Chương 64: Ch.63— Everything But a Job

Amy arrived at the main gates soon after leaving the cafeteria and found Stella and Alba already there. Stella was sitting on a low stone wall beside the gate, and Alba stood next to her with her hands folded.

"You came!" Stella said, hopping off the wall.

"Mmm?" Amy tilted her head.

"I'm the one who wanted to go in the first place."

"Yeah, right. It's just I had a feeling you wouldn't. I don't know why." Amy continued walking, and both Stella and Alba fell into step beside her.

"Anyway, how are you feeling?" Stella said, gesturing vaguely at Amy's bandages.

"I mean, you arrived late and looked pretty tired this morning."

"I'm fine, thank you. I just didn't sleep properly."

"Hopefully, we don't make your day worse," Alba said.

"We—or rather, I wasn't sure you'd actually want company today, honestly," she said while glancing towards Stella, who returned the gaze with a roll of her eyes.

"You've had a pretty busy week, it seemed."

"Don't worry, I appreciate you coming," Amy said, and meant it. She still wasn't entirely sure why they had wanted to help her, given that a week ago, the extent of their conversation had been mumbled greetings in the hallway; if she had to describe their current relationship, it was 'not strangers, but not much more than classmates'.

"No biggie, we like helping," Stella said. At the same time, Alba added, "It's a pleasure." Then the two of them suspiciously glanced at each other and nodded. Amy raised an eyebrow, then spoke, "So what's the plan?"

"Right! Plan." Stella straightened up like she'd been waiting for that exact cue.

"So, neither of us has ever actually had a job either, for the record, but I've lived in the capital my whole life, and Alba's practically a local at this point, so between the two of us, we know basically every street worth knowing. We figured we'd just walk you through the districts, stop wherever looks promising, and ask around. See what's out there."

"Sounds almost organized."

"We're very organized people," Stella said.

"Yes. Very professional. Very organized." Alba shook her head with a smile, and Stella hit her on the toe. Amy once again was left confused by this interaction, but did not comment on it. As they walked, they talked mostly about school and assignments. They went through classical-looking European streets that smelled for some reason like bread and river water, with streets narrow enough to touch both walls at once before widening into plazas full of pigeons.

The first establishment they arrived at was a bar with a hand-lettered HELP WANTED sign in the window. Amy walked up to the counter, gave her most polite, least murderous smile, and asked if the position was still open. It took the owner exactly four seconds to say yes. One look at her face and her academy uniform made his expression brighten considerably; it almost felt like Amy was doing him a favor.

They asked if could she start Thursday, and did she have any preference regarding hours—"Actually," Stella cut in, sliding smoothly between Amy and the counter, "we were thinking of checking a few more places first! You know. Comparing. Wouldn't want her to commit to the very first thing, right? Everyone knows that you don't take the first offer. My cousin took the first offer at his place, and now he has to organize the storeroom every single—""We'll think about it," Amy said, mostly to make the sentence end.

Stella nodded at her, satisfied; meanwhile, Alba was sighing. The second shop was a tailor's, and the exact same thing happened, except this time it was Alba who intervened, gently taking Amy away from the counter and to the corner of the store where they couldn't be heard.

"It sounds like a lovely position, but the interview process seems like it could take a while, and the paperwork sounds tedious." There had been no mention of an interview process. There had, in fact, been no indication that there was any interview process; the tailor had simply asked when Amy could start.

"Right," Amy said slowly, following Alba and Stella back out into the street for the second time in twenty minutes.

By the third shop—a candlemaker's this time, where the owner took one look at Amy's uniform and instantly offered her a wage that was, frankly, insulting to Amy from the previous life who used to briefly work in summers as a server—she had stopped being surprised at how easily the jobs came and started being surprised at how consistently they evaporated the moment one of her two escorts opened their mouth. Could she have just not listened to them and taken the jobs?

Absolutely; they weren't being forceful or trying to ruin her chances by being rude. But their antics made her curious. She wondered what they were trying to achieve as she watched Stella talk the candlemaker into a ten-minute tangent about wax purity that had nothing to do with anything, while Alba examined a shelf of decorative candles as if she were some kind of candle expert.

By the fourth shop, which happened to be a clothing shop, she noticed that after asking and getting a proposal, which they semi-rejected, they ended up buying clothes with Stella's money. During the fifth and the sixth, which also happened to be clothing stores, they did the same, with this time Alba buying some for Amy as a gift. They continued like that for a few more, and by the eleventh, she was fairly sure they hadn't even asked for a job.

"Look, Amy, isn't this birdcage really cool?" Stella said as she examined a birdcage shaped like a miniature cathedral. They were currently in a store that sells decorative birdcages, with multiple bags of clothes with them.

"We're supposed to be finding me a job," Amy finally said. Stella blinked at her, caught mid-thought with the birdcage still in her hands, and for a second her expression went completely blank. Then she smiled, sheepishly, and set the birdcage down a little too carefully.

