章節 77: Interested
Standing in the doorway to the basement Veronica stayed there for a long time, not really knowing what to do.
Eventually she decided to start acting like an adult and walked towards Michael, who was currently talking with James. They seemed to know each other, which surprised Veronica a bit.
When she got close to them Michael pulled out a bag and threw it at Veronica. She caught it with ease, but she nearly dropped it when she saw the items inside.
With a fearful expression she looked into Michael's eyes. He had a wide grin on his face as he said, "You dropped those yesterday."
Inside the bag was her bloody and dirty shoes, and part of her dress. Both items were lost in the fight against the Demon. Slowly her scared expression turned neutral. The change was so abrupt that it even surprised Michael and even he couldn't find any remnants of those previous emotions.
The small scratching sensation in Veronica's brain, appeared again. This time she knew exactly what it meant. It was the sign of her progression.
Since his quip didn't seem to have the intended effect he blushed a bit and looked towards James for some kind of support, but he pretended to be blind and deaf.
Michael turned back towards Veronica, who stayed taciturn. After a while he just sighed and tried to change the subject.
"So, why haven't you attended the lesson? I even brought more bullets for you to learn about!" He tried to smile, but Veronica's face stayed unamused.
"I was a bit sick in the morning!" Her voice tried to sound neutral, but a small amount of anger still managed to seep into it.
Michael's expression changed as well and he really wanted to punch himself in the face.
'I was at the crime scene last night and saw the blood... her blood. But somehow I didn't think to ask if she was okay?!... Since when am I so bad at communicating?... I'm pretty sure that's one of my path's speciality!'
"How are you feeling? Did you get hurt?" Michael tried to sound as sincere and kind as he could, but judging by Veronica's angry expression he said something wrong.
Next to them James chuckled a bit, but otherwise continued to act like he wasn't eaves dropping.
Veronica opened her mouth and was about to shout, but she quickly reconsidered.
Around them the few people that were currently in the establishment, were dining while talking in whispers and she didn't want to disturb them.
Unexpectedly she grabbed Michael's hand and dragged him into the kitchen. After closing the door behind them, it took less than a second for her to lose her shit.
"DID I GET HURT?! How about getting shot in my shoulder, having every bone in my right forearm broken, going deaf and nearly getting impaled by a fucking 7th Order Demon!... Was that a serious fucking question?!" Michael thought for a moment if he should warn her about their surroundings, but in the end he decided against it.
"Yeah well, a rookie shouldn't be fighting battles they aren't certain they could win!... Also your welcome! If I hadn't stolen those clothes for you the Lawbringers would've definitely found you!" Veronica's angry expression melted a bit after hearing that, but she was still very much mad.
"Am I supposed to thank you for basic courtesy!... FINE, thank you very much! Thank you for being nice enough and steal some clothing that wouldn't have led them anywhere since I have anti-divination! Thank you! What had I done without your help!"
She soon realized what she said was kind of dumb and when she saw the smirk on Michael's face, she really wanted to punch him.
"You think anti-divination is foolproof?... How did that work out for Miss Patton?" She was trying to find a retort, but it went out of her mind when she heard that name.
"Who is this 'Miss Patton'?" The smile on Michael's face widened a bit, it was cunning but also held a small amount of wickedness and cruelty.
"You don't even know the woman's name who you killed yesterday? Let me help you out. Her name was Mia Patton, she was working as a part-time prostitute and a full-time serial killer... How does it feel to... What's wrong?" His voice turned concerned by the end, when he saw Veronica's sad expression.
This wasn't at all the reaction he was accounting for. She was supposed to take it with a sarcastic retort like, 'Nobody would miss a serial killer', but instead she was just depressed looking.
With a lot of effort she tried to get her emotions back under control, but it was hard, much harder than it usually is. All her struggling stopped when a small teardrop managed to escape her eye.
She didn't even say anything just turned around and ran upstairs into her room.
