The Werewolf Count and the Trickster Tailor, Volume 2

by Yuruka Morisaki

  I worked up so much courage to invite him in, too…

  This was the moment Rock’s opinion of Krister dropped as low as it could go, and then some.

  Rock’s restlessness continued for hours.

  Ebel didn’t return that night. He said he’d let her know if anything happened. Maybe he’d just gone home without incident, but with how suspicious Krister was acting, she was worried. She wished she’d asked him to stop by no matter what after he finished.

  She rolled over and over in bed, wasting the night away tormented by sadness and apprehension.

  In the end, Ebel came knocking at her door just past dawn the next day. Rock flew to the door as soon as his knuckles hit the wood, already dressed after a restless night.

  “My apologies for returning so late.”

  Ebel looked awfully tired himself when Rock opened the door. Unable to bear seeing him that way, she invited him inside before questioning him.

  “Don’t tell me you’ve been at Krister’s until now?”

  “I was,” Ebel confirmed, tired and annoyed. “I followed him home. He’s a more industrious man than I gave him credit for. He was tailoring all night long.”

  “Krister was? I don’t believe it!”

  Rock couldn’t believe her ears.

  If he was such a hard worker, he wouldn’t get into scuffles like the one from yesterday, she thought.

  “It’s true. Though his work was far from thorough…” Ebel started, then continued in a more serious tone. “I spied on him through the window. He was cutting large quantities of blue fabric and sewing them one by one with needle and thread. His huge order seems to be real as he appeared to be making clothes of the same design. He was at his work table the whole time from when he came home until day broke.”

  Apparently, Krister really was busy with work. Such a big order must have come from some factory asking for uniforms or some such.

  Rock felt a tad jealous that he’d landed a profitable job she hadn’t.

  “I planned to leave once he slept, but since that never happened, I ended up there longer than I wanted.”

  Ebel shrugged. So that was why he hadn’t returned until after dawn.

  Knowing why brought relief but also made her want to sulk.

  “I was worried because I didn’t hear from you.”

  Rock’s pursed lips caused Ebel’s sleepy eyes to widen.

  “Really? I guess I should’ve said I would drop by even if nothing happened.”

  “Yes, you should have! You went too far, even if it was for my sake! If you hadn’t come this morning, I would’ve spent the whole day worrying about you to the point I couldn’t get a lick of work done!”

  Her voice grew angry out of real concern for him, but it only made a delighted smile blossom on his tired face.

  “You were that worried about me, Roxy?”

  As he spoke, his hand wrapped around Rock’s back, pulling her to his chest. Still pouting, she put up a measly struggle until his warmth instantly took the fight out of her.

  “I was…worried… I always am.”

  “I see. Thank you. I’m happy to know that.”

  “What’s even worse is that you spent the whole night with him instead of me…”

  Her bout of unreasonable jealousy finally got a laugh out of him.

  “I also think I did something truly regrettable. I wasted a much-awaited invitation to tea from you.” Ebel brought his face close to hers and spoke with a serious gleam in his eyes, as if making a binding oath. “I swear I will make this up to you.”

  “…It’s a promise.”

  “It is.”

  He sealed it with a kiss.

  After sharing two, then three, brief kisses, he gave her a tight hug as if he were loath to leave.

  “I only hope this doesn’t negatively affect your work.”

  “Don’t worry. You helped reenergize me some,” Rock whispered into his broad chest.

  Maybe she was too easy to please, but her sleepiness went right out the window the moment she knew he was safe.

  ♚♚♚

  AFTER that, Rock saw Ebel off as he left for home.

  Then she headed to her shop, where a whole bunch of unwelcome customers came in droves after she opened her doors—as she feared.

  “Krister Gionet told me to come here.”

  The lowest of the low came crawling out of the slums into Floria Clothes Shop as if they had conspired together to do so beforehand. Their orders varied from cheap custom-made pieces to the purchase of ready-made garments, but whenever Rock told them the price, they looked uniformly dissatisfied.