"Right. Job. We're doing that." She glanced at Alba, who was suddenly very interested in a table.

"Actually— okay, don't take this the wrong way, but I'm starving. Like, genuinely faint. I don't think I've eaten since breakfast, and I think better on a full stomach, which means you'll get a much better job out of me if we eat something first." Amy looked at her for a long moment, then at Alba, who was still staring at a table completely unmoving, then sighed and nodded.

"Fine. Food first." -————-　■　-————- Honey cakes or pastries from a sweet shop were a weird thing to have if you were hungry, and yet that was what they were eating. They were currently sitting at a table in a little plaza in front of the shop where they brought their food. On the other side of the plaza, children were making fun of a clown-dressed man who was failing spectacularly at juggling glowing orbs.

It was still afternoon, but Amy had a feeling that if they kept wasting time like this, it wouldn't be for so long. Weirdly enough, she really didn't mind much. It was weird. She had never imagined the city to be so peaceful. Maybe it was because in the manga, whenever Crow's leaving the academy was illustrated, something happened. Pigeons, children running around, nothing was on fire… This really was just a city, or rather a town, if seen through modern standards.

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"You've got a weird face on," Stella observed, mouth full of syrup.

"I'm just having an epiphany."

"About?" Amy considered the question for a second, watching the clown recover from his own disaster with a dramatic bow and get more applause.

"That I'm having fun," she said finally.

"More than I expected to, given the whole 'finding a job' thing has produced zero jobs."

"Ha! Knew it," Stella said while pointing her fork at her.

"You've had 'having a nice time and hating that you're having a nice time' face for like an hour."

"I wasn't hating it."

"You looked suspicious of it, so same thing." Amy shook her head and turned her cup slowly on the table.

"Can I ask you something, then?" She once again stared at them.

"Why are you two actually doing this?" Stella and Alba exchanged one of their looks again, then, after some hesitation, they both nodded.

"Okay, fine," Stella said, setting her fork down.

"Real answer. We've kind of wanted to talk to you for a while. Properly, I mean, not hallway-nod talk. But you're always either studying, or gone somewhere, or looking like you'd disassemble anyone who interrupted you, and there was never a version of 'hey, want to get lunch' that didn't feel like it'd get laughed at."

"I wouldn't have laughed."

"You say that now." Stella shrugged.

"Anyway, then this whole job thing happened, and it was just... there. An actual reason to spend a whole day together that wasn't 'so, weird, right, let's be friends.' So we took it."

"Just to be clear, this was all Stella's idea," Alba added quietly, "although I didn't mind following it." Amy looked between the two of them—Stella, mildly embarrassed and covering it with a grin, and Alba, calm as ever but not quite meeting Amy's eyes.

"I appreciate it," she said.

"Really. But for what it's worth, next time you don't need an excuse. You can just ask if you want to hang out. I'd have said yes."

"Really?"

"Mmm..." Amy trailed off and couldn't get herself to actually nod, so instead just looked somewhere else. It was at that exact moment that a shadow fell over the table and a chair scraped out.

"Room for one more?" A copper-skinned woman with golden eyes and brown hair asked, already sitting. Amy blinked at Iris.

"Is this a coincidence?"

"Yes and no." Iris stole one of Amy's cookies and took a bite before Amy could react, then made a face.

"Vanilla? Blondie, that's a war crime. Also, you people are terrible at job hunting. I randomly saw you entering stores and decided to follow for a bit. You sure you aren't just hanging out?" Stella laughed hard enough to nearly drop her cone, then rapidly covered her mouth. Alba just shook her head. For a while, the four of them just sat there.

Iris had ordered food for herself and occasionally made conversation, but for the most part, nobody really spoke; rather, they watched the clown drop an orb directly into his head and pretend to fall unconscious to a round of applause. It was, Amy thought, disgustingly nice. She could get used to this. She probably shouldn't, given everything currently sitting in her satchel, but she could.

Then Iris turned her head sharply toward the mouth of a narrow alley across the plaza and raised her voice without any warning at all.

"You've been standing there for ten minutes! Just come out already, unless you don't wanna join!" Amy followed Iris' gaze and found nothing but shadow and a stack of empty crates. For a second, nothing happened. Then a woman with pale white hair, skin, and eyes, and with slightly reddened cheeks and ears despite her stoic expression, stepped out of the alley.

Lain moved stiffly, like someone caught mid-crime, which, Amy supposed, she technically was—her hand still half-tucked into a bag on her hip—her school bag, Amy recognized—shoving something rectangular deeper inside. Amy was pretty sure it had been a book.

"... Iris," Lain said.

"Sorry, couldn't resist," Iris responded with a grin. Lain said nothing further. She crossed the plaza with stiff, measured steps and stopped at the edge of the table before sitting in the last remaining chair.

"So," Amy said, after a moment, "were you following us, or was that also a coincidence?"

"... No." She paused, then, "Yes..."

"Which one?" Lain's ears, already pink, went a shade darker. Time passed, and she didn't respond to the question.