Michael stood there confused about what just happened. Behind him slow clapping sounded. He turned around to find both Suze and Sofie sitting at the dining table. He forgot about their presence throughout the conversation and felt himself embarrassed as they stared at him.
Sofie's eyes were narrow, she looked to be angry at him for some reason. Suze on the other hand just laughed to herself while clapping.
"By the Goddess, that was great! You two should really start working in a theater... or maybe a circus!" Sofie snorted at that, then stood up. She began walking out. On the way she spoke while looking straight at Michael. "I only see one clown in this house!"
This caused another round of laughter to escape Suze's lips. As the door of the kitchen slowly closed, Michael spotted Sofie heading upstairs, presumably to Veronica's room.
"You are quite an idiot, you know that?" Said Suze while continuing to read the book that was propped up in front of her.
"Yeah, I'm kind of realizing it at this point... But why exactly?" Suze placed down her book and looked towards Michael with an exasperated sigh.
"Do I really have to spell it out for you?... I really have to aren't I... Are you a virgin or maybe gay?" He thought this was a rhetorical question or an insult, but when she stayed silent with a curious look in her eyes, Michael quickly answered. "No. I'm not a virgin, nor I'm gay. I actually had quite a few romantic partners!"
He tried to sound proud, but Suze's doubtful snort quickly dismantled any remnant self-esteem he still possessed.
"You know, when you say you had a lot of romantic partners while still young, it is actually an insult to your own ability to keep women? You men always think that having more partners is a great achievement, but that just means you either have horrible taste in women, or you are incapable to satisfy them!"
At this point Michael started to get bored of this conversation.
"What's your point?" He asked. Suze leaned back in her chair and with a serious expression asked, "Do you like Veronica?"
This question throw him off his previous thought process and his mind blanked out for a few seconds. He wanted to say 'no', but the more time he spent thinking about it, the more confused he became.
He never really asked himself this question, but when he thought of Veronica, even after spending only a morning with her, he found himself more and more interested. There was no real explanation behind it, but after thinking about it for nearly a minute the definite 'no' changed into a kind of 'yes'.
"Maybe... I'm not exactly sure, we haven't spent nearly enough time together to know."
Suze just laughed at his answer. "The only time you need is a moment! If you can't decide upon your interest by that time, then that person is not the one!"
Michael seriously doubted this mentality when it came to relationships, but now that he thought about it...
'Why won't I give it a try... What's the worst thing that could happen?'
"Yes." He said much more confidently this time. Suze's eyes narrowed as she observed his face. Michael was pretty certain Suze had no ascended powers, but somehow under her eyes his every thought seemed like pages of an open book.
After a few very long seconds, she finally seemed satisfied with what she saw.
"That's good since she is interested in you as well." Said Suze, then she returned to her book, leaving Michael baffled.
"Could you elaborate on that? I seriously doubt she showed even the slightest interest in me!" Said Michael, which made Suze giggle.
"You are certainly inexperienced with women!... Of course she is interested! Or at least she was until you called her a murderer!" The smile from Suze's face disappeared like it was never there, this expression change was similar to Veronica's, but even more abrupt.
'So that's where she learnt it from... Weird... And why does she seem so mad at me? What did I do?'
"I never called her a murderer. I just tried to make a joke about last night's kill. We always do this with the others, I thought she would take it as friendly jab." Suze looked him up and down once with an expression that said, 'How can someone be this dumb?'
Eventually her eyes widened a bit and she seemed to realize something.
"I think you should probably know that last night was the first time Veronica has killed somebody. Your buddies back at the Unbroken take all those jokes well, because they faced death every week and had survived dozens of fights..." She didn't need to say more.
Michael facepalmed himself, finally understanding what he fucked up. Throughout the whole conversation he talked to Veronica, like she was a well-versed, battle-hardened ascended, when in reality she couldn't even counted as a rookie yet. She was like a baby bird who couldn't even fly, she needed to learn a lot more and acquire much more experience.
Without saying anything Michael headed for the door.
"Where are you going?" Asked Suze behind him. While continuing to walk he just said, "To apologize!"
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