  “Krister doesn’t charge that much!”

  “This is our standard price. We won’t keep a tab or give discounts either,” Rock decisively stood up to the customers’ dissatisfaction—she wasn’t going to undercut herself. “Of course, we confidently guarantee the quality of your purchase.”

  “Ya talk big for a little brat. Yer ripping me off, aren’t ya?!”

  As for the customers who started throwing around threats, Phoebe would roll up his sleeves and show them out—peacefully or by force. Anyone who dared badmouth him found themselves chucked out the door the next second, yelping in pain. Thanks to him, Rock wasn’t directly harmed.

  Her shop, however, suffered huge losses just by having that sort of customer lined up out front.

  In addition to wasting her valuable time, they scared away decent customers who actually paid.

  “…What the bloody hell?! They’re obstructing business!”

  Phoebe was reasonably annoyed by having to deal with dozens of unwelcome customers all morning. Complaints flew left and right from his rouged lips.

  “Damn Krister! You sure that little punk isn’t lying about being busy? What’s the big idea, sending all his trash our way?!”

  “But His Excellency saw him working through the night.”

  Rock had already told Phoebe all about her run-in with Krister the prior night. They could complain all they wanted, and it still wouldn’t get them out of this one.

  “My little girl is the better tailor by a mile! That customer must be a crazy cheapskate to place an order with that bastard instead of you!” Phoebe huffed in an indignant tone, his parental bias showing. “I can’t stand for this a minute longer! Let’s go take our complaints directly to the perpetrator!”

  “That’s not a bad idea. Our shop is doomed if this keeps up any longer.”

  Rock was all for it.

  It was really going to damage business if she couldn’t get him to at least stop sending his nastiest customers her way.

  ♚♚♚

  ROCK and Phoebe closed up shop just before nightfall and headed for Hawker Square on Market Street. That was where Krister usually set up his stall. They searched for their frustrating business rival in a frenzy but couldn’t find him for some reason.

  “Krister? He packed up his things just past noon,” another stall keeper told them. He seemed surprised by it too. “He almost always hawks his wares, even if he has to set up in the middle of the road. He seemed distracted and closed early today.”

  “…I wonder if he got the jump on us,” Rock whispered in Phoebe’s ear.

  “You got away this time, Krister,” he snorted. “Tomorrow, you won’t be so lucky!”

  They returned to the shop discouraged, vowing to get vengeance the next day.

  But Rock and Phoebe never got a chance to level Krister with their complaints.

  Despite visiting Hawker Square every day for a week, they never saw the silver-haired tailor again.

  ♚♚♚

  “WHERE’D he run off to…?” Rock grumbled, wearily resting her cheek on her arms on top of the table at the bakery located on the first floor of the public bathhouse.

  A whole week had passed without any signs of Krister. Rock and Phoebe spent every free moment they had searching for him along Market Street and Hawker Square. They tried changing the time they searched from evening to early mor
ning to late afternoon to no avail.

  If that wasn’t bad enough, even the other street vendors at Hawker Square told them they hadn’t seen him either.

  “Never expected him to be the type to hole up without making coin on the side.” Phoebe’s shoulders drooped with exhaustion. He was fed up with searching too. “And here I had grand plans of wringing his little neck next time I saw his ugly mug.”

  “He’s not staying out of sight just to avoid us, is he?”

  “Isn’t he just busy filling that big fat order of his?”

  Rock and Phoebe were tired of him outstepping them at every corner, and griping about him became a part of their daily routine.

  Floria Clothes Shop was bustling with business every day, even after Krister’s disappearance.

  Of course, not all of the customers were the welcome type, and there was an endless supply of hagglers trying to knock down Rock’s prices. It was becoming commonplace to get an earful or be threatened when she told them her standard pricing.

