Chapter 142
Despite Tony’s Shocking Remark, I didn’t twitch an eyebrow.
[Test Subject, for someone like that, your Sympathetic Nervous System was momentarily highly activated. Isn’t this symptom usually called 'nervousness'?]
Truthfully, I did flinch a little.
But that was it. I calmed my startled heart and gave a light chuckle, as if I had heard a funny joke.
Getting flustered would only give Tony material to Attack me with.
The key was composure. I absolutely must not show any signs of panic.
“I like Sey?”
“Yeah.”
“I do like her.”
“Uh… huh?”
When I readily admitted it, Tony was the one who looked surprised this time, as if he hadn’t expected this.
Not missing that opening, I gave him a relaxed smile.
“Of course, as a person. She’s a senior worthy of respect and liking as a person, isn’t she? There’s a lot to learn from her, and I’ve received a lot of help in various ways. Just looking at my housing situation right now, if Sey kicks me out, I’ll end up sitting on the Street like a beggar.”
“Aha, so you do have feelings for her, but it’s purely Human Affection? You have absolutely no Romantic Interest?”
That was so like Tony.
I tried to smooth it over, but he clung to it like a leech until the end.
I could feel his desperate desire to make fun of me no matter what.
But I couldn’t just let him have his way.
It was time to land a Counter.
“I’m telling you. But what about you, Tony? You must have worked with Sey for quite a while. Hasn’t there been anything between you two during that time? Like a fling or something?”
I said it casually, tossing it out there, but inside I was extremely nervous.
A moment too late, I realized my mistake.
I had gotten very close with the Bartenders lately, but this was the first time I asked about something related to their dating history or private lives.
I was curious about what the Answer would be, yet also uncomfortable, and worried whether Tony or Sey would consider this question rude…
My eyes unconsciously drifted toward Sey, but she didn’t seem to have any interest. She was just silently wiping a glass.
And Tony answered easily, making my worries pointless.
“Well, it’d be a lie to say there was absolutely nothing. I’m young and handsome, and Sey is objectively pretty and sexy. An Ideal Couple sweating and working together in one place. What else could there be? Boom! Just a Date Proposal.”
“Oho. And then? Did it go well?”
“Haha, if it went well, we’d be flirting right now. There was a Minor Mismatch, so it didn’t Lead to anything serious, and we just wrapped it up as a Casual Relationship.”
I had to Admit it. At this point, I was at a loss for words.
What did I just hear? A Casual Relationship?
Of course, that made sense. In fact, it would be weirder if it weren’t.
Think about the time those two worked together.
Just like Tony said, they were an Ideal Couple.
It went without saying, and even Tony, despite always walking around unkempt with a haggard face, had killer base features. He didn’t have Italian Heritage for nothing.
It wouldn’t be strange at all if sparks flew between them and it led to a Physical Relationship.
This was Dusk City, a Future City in the Open-minded Western Sphere, and enjoying things lightly was just…
Well…
It makes no sense no matter how I think about it.
“…W-what?”
Unlike my brain, which had accepted the situation relatively mildly, my tongue malfunctioned on its own.
I felt like beating the crap out of myself for stuttering like some kind of idiot.
At that sight, Tony smiled wickedly with the expression of a hunter looking at prey caught in a trap, and continued speaking.
“Yeah, well. As you know, my Womanizing is pretty bad. So I found it hard to Settle Down with one woman. I had a hard time peeling Sey off when she got clingy and tried to hold onto me.”
“…”
“…”
A brief silence flowed.
Tony and I stared blankly at each other.
During our staring contest, Tony stroked his dark beard, then spoke as if something had occurred to him.
“Was I saying Sey got clingy and kept annoyingly clinging to me, pushing it too far?”
“Yes. I think so.”
“Damn it, I got too absorbed in my acting. If it weren’t for that, I think I would have fooled you one hundred percent.”
“Yeah, no. Absolutely not, right?”
At my Cold reaction, Tony banged on the table as if he couldn’t hide his regret, and shouted.
“What do you mean, absolutely not! You’re only saying that because you couldn’t see your own face when I said we had a Casual Relationship. Your pupils were Shaking; you were stuttering; it was no joke! Anyone could see you were completely shocked!”
[That Italian Test Subject is correct. You would be surprised if you knew how large an amount of Neurotransmitter was secreted when you were in a State of Excitement and Fear just a moment ago.]
“Yeah, shut up.”
After lightly ignoring the In-Head AI’s message, I gave Tony a refreshing smile.
That wasn’t true at all.
I wasn’t shocked at all, and I wasn’t panicked in the slightest.
