This Is Obstruction of Business
The man said nothing for a moment.
I stayed planted in front of the stairs, waiting for his answer. Seen up close, he was built better than I was, and the sheath at his waist carried the wear of long use — plainly not a thing a man wore for decoration. I could have done without noticing the sheath. Had I stayed ignorant of it, the whole business might have been a shade less frightening.
"Move, while I'm asking nicely."
The man lowered his voice. He neither smiled nor raised it, and somehow that made it worse. He looked like a man who had already decided, on his own, what he would do next if I didn't listen.
I swallowed and gave my answer.
"If you've come to meet someone, then please begin with your name."
The man's eyes narrowed slightly. Then he simply started staring straight at me.
At first I assumed he was waiting for me to step aside. But he neither moved nor gave his name, and when I averted my eyes he even shifted his face to bring our gazes together again. Now I was the one growing flustered.
"My face doesn't have my name written on it."
I shut my mouth as soon as it was out — a thought meant for the inside of my own head, squandered on the open air. Judging from the way the man's expression stiffened, it had not been a good choice.
He stepped in by one pace.
I leaned back a fraction, but I did not yield the stairs. Give way here, and the same conversation would have to be held all over again at a guest's door — and that time, Ara might be the one to open it and come out. If he drew his sword I might well have to run, but so long as he hadn't, I could still hold the line with words. I'd heard what happened to people who got caught. However afraid I was, I did not want to be the one to hand her over first.
"Do you know who I am, doing this?"
"That is exactly why I'm asking."
This time the answer was simple curiosity. I couldn't see why a man calling himself her companion would withhold a single name. I had no duty to guess at the identity of someone who refused to state it.
The man drew a slow breath with his mouth shut. His jaw set, and a vein rose faintly along the side of his neck. Something seemed to stir deep in his eyes, but he turned his head and it passed out of sight.
I kept watch on his hands. Thankfully, they had not yet gone for the hilt.
Several breaths passed and nothing happened. Upstairs a floorboard creaked softly; the man didn't so much as glance toward the sound. If anything, he stared harder at my face.
"Let's settle this with words."
I said it as evenly as I could. This was not a matter a staring contest would decide. I had no hope of beating the man, and no intention of brawling in a dining room I'd only just finished cleaning up.
The man's lips parted a little. He looked once past my shoulder, then at my hands, then back to my face. It wasn't quite the expression of a man losing his temper — though one thing at least was clear: he was studying me far more closely than he had when we first met.
"Have you... been the one in charge of this place all along?"
The question came from nowhere. I nearly said I'd been hired less than a day ago, then swallowed it. If he learned I was new to the job, he would only take me that much more lightly.
"I'm the caretaker. Anything to do with the rooms, you may take up with me."
The man exhaled slowly. He didn't press closer the way he had before.
"I only need to confirm whether the person I'm looking for is here. I won't lay a hand on the other guests."
I pointed at the counter.
"Then you may leave your name and your business. But that — precisely that — is the one thing you've refused to do since you walked in. You've offered money instead, or demanded to go up, so how am I meant to take that? I still haven't even confirmed whether you and the guest are acquainted. Having you go up like this would put me in a difficult position."
"You say that knowing what kind of woman she is?"
At that, I looked at the man again. Until a moment ago she had been his companion; their roads had parted, he'd said, and he was looking for her. Yet his tone now was nearer to a man pointing out a defect in merchandise than one searching for a person.
"You said you came looking for your companion. Tell her that yourself. And don't set about persuading me before you've even asked whether she wants to see you."
My heart had quickened. It wasn't that I wasn't afraid. But I couldn't work out how far I was meant to bend for a man who kept rewriting what he'd said not five minutes before.
I shifted slightly on the stairs and pointed toward the entrance, keeping the way upstairs behind me.
"If you have no intention of leaving your business, then please come back another day."
"So now you're throwing me out?"
"You're not staying the night or taking a meal, and you won't follow the one procedure I asked of you. What else would you call it?"
In place of an answer, the man looked at the tip of my finger. I had to take some care that the pointing hand didn't curl into a fist for no reason.
"Right now, this is obstruction of business."
The dining room went quiet.
The man's hand dropped toward his waist. My eyes followed it down, and my breath stopped. His fingers hovered a moment near the hilt — and he watched me from there, waiting, it seemed, to see whether I would say anything more. I stood absolutely still, certain that the smallest movement would make him draw, while a stream of useless calculations ran through my head: whether the counter would cover me, whether I ought to keep a table between us.
After a while, the man lowered his hand.
"...Fine."
Even then I couldn't loosen up at once. Only after backing off a single step did he turn around. Walking to the door, he swept the dining room with one more look, and gave a glance even to the notice posted on the wall. The door opened and closed. I waited a while longer after the bell fell silent, then went to the window: the man was walking away down the road.
Only then did I put my hands on the counter.
"Ah..."