  But as the days went on, the new customers had a definite change in attitude. For the first three days, they came saying “Krister recommended you,” but since the day before yesterday, they’d started saying “I’ve got no choice but to shop here, since I can’t find Krister anymore.” Rock found that reasoning just as annoying, but she also found the whole thing strange.

  Did Krister really have such a big order he couldn’t open up shop for a whole week? Was it really just work that was keeping him from being found?

  Rock was beginning to have doubts.

  “What’s got you two so down?” a cheerful voice asked Rock and Phoebe. “You must be depressed because you’re hungry. C’mon, eat up!”

  Justia appeared with a pile of potato bread.

  The smell of freshly baked bread breathed some life back into Rock. Her stomach immediately stated it was hungry, and she sank her teeth into a roll with delight.

  Seeing that brought Phoebe back on point, and he questioned Justia as she was walking away.

  “Justia, have you seen that punk Krister?”

  Justia stopped and gave him a blank look.

  “Krister? Now that you mention it, I haven’t seen him around lately.” Then she called out to her husband, who was standing in front of the oven. “Cargus! Do you remember how long it’s been since he last came?”

  Her taciturn husband didn’t turn around but answered on the spot. “He hasn’t been here in a week or so.”

  “A week…it fits.”

  That matched exactly with when he’d disappeared.

  “He makes himself known when he comes, always asking for our unsellable bread or to give him a loaf for free since he’s a regular.” Justia scrunched up her nose. “That’s why I decided to never buy anything from him. Someone who doesn’t know the value of things can’t be selling anything of quality.”

  Thankfully, Justia was a regular at Floria Clothes Shop. Her words were truly encouraging and healing for Rock, who’d become exhausted from the last few days’ craziness.

  “Come by the next time you want a new apron. I’ll make you another good one,” Rock said, hoping to convey her gratitude.

  “With your tailoring work, I rarely have to buy another,” Justia replied with a hearty laugh.

  “That’s because we’re a high-quality shop,” Phoebe boasted, getting a laugh out of Rock next.

  However, Krister’s whereabouts remained a mystery.

  If he wasn’t showing up at his usual haunts, then that’d mean he was devoting everything to his work at the expense of sleeping and eating.

  “So, why’re you asking about Krister?”

  Rock and Phoebe explained the situation to Justia as they ate their bread. After they detailed everything from his disappearance to him dumping his worst customers on Rock, Justia gave them a sympathetic smile.

  “That sounds like a headache to deal with.”

  “Tell me about it. He’s making real trouble for us.”

  “But it’s unusual for him to take time off work,” Justia said thoughtfully.

  Everyone knew Krister’s obsession with making money. It was only natural for them to find it strange for him not to be out hawking his shoddy wares.

  “He said he’s busy with a specific job.”

  Rock heaved a heavy sigh. She was haunted by this vague sense of unease.

  A woman just so happened to enter the bakery while they were talking.

  She was a woman with brown skin, which was rare in these parts. Rock had heard stories about a territory far to the south of the capital, where it was summer all year long, and that’s where people who looked like her resided. Looks aside, she was someone Rock had never seen before.

  Even if Rock didn’t recognize her, she was able to get a general idea about her profession. Her richly colored dress had a deep plunging U-neck, and the hem was short enough to see her knees. Heavy makeup drew attention to her exotic facial features in direct contrast with her short black hair, which sported a casual cut.

  Ninety percent of women with those looks worked at the pubs. They never came on to Rock because she looked like a poor young man, but they did have a tendency to tease her. Maybe because they thought she was the innocent and shy type. That was why Rock tried to avoid them.

  The woman neither searched for a seat nor sat down and instead made a beeline for Rock’s table. Once she arrived, her scarlet lips pulled up in a smile.

  “You were just talking about Krister, weren’t you, boy?” she asked. “Do you know him?”

  Rock was already twenty years old, even if her male attire made her look puny for her age. She was understandably put off by being called “boy.” And besides that, she wondered who the other woman even was.

  “I know him… Who are you?” Rock returned her question with a question just as Justia frowned.