Even if I were, it was important to show that I wasn’t here.
“It was obviously a ridiculous lie, so why would I believe it? It’s not like you’re looking at a gullible person.”
“W-what? What’s 'gullible'?”
“Ah. It’s just Japanese. It’s a Minor thing, so don’t mind it.”
“You said you weren’t from Neo Tokyo. Plus, that’s a word I’ve never heard before - “
“Whoa, can’t I use Japanese if I’m not from Neo Tokyo? Be quiet. I already saw through your Trick to make fun of me, and it’s neither fun nor touching anymore, so just stop. I’m telling you, I have no feelings for Sey.”
“Tch, chiksho (damn it)…”
Tony Ground his teeth as if frustrated, but from the moment his lie was exposed, the flow of the situation had long since become mine.
Tsk tsk, he should have said something that made sense.
I Was Unsure up until the Casual Relationship part - but was Sey getting clingy and holding on, begging to keep dating?
It wasn’t like we were Shooting in the Youth Romance Genre.
Anyone could see Sey would be in the opposite Position, a Cold and haughty figure who would peel off someone clinging to her pathetically and go her own way without looking back even once. You could easily imagine it just by looking at her.
It would be a different story if it were Tony who did that…
At my lightly tossed words, Tony was visibly shaken.
Could it be?
When I stared at him with a Suspicious gaze, Tony, who had feigned ignorance for a while, finally confessed after a few rounds of Interrogation.
“Ah, yeah. I was the one who pathetically and Persistently clung to her. Happy? Do you feel better now?”
“You got clingy and kept asking her to date you?”
“I Wish that were the case. At least that would mean we had dated before. But we never even dated! I couldn’t even get a single date.”
“Not even a single date?”
I opened my mouth.
Should I say, “as expected of Sey”?
Tony was objectively not bad - no, he was even a decent, funny, and affectionate guy, yet she managed To Be Unapproachable to that extent.
Whether he didn’t look like an attractive member of The Opposite Sex in Sey’s eyes, or whether she completely cut off any room for a relationship due to other circumstances… I didn’t know the reason, but one thing was certain.
Making a Date Proposal to Sey was a Crazy thing to do.
If Tony got rejected that miserably, it would be right for me not to even attempt it, even if I were drunk.
Not that I had the guts to do it in the first place.
“Yeah. They say there’s no tree that won’t fall after ten chops, but I found such a tree for the first time in my Casanova life. I fell in Love at First Sight and kept following her around and bothering her for months, but there was no progress. It was as expected of a picky Princess…”
Thwack-!
There wasn’t even time to stop it. As soon as Tony uttered the taboo word, a Cocktail Pin embedded itself into his shoulder as if sprouting from it.
I was sure it had been resting quietly on the bar just a moment ago.
“Kuaaaagh!”
“That’s Two Strikes. You know Three Strikes is an out, right?”
Sey’s dreary voice could be heard over Tony’s desperate scream.
What would actually happen if he got an out?
I was curious, but it felt like something I shouldn’t find out…
When Sey turned her gaze away, I tapped Tony’s body, which was trembling with the metal needle stuck in it, and he carefully gauged the room before pulling out the Cocktail Pin.
“No wonder I had an Ominous Premonition this morning. It’s a good thing I wore my pads. Thanks to that, I survived today too.”
I had wondered why his shoulders looked broader than usual.
He detached the Shoulder Pad from the inside of his jacket, which had an ugly hole in it as if a bullet had lodged there, and coolly brushed off the dust.
Tony continued speaking as if nothing had happened.
“Ah, come to think of it, I guess I can’t say she didn’t fall for it at all. We did go on a date, one. It was really just that one time, though.”
“Oh, really?”
“Was it when we had been working together for about half a year? By then, I had completely given up for a long time, and making a Date Proposal to Sey had become, how should I put it… something like a Habitual Joke. So, as always, When I Came To work, I lightly flirted without much thought, saying, “Hey, wanna grab a beer after work?””
“You flirted? And then? Did she Accept it?”
“For whatever reason, she accepted it. I was bewildered too.”
“Oh, that must have been nice.”
However, Tony scratched his cheek with an ambiguous expression.
“Well, it wasn’t bad. It just didn’t feel real. She said, 'Okay,' with that Expressionless Face, and her voice was exactly the same as when she rejected me.”
“But you still went on the date anyway, didn’t you?”
“Yeah, well. We did.”
“How was it? Did you ruin it after all, seeing as you only went once?”
“No, it was just.”
Tony shrugged his shoulders and said.
“It was just okay.”