Please, Just Come Back
Right up until he introduced himself as a professor, the man had been brimming with a dignity I couldn't quite name.
"Water—waaater! Hack—cough! Ghk! Waaater!"
That once-stolid face was twisted all out of shape, and the sight of him scrambling desperately for water was pathetic beyond words. I'd warned him. Precisely because I'd seen this coming.
"W-water, if you please!"
"I'm sorry, sir, but the water is for sale."
"Ah, yes, I understand—give it to me at once!"
"Five silver."
"H-here!"
What he yanked from his pocket and all but flung onto the counter was a coin worth a full hundred gold. He'd probably mixed it up with a hundred-silver piece of the same size, which told me exactly how far gone he was. Mixing up gold and silver sounds absurd, I'll grant you, but the two eyes that were supposed to tell them apart were currently streaming tears.
"Sir, um—"
"Khehhhk—!"
"I think you've mistaken the mon—"
"Please…! Please, just bring me water!"
…He had no intention of listening.
I was a little put out, but I fetched the bottled water without a fuss.
Count yourself lucky I'm the owner.
If it'd been one of those young part-timers you get these days, they'd have turned it into a contest of pride and told him to come get it himself, customer about to drop dead or not. Well. I'm the boss, so I must never, ever do that.
"Guaaah!"
The man let out a howl and chugged the water in great gulps.
"…Pwah! It's useless!"
Of course a little water was never going to settle him.
"It's too spicy! My tongue hurts so much!"
Caught halfway between pity and secondhand shame, I asked.
"They say milk works better when you've eaten something spicy. Shall I bring you some?"
"Q-quickly…! Quickly, if you please!"
Even half out of his mind, the man kept his manners. Those bulging eyes, he could do nothing about. They said, plain as anything, why are you only telling me this now?
Because I'm trying to sell you things. Obviously.
Thanks to that, I'd moved a bottle of water on top of everything else, hadn't I? This is how you do business. All the more so lately, when the shop is so dead the only things in the air are flies.
And when I drink with Delilah, I'm the one buying the food, which puts me in the red.
I had my reasons. That was all.
"Here's your change—"
I was just about to take the price of the milk out of the hefty change still in my hand and give the rest back.
"Enough of that—just give me that, and quickly!"
As if none of it concerned him, the man snatched up the milk and made off with it.
"Wh—what is this…! What kind of packaging…!"
And then he struggled mightily to get the carton open, his face flushed so red it looked ready to burst if I left him to it.
"I'll open it for you, so hand it here. Force it, and it'll only get harder."
"H-hurry, please…!"
"Yes, yes."
I answered absently and peeled the top of the carton open. The size, of course, was large. The price, a full thirty silver.
He's going to chug it anyway, isn't he?
There was a method to it. Mm-hm.
Meanwhile the man gulped the milk down with impressive enthusiasm.
…Or not so impressive.
It leaked past the corner of his mouth, ran down his chin, and dripped onto the floor. I'd have to wipe that up. Tch. Milk's high in fat; wipe it carelessly and you can end up with the stink of rot.
Bit of a problem customer, this one.
I was muttering it to myself when—
"Pwah!"
Having drained the whole carton in one go, the man blew out a great breath, and a few more drops of milk clinging to his lips fell with it. Damn it.
"Urp."
And a burp, on top of that.
Fortunately he was a fair distance away, but I could have sworn I caught that peculiar milky reek, and a dry heave surged up so suddenly I had to fight it down with everything I had.
Still not sober. That's all.
In every possible way, the man had a gift for making life difficult.
"Oh—my apologies."
At least he had the shame to apologize.
If I could have had my way, he'd have cleaned up the mess before he left, but one look at that exhausted face and I couldn't bring myself to ask.
"Hah… hah…"
And the panting. Good lord.
Anyone watching would think he'd slain a dragon single-handed.
Still, by then he'd recovered enough of his wits to hurriedly straighten his disheveled clothes.
"Feeling a little better?"
"Hoo. Yes. To think I would make such a disgraceful spectacle of myself at our first meeting. I am deeply ashamed."
"It's quite all right. I'm just glad you've calmed down."
I've carried someone all the way home on a first meeting. This hardly ranked.
Anyway, it seemed safe to bring it up now.
"You'll be wanting your change."
I went for the change I'd stuffed in my pocket for a moment while opening the milk. Ugh—but there were so damn many coins they refused to come free.
And then—
"Ah. The change will not be necessary."
Right in the middle of my life-or-death struggle with my pocket, the man's palm rose and planted itself in front of me. The gesture said, clear as anything, to just leave it where it was.
…For real?
Struck dumb, I had to ask.
"…Do you truly mean that?"
"Yes…. I was discourteous, was I not. It is no great sum. Please accept it as an apology."
This wasn't even a tip.
It is a great sum, though.
The change alone came to ninety-nine gold and sixty-five silver. Converted to won, that was nearly a million. A fortune.
That's practically days' worth of sales.