"You could've just walked up like a normal person," Iris interjected around a mouthful of pastry.

"We don't bite. Well—Amy might."

"I don't bite."

"The upturned lip thing you gave professor Kaelen this morning sure suggested otherwise."

"That was a smile."

"Sure, whatever you say." Iris reached over and stole a piece of cookie from Amy again, which made no sense since she had her own.

"She does this," Iris said to Amy, jerking a thumb at Lain.

"Hovers. Watches in the shadows, stalking her prey until they reach an isolated hallway and killing them in cold blood." Lain almost made the motion of rolling her eyes. Then, after a moment of silence, she spoke.

"I didn't want to intrude..."

"You'd have had to actually reach the table to intrude. You were forty feet away, observing from beyond the dark." Lain ignored Iris' comment, not even glancing at her. Amy stared at Lain silently, trying to decipher the expression on her face without success; if she was stoic before, now she was a statue. With a sigh, Amy slid her plate of pastries a few inches closer to her.

"Try them. They are pretty good." Lain looked at the plate, then at Amy, then, after a long pause, reached out and took one. Both Amy and Iris smiled at that. As they kept eating, time passed, and Amy realized that the atmosphere at the table had changed. Stella, who six or seven minutes ago had been mid-argument with Iris and Alba about the moral superiority of pistachio, suddenly found her hands fascinating. Meanwhile, Alba's easy smile went politely neutral, and her spine went a fraction straighter than before.

As for Lain, she was always like this, yet it felt like she was even more still than usual. Apparently, Amy was the only one confused about this, as Iris seemed to be more interested in the food than anything. The shift from warm and chatty to warm but very careful, the way both girls' eyes flicked toward Lain and then away. Is it because she's a noble or something? Amy wondered, watching Stella very carefully not to make any sudden movements.

Watching people tiptoeing around others that they weren't familiar with wasn't a new concept, but it was strange to watch it happen in real time with someone who, according to Amy, looked like the human version of a rabbit: timid and clearly harmless. Iris, probably aware but blissfully immune to the atmosphere, brought everyone's attention back to her with a clap of her hands.

"Anyway, what was the plan again today, exactly? Besides the excuse of searching for a job."

"I wasn't planning anything special," Amy said, and meant it, mostly.

"I truly just wanted to find a job. School's orders, remember." Iris tilted her head.

"That's it? No secret errands, no mysterious detours, no super duper mysterious fate business?" Amy rolled her eyes, considered several answers, discarded most of them, and went with the one that was technically true and also completely useless as information.

"I guess I might swing by the sewers later. Just to look." Iris stared at her for exactly one second and smiled.

"... There it is." It was into that particular silence that Lain spoke.

"If you need a job," she said barely above a whisper, "the teahouse would take you." Everyone looked at her. Lain didn't elaborate, apparently having decided that was enough words for today.

"... The teahouse," Amy repeated slowly. And then it clicked. That teahouse, the place Libris had first brought her towards after arriving in this world and where she'd first crossed paths with Crow.

"If you are talking about the Dreamer's Brew," Iris said, "it's not open today. You'll have to wait till tomorrow. So, I guess that frees up your schedule for the rest of the day." She turned to Amy with an entirely too satisfied grin.

"Sewers it is, then."

"Wait—" Stella interjected.

"I thought the sewers were a codeword. The actual sewers? Like, underground, actual sewers?" Amy tilted her head, then nodded. Now that she thought about it, she had gotten used to being in so many crazy situations for the past couple of months that going to the sewers seemed normal. But really, who goes to the damn sewers casually?

"So you really are going to the sewers? Is something happening? Is it going to be dangerous?" Alba asked. Her voice was small as she glanced between Amy and Iris, like she was hoping one of them would say obviously not, don't be silly.

"Yes, I'm really going, and no, it shouldn't be dangerous," Amy said, which was true, probably, assuming a certain rat-based worst-case scenario from a manga that no longer reliably predicted anything hadn't already started early. She kept that part to herself.

"Just checking something. Won't take long." Amy thought for a second, then added, "Want to come?" Alba frowned at her words. She glanced at Stella, then at Iris, who looked like someone completely ready to go, then down at the table, and then politely said, "I think I'll stay here and take care of teh bags."

"Yeah, I'm with Alba on this one," Stella added quickly.

"I prefer shopping to dealing with whatever's down there."

"There's no whatever down there. Probably.""'Probably' is doing a lot of work in that sentence." Amy just smiled and turned to Lain instead.

"What about you?" Lain blinked, then, after a couple of seconds, slowly, she nodded.

"Great," Amy said.

"Then let's—""Hey." Iris' voice cut in, mock-offended.

"Why didn't you ask me?" Amy gave her a flat look. What even is the point in asking…?

"Iris," Amy said with a flat voice.

"Do you want to come to the sewers?"

"Yes!" Iris said, far too enthusiastically, already pushing back her chair. Amy stood, brushing crumbs off her uniform, and looked at the two girls.

"Then let's not lose any more time."