s o l o m o n

t h r e e

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The bouncing of Yusa's leg on the wooden bar of the stool shook her with the vibrations. The Sun was nearly directly overhead which meant it was almost time for her break. She was far more excited than she thought she might be, but it must have been due to the fact that the day had been much slower, and therefore much longer than she anticipated.

"Hey, do you think there's one big dumple where all the dumplings come from?" Hyx's voice had come from the window directly beside her, interrupting her session of waiting for the seconds to pass.

"Get out of my shop."

"I'm not in your shop!" He rebutted, grinning proudly to himself at the technicality. As quick as he'd come, he disappeared from the windowsill to come in through the main door. "Now I am! How's business, Yokazi? Where's the geezer?" As soon as the word had left his mouth, Hyx looked over his shoulders and around the shop to make sure Ciro wasn't hiding in the shadows, ready to beat him with his cane for calling him old.

"He's asleep, relax." Yusa's eyes were trained on the large, worn purple rug that covered over majority of the floor of the shop in front of the cashier's counter. It was much easier to lose your thoughts when your eyes stayed on one thing for an extended amount of time, but she soon broke her trance to look at her friend. "What business? I've just been sitting here all day."

"Wow, no customers at all? Nobody wanted to pay a visit to the beautiful repair-woman of Odessus in her time of boredom?"

"Nobody except you, my hero." Her voice remained at a constant flat register in response to his teasing. "Well, no, there was one guy..."

"Oh?" Hyx leaned his torso over the counter directly beside the cash register. He was wearing a thin cotton shirt in white, the sleeves rolled up to his shoulders and exposing his biceps. His trousers were light grey and tailored to him, not too loose or too tight. Hyx rested his elbows against the flat surface and fiddled with the stick of charcoal left beside the register.

"Yeah. He came in not too long ago. He must have been a Moon Priest; you should have seen him."

"New Moon Priest? What about Michael?" he looked up from his fiddling, black smudges from the charcoal shaded his fingertips.

Yusa shrugged, "Dunno."

"Shame, I really like him."

"Because he let you take as much as you wanted from the food offerings."

"And he was a sweet man, Yusa!" Hyx said, his black eyebrows furrowing into his forehead, avoiding confirming or denying her statement. "The old ladies at the café were mumbling something about a charming new man in town—"

"Oh, they forget you aren't new here?"

He forced a smile as insincere as could be to show his appreciation for the comment. "Anyways, it must be him. So?"

"So?"

"Was he charming?" His voice turned breathy at an attempt to sound feminine like a girl.

"Well, yes? No? I don't know. He was just... really polite. Cordial." That was the best way she could think to describe him. It was all truth; he had spoken to her in the formal way anyone would when going into an unfamiliar establishment. It wasn't anything out of the ordinary and nothing particularly stood out to her about their short encounter.

Hyx was looking at her with a blank look in his eyes, his disinterest as clear as if he had come right out and said, "I'm not interested." But he didn't need to do that. She could already tell.