Not Even Close || Number Five x Fem!Reader

Chapter 71

"STANLEY!" THEIR SEARCH for Stan continues. Lila and Diego headed to the lobby, wherein it also felt different. Not only was it a ghost town, but they were seeing more Japanese cultured stuff such as a sushi buffet.

"This placed is jacked." Diego commented. They started wandering around the lobby, looking for the buzz headed kid who was yet to be found in this place.

"Really? I hadn't noticed." Lila was worried to the bone. "Come on." She couldn't care any less with how weird the hotel was looking. All that mattered was finding Stanley before they consider themselves the worst parents in this faulty planet.

Even if it was just a test.

They made their way to the reception counter. "Hello!" Lila looked for the concierge behind the counter, but with this kind of silence, sure enough that they were the only persons who existed in this hotel.

Diego noticed there were two items on top of the counter; a card and a bell. The card had the hotel name written on the top, "Hotel Oblivion." He read, before he dismissively attempted to ring the bell, thinking that it would call anyone.

"Whoa, numpty! Can't you read?" Lila was quick enough to block his hand. She pointed out the note card that had a message in which it was only written in Hiragana, "It says “do not ring the bell”." She translated.

"We need help finding Stan. Why put a bell if they don't want us to ring it?" Diego argued against his partner, who was more concerned about Stan going missing.

They've already checked every floor -- from top to bottom. Yet there was no sign of him. Lila was beginning to get even more stressed, now that she had retraced their steps in her mind again. "Trudy's gonna kill me." She loudly fretted, dragging her feet as she slumped away from the counter.

"Who's Trudy?" Asked Diego.

"Stan's mum."

"Wait."

Lila froze on the spot, realizing she had just blurted out the real answer that was supposed to be just said internally. I shouldn't have said that.

"What?" Diego was struck by the truth as if he'd just realized his goldfish gets replaced every time it dies. There was no way Lila could cover this whole thing up from Diego anymore.

And so, she turned to him slowly. Acting calm as if it didn't actually mattered, "Stan, he's not our child." She said monotoned. She changed the topic in an instant to avoid the conflict, "Fancy some sushi?"

****

Klaus was back inside the Academy once more after he was left with another sign of the White buffalo during his time with his mother. He could not have arrived at bad timing as Sir Reginald was busy watching his favorite show.

The old man questioned why the younger man suddenly needed his help. But he did not refuse just yet. He needed to know the whole context of what this marvellously deranged person had been through.

Now there they settled in his study, Klaus lied down on the couch while Reginald sat on the other chair with a notebook and a pencil. Klaus was in the process of describing what else had he seen while he was lying lifeless in the White Buffalo suite.

"I mean, it was kind of like a dream." He started, remembering how everything else but his shirt was dull and gray. "But then it was also like a perfume commercial. And then there was soup."

The pencil scratched against the paper amidst Klaus' attempt in recalling everything. While he thought Reginald Hargreeves was jotting down notes of his experiences, the old man was actually drawing sigils again.