A long breath went out of me, and my shoulders came down with it. My palms were damp. Only now did I notice that my mouth had gone dry enough for my tongue to stick to the roof of it. I felt I was beginning to understand why the service workers of my past life had counted the minutes to quitting time.
It was still my first day.
The man who had left the inn slowed his stride only after rounding a corner.
Twice. He had tried it twice.
The first time, he had applied just enough force to make the man give ground. Intimidation — mana pressed down onto a person's mind to raise fear. It made people obey without a blade drawn or a blow landed, which was why he reached for it so often on jobs like this.
But the caretaker had asked his name.
The second time, he had raised the power higher. An ordinary person would have struggled to manage an answer at all. Even if they held on, there should have been something — breath gone ragged, eyes sliding away, strength draining out of the legs.
The caretaker had told him to use words.
That was all.
There hadn't even been the sensation of it being blocked. Had he run up against resistance, he could at least have gauged its depth — but he had poured out his mana and drawn no change whatsoever. Perhaps the man carried something that nullified it. Or perhaps he had countered it with a skill so practiced that the man himself hadn't noticed. Either way, taking him for easy prey on appearances alone had been a mistake.
Even when he'd brought his hand within reach of the hilt, the man hadn't given an inch — if anything, he had watched the hand, then gone quiet, in a way that felt like an invitation to try moving it further. So in the end, the sword had stayed sheathed. He had no certainty the target was inside, either. Betting his life against an unidentified caretaker instead of the woman he was hunting had never been part of the calculation.
The man glanced back along the road he'd come. No one was following.
This time, he would have to look into that place before ever setting foot inside.
I had set down an empty water glass when the stairs sounded.
Ara was coming down, cloak still on, a bundle in her hands. My head went straight to the entrance before I spoke to her.
"Were you heading out? I'd wait a little longer if I were you. That man has only just gone."
Ara stopped midway down the stairs.
"I know. I heard."
"Was it very loud?"
Without answering, she came down the rest of the way. When she reached me, she looked at my hands before my face.
"Any injuries?"
"None. He never laid a hand on me."
Only then did her gaze rise to my face.
"He'll keep looking. Even if it isn't him, others will come."
I nodded. One man turning back changed nothing about why she was hunted. Words had carried the day this time; there was no promise they would next.
"Do you know that man?"
"I've seen him a few times. One of the ones who was following me."
"So the companion story was a lie."
"You believed it?"
"No. You told me you had no companions."
Ara went quiet. The hands gripping her bundle sank a little.
"He even gave you money."
"You were watching?"
"I hid myself and watched through a gap in the railing. Even when you gave it back."
I rubbed my palm once over the place where the coins had lain.
"I took her lodging fee and gave her a room. It wouldn't be right to tell strangers who's staying here just because they put money on the counter."
"Even if it was more than I paid?"
"Then I suppose I'd owe the bigger spender that person's story too."
Hearing myself, I found it faintly absurd. That would make me not a man selling rooms, but a man selling his guest list.
"That isn't the business I signed up for."
Ara looked at my face for a long while. This time her gaze was a little different from the ones that tested me or searched me for something. She seemed to be choosing what to say, so I waited without hurrying her.
"Thank you."
Her voice was small. Not so small that I could have misheard it.
"Don't mention it."
I nodded toward the bundle in her hands.
"Unless you truly must go out, rest in your room today. The road is visible from your window — you can check who's out there from there as well."
Ara looked down at the bundle. It was a small load for anyone setting out onto a road. I didn't know what was inside it, but I found myself thinking that every time another inn turned her away, she must have picked the thing up and started walking again.
After a moment, she set the bundle on the chair in front of the counter.
"Is the room free tomorrow too?"
"Yes. It is."
"The same room?"
"That can be arranged."
I opened the ledger and found the line with Ara's name. I had my pen at the date when I realized I hadn't asked how many more nights she meant to stay.
"Staying one more night?"
Ara didn't answer. Her fingers had been folding and unfolding the bundle's cord; now she glanced up toward the second floor.
"I don't know yet how long I'll be here."
"Then you can decide again tomorrow."
I added a single day for now and set the pen down. Only then did Ara pick up her bundle — but instead of heading for the stairs she came half a step toward me.
"Grain."
"Yes."
Ara's gaze stayed on the ledger. She looked at her own name with the new day written beside it, and asked a beat late:
"What if I can't decide tomorrow either?"
I answered with a smile.
"Then you can decide the day after that."
Ara lifted her head. The lips that had parted briefly closed again, and one of the tails gathered close against her drifted slowly out to the side.
"...Yeah. I'll do that."
She lifted the bundle and climbed the stairs. Unlike the first time I'd shown her to her room, she didn't glance back at the door even once on the way up. I checked tomorrow's date and closed the ledger.
Just then, Ara called to me again from the top of the stairs.
"I'll have breakfast here tomorrow too."
A weight settled onto my shoulders — a different kind from the tension of a moment ago.
Would potato soup be acceptable again tomorrow?