Midnight Pretenders (BL)

Chapter 30

 “Are you even sleeping, Henry?”

My question was left unanswered in silence as I nonchalantly rested an arm above the counter in front of the kid. I contemplated for a moment, wondering if I had said it the wrong way because the kid did not say anything back and just blankly stared at me. I quickly noticed a new thick book resting opened in his hands. He must have really gotten bored of reading that previous one he had the day before. And for some reason, I was suddenly interested about his business and the strange purpose of the motel in a town where no one really gets to visit. It had me wondering how he actually ended up taking care of the entire place alone.

“Well, in case you didn’t notice I actually close this place at two in the morning and open it at nine. And since you’ve never been up nor down here during those hours, you probably didn’t think about it like that. I sleep at the room beside the stairs. And sometimes, I take a short nap here at noontime.”

I have already seen that room by that stairs since the first night I came here but it never really occurred to me that it was a place to sleep. I thought it was just a*****e room or something else because it looked kind of too small from the outside as it seemed to have been built like a small addition under the stairs. But now that he had told me about it, I suddenly got more interested. Though his monotone reply had me sulking for no reason and it did fail to leave me wondering quietly. As it bugged me on, it made me think how he had to do it all and stay there every day like that. It sounded like a boring routine for someone who was left alone to fend for this motel by himself.

“Does this place even earn anything?”

Roaming my eyes towards the space behind him and around me, my curiosity sped on.

“I won’t go into details about it with you. And you don’t have to worry about such matters since it does not really concern you in any way. It has nothing to do with you, Mr. Takagi.” Henry bluntly replied. His frank and straightforward remark had me frowning and I felt a little offended.

“Sorry if I was prying, then.”

“Just another reminder for you, Mr. Takagi. You only got three more days left before the reservation of your room finally ends,” He added on with a serious stare, “It might probably be best if you don’t ask any more questions like that from now on. In regards of this town, there’s not much of a reason for you to delve any deeper than you already have. The only thing you should be doing now is to get a date with Ms. Nari and leave once you’ve finally made it, right?”

His cold and frank remark had me immediately question him with a frown as I stepped back and felt quite mistreated. This was all so unexpected. This kid’s quick change of personality with the way he just talked to me today really bothered me for a minute. It felt even more suspicious. But I had decided not to push it this far, so I soon left the area feeling even more hung with self-resentment as I walked up the stairs, left with nothing else to say, and went back to my room after that.

As soon as the door closed behind me, I strutted inside the room and was almost on my way to the bathroom when my phone clamored inside my pocket just as I was about to take off the black coat I was wearing. It barely even rang for a second when I immediately swiped to answer it.

“Taiyo you won’t believe this.”

Hudson’s voice immediately resonated into my ears as I held the phone on the side of face and I instinctively froze and felt an intense wave of thrill upon hearing his words.

“What?” I shifted as I dropped the black coat on the floor behind me in an instant and readjusted the phone with my free hand to hear him much clearer. “What is it?”

I could hear Hudson sighing audibly from the other end and it brought a sudden undisguised interest to my tone.

“What did you get?”

I patiently waited as Hudson took his time to speak back while I walked towards my bed to sit down for a minute.

“The thing about Preston,” Hudson soon began in a deep monotonic voice, “I just saw something really unbelievable when I checked the files again. And I think I just found a red flag.”

“A red flag?” I frowned.

“The village at Preston… the one you just told me about? It’s all concealed from the legal papers. And it seemed like your father’s trying to hide it from the officials and to the other executives of the corporation. There are a lot of things that I don’t really want to affirm to you and it’s very alarming, Taiyo. I don’t know what the hell that town was for but it’s all so tightly organized not to be discovered by anyone so easily.”

Hide it from the officials? Concealed from the legal papers?

“What do you mean?”

“The town’s on a lease, Taiyo,” Hudson quickly explained, his tone getting even more frazzled as he went on, “It’s drawn up in an agreement that appeared to be something about a trading business. But the whole document’s a complete bogus… Your father kept a track of unidentified transactions located to that place in a compilation that seemed to be a bit too ambiguous and strangely blipped. I think your father’s running some kind of underground market there, Taiyo. I don’t know… But I just have a bad feeling about this. Maybe it would be better if we just let this pass on and forget about this. I don’t really like what I’m seeing right now.”

Somehow, despite the strong warning from his words, I still wanted to know more about it.

“Can you send the copy to me?”

Hudson suddenly paused for a moment that I even heard him stop breathing when I asked the question back to him.

“Look… I don’t really think it would be a good idea now,” he retorted back at me, and he even sounded more aggressive with his words as he insisted on with an erratic voice, “Just let this pass this one time. It’s bothering me, seriously.”

“Just send it to me, Hudson. I’ll take care of it.”

“But—“

“Please.” I crisply cut him off with a short domineering remark. Hudson sighed loudly through the receiver and took his time to speak again. I could only wait for his approval as I dumbly stared up to the clock on the wall in front of me.

“I’m not really sure about this…” he said hesitantly and I almost sighed back. But just as I was about to give up from asking for help from him, Hudson spoke again.

“If you really want this so bad… Fine. I’ll see what I can do about this,” He eventually muttered back in a tone that seemed to be forced as he went on, “But you’ve got to be careful with this one, you hear me? I’m your friend but I’m also a lawyer. Seeing things like this kind of messes up with my moral code, to be honest. So, I just have to warn you beforehand.”

“Thank you,” I said sincerely, “Don’t worry, I won’t get you in trouble.”

“That’s not what I meant—“

“I’ll take all the consequences.”

He paused and sighed again. The weight of his dejected feeling somehow managed to ooze out from the phone onto me. Then after a long pause he quickly changed his tone as he spoke again.

“Just be careful,” He reminded lightly and this time he was quite more relaxed as if he had just decided to finally trust me, “Just ring me up if anything else bothers you… I may have second thoughts after finding this out but I’ll try to back you up, no matter what.”

I didn’t actually think he would let me through in this one but I was really relieved that he was my friend.

“I really appreciate this, Hud. Will talk to you soon.”

And the call quickly ended after that.