I briefly wondered whether I ought to ask one last time, just in case, and then I let the thought go.
Right. The man was an Academy professor. A purse that deep would be open-handed to match.
Called it.
And just like that, sales that had been in the red flipped to black in a single stroke. Not some modest little surplus, either. A filthy, screaming, downright obscene profit.
I was grinning, the vicious hangover forgotten, when the man—somehow immaculate again—asked, in a rather cautious voice.
"In return… might I call on you often, from here on…?"
Oh, but of course.
"Of course, you suck— I mean, valued customer."
I bent deeply at the waist.
"Please do come again."
Please!
Please, just come back!
…Too shameless, is that what you're thinking?
Oh, please. What does a peddler need with dignity? So long as the money comes in, all's right with the world.
No sooner had the storm blown over and the quiet settled in than another visitor arrived.
"You actually made it in?"
It was Delilah. Yesterday's problem customer.
Whether this would prove to be another storm remained to be seen.
Still, Delilah at least counts as civilized.
The reason was simple. She was cute, and she was pretty.
"And you're still holding the fort, Dante?"
"I drank considerably less than you did."
I let out a dopey little laugh, and the corner of Delilah's mouth lifted in an idle smile.
"Did your classes go all right?"
"I just finished my last lecture."
"Well. You've had a day."
"I have. It was hell."
Oof.
Delilah sighed and drifted naturally toward the table. She flinched at the sight of the seat she'd taken yesterday, quietly claimed the one beside it, and promptly flopped facedown across the tabletop.
"Anyway, what's got you so pleased? You're grinning ear to ear."
She asked it with her head still resting on the table, turned toward me.
"Ah. I got a tip."
"Ahh. Worth being happy about, then."
She answered listlessly—and then, all at once, her head snapped up.
"Still. You may have drunk less than I did, and you may have had good news besides, but you're entirely too fine, Dante."
What was that reaction?
I stared at the short-haired beauty glaring at me with prim reproach and turned the look over carefully, trying to decide what it meant. Was she aggrieved at being the only one with a hangover? Or indignant that I alone was perfectly fine? Whichever it was, there was no need to puzzle it out. Easygoing as she was, Delilah tended to just say the thing outright.
"Haaah. And here I went to the trouble of brewing a potion that's good for hangovers."
"Oh?"
I hadn't mentioned it, but the truth was I'd been rather interested—this was my first time meeting an alchemist. And now she meant to give me a potion she'd compounded herself.
"Mind if I try it?"
"Of course. That's why I brought it."
I shook the little glass bottle, sloshing the brown liquid this way and that. To look at it, it was nothing more than water that herbs had been steeped in. I knocked it back in a few gulps. The taste, admittedly, didn't wander far from what I'd imagined.
…Though it does seem a bit weak.
"Give me a second."
While Delilah blinked in confusion, I went to the fridge and took out a hangover cure. Damnably expensive, but it had been buy-one-get-one, and I'd meant to give it to her from the moment we settled up.
"What's this?"
"Same idea as the potion you made. A hangover cure. The ingredients are probably similar, too."
"Oh, come on. I'll have you know I'm one of the best in the Empire— no. On the continent."
"I know. You're at the Academy, so that would make you a professor."
Even so, she ought to try it once. Come on. Down the hatch. I flicked my fingers at her to hurry her along, and Delilah let out a scoffing little laugh, as if the whole notion were ridiculous, then promptly tipped the hangover cure into her mouth.
And then—
Her hazelnut eyes blew wide.
"Th-this is…!"
The effect couldn't have hit already. She was tasting it, most likely, and picking the ingredients apart. A continent-renowned alchemist would manage at least that much.
And then she called to me, quietly.
"Dante."
"Yes?"
Now what would she say? I smiled, waiting for the gasp of admiration that was surely about to burst out of her.
What actually came out of Delilah's mouth was something I had not expected in the slightest.
"Shall we drink again today?"
Oh, please.
"Don't say such dreadful things."
Maybe I ought to salt the doorway. Keep whatever this was from coming back in. I gave it serious thought.
…Where did it go?
Seized by despair, Gunter dug once more through the pocket he had already searched, and searched it hard. Nothing. The hundred-gold coin was gone.
I have the change from the cup ramen…
Strangely, only silver turned up. The gold coin was nowhere to be found.
Surely not.
Had that been the change the storekeeper had tried to give him?
You absolute fool!
Gunter berated himself. Of course he'd assumed it was mere pocket change—and then he'd told the man to keep a sum that large!
No. Better to look on the bright side.
It was money he'd meant to spend securing a contact point anyway.
He had won the storekeeper's favor regardless, so in the end it had worked out.
I thought there might be something to him. More ordinary than I expected, this one.
Gunter was just drawing breath to click his tongue—
Grrrrrrgle.
…!
Jolted by the tremendous rumble from his gut, he bolted for the bathroom.
And at the utterly uncensored sound that followed, a cadet who had only just stepped inside went pale and turned straight back around.