  “Nisha, no shopping for customers in my store.”

  “I’m not trying to. I just wanted to talk to this kid here.”

  The woman called Nisha pointed at Rock without an ounce of shame.

  “Rock’s got no experience. Don’t pick on him,” Justia enjoined, worriedly returning to her work.

  Nisha promptly sat right beside Rock without asking.

  “We didn’t say you could sit with us,” Phoebe warned, not hiding his wariness of her. Nisha jumped in her seat.

  “Your voice! You’re a man?! Why in the blazes are you dressed like that?”

  “Because I like to dress this way, thank you very much.”

  Phoebe’s scowl deepened.

  “Hmm…you’re weird,” Nisha muttered, not the least bit apologetic.

  Apparently, this woman had no manners.

  It wasn’t uncommon for Phoebe to be ridiculed and scorned. But still, Rock wanted to expose him to as little of that nastiness as possible. His life choices were none of their business anyway.

  So, Rock decided to take a harsher approach with her.

  “Um, Nisha, was it? We’re in the middle of a meal. Do you mind?”

  “I won’t get in your way. Go ahead and eat.” Nisha didn’t get the hint. She batted her lashes at Rock. “Anyway, won’t you answer me? Do you know Krister?”

  She rested her elbows, and her breasts as well, on the table. She casually pressed her bare upper arms against Rock’s.

  “Your name…was Rock, right? You’ve got such a pretty face…and a manly name to boot,” Nisha whispered with a seductive expression, putting her seduction skills on display.

  It didn’t matter how skilled she was—it wasn’t going to work on Rock.

  “There’s no one in the slums who doesn’t know him,” Rock answered calmly. Nisha blinked as if that was news to her.

  “Really? Then that means Krister is famous!”

  “…It’s my turn to ask a question. Who are you?”

  “I’m Krister’s lover,” she answered without hesitation.

  Rock was startled by her answer.

  If that was true, then she shoul
d know where he was. Now Rock could finally lay into the rotten tailor.

  “I haven’t seen him around lately,” Phoebe immediately joined in, drawing the same conclusion as Rock. “What’s he up to?”

  Nisha cocked her head. “I don’t know. I haven’t seen him in forever either.”

  “How long is ‘forever?’”

  “About a fortnight, I think. Haven’t seen him since he said he’d be too busy with work to meet up for a while.” Displeased, she moved in a way that made her body jiggle in all the right places. “Krister said he’d be too busy to go on dates. But he’s been neglecting me too much for that! He hasn’t even come by the shop lately!”

  Every time she squirmed in her chair, her layered bracelets chimed as they hit each other. They were handcrafted bracelets made of shells, beads, and little gemstones.

  “Aren’t you lovers? Why not visit him at home?” Phoebe pointed out, seemingly hitting a sore spot for her.

  “I don’t know where he lives! We always met at my place or at work.”

  Phoebe looked like he had a whole lot he wanted to say about that, but he bit his tongue. Meanwhile, Nisha closed what little distance was left with Rock.

  “Do you know where Krister lives?”

  “I don’t. We aren’t close.”

  Rock shook her head.

  Whether he was the secretive type or not, Krister hadn’t even told Nisha where he lived.

  He’d stopped setting up shop on Market Street, where he made his living, and even his lover didn’t know his address. It wasn’t going to be easy to get a hold of his whereabouts now.

  But his sudden disappearance seemed an awful lot to Rock like he was running from something.

  A man who always made his presence known went a full week without being seen by anyone. Something was strange, even if he was just confining himself indoors for work.

  “Let me know if you see Krister.” Those were Nisha’s first and only sincere words. “It’s important to make money, but I’m lonely when he doesn’t come to see me. Besides, I worry when he doesn’t show up to let me know he’s alive and well.”

  “All right. I’ll let him know if I see him,” Rock agreed, sympathizing with her.

  Phoebe stared closely at Rock. But he said nothing as he munched on his bread in silence.