughing.
It was only when we arrived at school that she let go of my hand. The two of us ran at full speed and just as we entered the classroom, the bell rang.
I collapsed on my desk exhausted while she sat down gracefully without much difficulty. The way it looked, it didn’t look like we’d come to school together at all. It looked more like I was about to be late and rushing like crazy to beat the bell while she’d been on a leisurely stroll in the park and got there right on time.
Thinking back over this little sequence of events, I couldn’t help but curse. If she really was trained as an assassin it all made sense. The way she moved her body was definitely not that of a wallflower high school girl. Her movements were all well-executed flawlessly in the eyes of a normal person like me. I mean sure, she’s no doubt lighter than me, it made sense why she’d be so much more agile and able to take corners, but it definitely wasn’t at the level of a normal high school girl in her first year.
The meek version of her last night, compared to her this morning, was like the difference between night and day. It was hard for me to even see them as the same person. Just as I had more than one side to myself, she was similarly no doubt hiding different sides of herself.
Already tired for the day after expending my full day’s worth of energy all in one go, I immediately took a long nap in class. When I woke up for lunch the two of us went to the roof separately and rendezvoused away from the class’s eye. She fed me some food while I took the chance to help her study a bit more.
The rest of the day passed by while I was asleep in class. After class, we went separate ways promising to meet back up at her place after work. I changed into my usual disguise in a public restroom as per the usual. When I exited the restroom wearing the casual clothes I had in my bag with my decorative blue-colored contacts already in I froze up for a second upon a sudden realization.
I smelled my clothes and realized I’d almost made a grave mistake. It was the same set of clothes I wore to work the day before, but not only that… it smelled strongly of Rosa because I wore it to bed with her.
There was still time to head home so I rushed back with that thought in mind. I quickly changed out of them and put on something new. I bagged up this set of clothes and dumped it into a separate compartment in my bag. I also grabbed a bunch of other spare clothes and tied them up in a separate plastic bag before stuffing them into my bag. Since I’d likely be staying over at Rosa’s it would be a pain to have to keep coming back home every day for a new set of clothes.
Once I’d made these arrangements I rushed to work. When I arrived I was already out of breath.
I went to the back, as usual, put my work clothes over my casual clothing, then locked my bag up in the locker. When I took up my position beside my coworker manning the counter I sat down to recover a bit.
The store was currently empty with just the two of us behind the counter at the moment.
“You seem tired already, did something happen that almost made you late or something.” She suddenly shut the open book she held with one hand and asked.
“Uh, well I forgot something at home and realized a bit late so I had to rush to get here on time.”
“Oh… really now? Just out of curiosity, what did you forget?”
“What? Uh…” Why was she suddenly taking interest in something like that?
“Never mind. It’s alright if you don’t want to say if it’s something too personal.”
“What makes you think it’s something personal?”
“Perhaps you could say it’s… woman’s intuition.” She said with a small smile.
I really hate that thing with a passion.
“By the way… you smell.”
“Uh… sorry, I was running after all.”
“Oh, I didn’t mean bad. I meant… you have a woman’s scent lingering on you. It’s very faint and almost unnoticeable though. I’m sure most people wouldn’t notice it at all, but it’s definitely still there.”
She’s a bit scary with how perceptive she is. After a full day, it should have nearly been completely gone, but for the short period of time I had those casual clothes on with Rosa’s scent stuck to it, it had gotten back on me. Despite how meticulous I’d been I’d still made a careless mistake in the end.”
“So despite your self-deprecating statements about yourself before, you have a girlfriend after all, don’t you?” She said with a triumphant grin as though she were a great detective who’d cracked a case.
“No. I just went to the dentist. While I waited an hour, there was a girl who sat right beside me for a while. I think what you’re smelling might just be that. After my appointment, I realized I’d forgotten my phone at home so I rushed back to get it before work started. The only reason I didn’t say what it was I forgot is because I was surprised that you asked. You typically never ask me about things like that so I was caught off guard a bit.”
“Oh. So that’s what it was all about. Haaaah. And here I got excited thinking it was something interesting.”
“Hahah. Sorry to disappoint.”
“Did you really think I’d believe that story you just made up? I won’t probe further since you obviously don’t want to talk about it though.” She said nonchalantly as she reopened her book and lowered her gaze with a confident grin on her face.
A single drop of sweat trickled down the side of my cheek outside her line of sight. My coworker, little Miss Sherlock Sandy, really was far too perceptive. I was troubled. If I wasn’t careful she’d see through all of my lies, that was the feeling I got from her recently.
Yuna Arragona, my coworker, it was best for me to be especially careful around this particular woman and avoid getting in her bad books. In the past, I never paid attention to her enough to remember her name due to how little we interacted, but this time around, things were a bit different. I should not underestimate those observant eyes of hers or I’ll definitely come to regret it.
With our conversation finished, as per usual, she lost interest in speaking with me.