Demon's Protégé

Redemption

I had stayed awake for a whole day after that late-night drive.

It was only so I could take my mind off from Nari and this whole town’s strangeness. I just felt like things were kind of happening pretty fast and too sudden so I had decided to finish all of the pending reports and project proposals dumped on me at once for the mean time. But what I didn’t really expect about the whole thing was for it to be such a great deal of stress to do too. I holed up inside my motel room like a prisoner, and I almost forgot the time that had passed on. I was just too occupied and persistently immersed to finish everything right away so that I could finally spend the remaining time of my vacation to enjoy my temporary independence before I was doomed to return back to my reality next month.

Soon after, throughout the whole chore of reading and referencing, I found myself getting buried under the antagonizing page by page of documents to documents that had me feeling dizzy for hours. I could not even barely get out of my room the whole time. It was really the busiest day I’ve had in the past week. And as soon as I had sent everything to my lawyer for the final review, I was already dead asleep on top of my desk. I just woke up the noon after with a strained neck and a painful headache.

“So you’ve finally came back from the dead?”

This was the very first greeting that had welcomed me the moment I stepped out of my room and went downstairs. I had thought that it would be a very good idea to exercise my legs for a brief stroll since they had been cramped and numbed out from a whole day’s worth of sitting in front of my laptop. I was also feeling like talking to somebody. But Henry’s stoic face looked at me from across the counter with nothing but an unbothered expression, and I could already read his thoughts as he took noticed of the thick beard I was sporting at the moment. I didn’t really have the time to groom myself when I woke up that noon, but I have been already planning to shave them all clean later on.

“Hello to you, too.” I greeted in distress, sighing heavily.

“I heard you’ve managed to gain a little progress with Miss Hiden the other night,” Henry remarked wittingly, and a sly smirk stretched across his face. I snorted, looking back at him with a smug smile.

“Hearing gossips lately, are we? I didn’t expect you to be the nosey type, kid.”

But then this town was too small to even hide anything from anyone.

“Well the news have its mouth, and ears, and wings… you know the saying?”

“No, I don’t.” I bluntly denied, staring blankly to his face. I had figured that I was actually still not in the complete mood to be receiving jokes at the moment because I was still nursing a headache after being sleep deprived the whole day before.

“Well, your loss.” Henry pitied back, his mouth curved up into a mocking smirk. And feeling like I was being looked down, I tried to redeem myself back by looking tough and unbothered. It was such a childish act but I was still not fully awake to even think about what I was really doing.

“I’ve finally asked her out on a date.”

I adamantly leaned on the counter and gave Henry the same smug smirk that I could muster with my tired state. Henry did not even bat an eye to that as he just looked over to me with impassive regard.

“Congratulations,” he said back in a dull note, sounding like he never really mean it, “But did she even agree to one?”

That somehow backfired and I felt my body froze with startling rage.

 “I’m working on it,’ I grumblingly refuted but it sounded more like I was just forcing myself to think that way, “She’ll come around anytime soon, you just wait and see.”

My voice slightly wavered with uncertainty as Henry just stared back at me with dead eyes.

“Hmn.”

“You could even ask tips from me, kid,” I told him in a defensive note, “It’s hard to deal with women because they change their mood quicker than a day. It’s exhausting when that happens… But you’ve just got to work hard with your patience. They might deny you on the first few attempts but give them time and they would soon change their minds. That’s how it usually happened to me. And I can give you a lot of advises if you want.”

I tried to act dumbly and wriggled my brows at him, giving Henry a silly grin. But the inherent worry about my failed attempt for a date was still very apparent on my face.

“No, thanks,” Henry quickly rejected with a placid demeanor and I was kind of offended at how he didn’t even miss a beat saying that back, “I’m too busy with manning the motel and reading. I don’t have time for flirting around.”

I snorted.

“You serious?” I squinted my eyes at him in suspicion, “But you don’t even really get any guests in town, right?”

“Hmn.”

Henry just shrugged with a bored expression and I still mulled over that hummed response. What was he even trying to say when he does that?

“So, when do you supposed she’d finally come around to you?” Henry asked after a moment. And I frowned at his words.

“Why are you asking?”

“Just curious.” He replied.

 “Well, I’m working on it,” I said in a grumpy voice and looked away, puffing out an air of annoyance through my nose. I really don’t know what I was going to do next, to be honest. Nari and I had sort of separated that night in a vague note and she had been angry with me too. So, at this point, I was in a dead end.

“Hmn.” I heard Henry responding that nondescript sound back to me again and I quickly turned to face him with a scowl.

“You don’t have to believe me, anyway.” I defiantly told him, feeling irritated all of a sudden. “You’ll just hear about it soon.”

“Hmn.”

“Fine,” I raised my hand, sighing in surrender, “Forget about it. I’d go back to my room.”

And with that, I angrily walked up the stairs and went back to my room. Feeling like I had nothing left to do anymore, I marched straight towards the bathroom to shave the itchy beard on my face. And maybe a long shower too. It might actually give me some sense of relief for a change.

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