HRB 79

Eddie took a stuffy breath, as if the blood flowing into his heart was blocked, and approached the two with a smiling face as if nothing had happened.

“Are you ready to order?”

Since the second time Laila had visited, when she had been impressed by the combination of kimchi pancake and rice wine, she had drunk so much rice wine that she was incoherent from the morning, she tended to order simple things.

“Um, I think I’ll have udon today.”

“Same for me.”

Eddie, who had taken the order right away, now skillfully summoned the Magical Spirit.

“Spirit.”

At that, the Magical Spirit that resembled Gerold fluttered and approached Eddie, then suddenly stopped in mid-air.

Then, it abruptly changed direction from Eddie and fluttered towards the entrance of the inn.

“Huh?”

It was the first time the Magical Spirit had ever done anything like this, so Eddie turned his head towards the entrance of the inn with a bewildered expression.

And Eddie found a familiar man at the entrance of the inn.

Black hair, piercing blue eyes.

When their eyes met, he saw the other man smile, which was a rare sight.

Eddie’s face brightened on its own.

“Gerold!”

Gerold had returned.

Come to think of it, he hadn’t been gone that long, but Eddie felt an overwhelming sense of joy, as if he hadn’t seen him in about a year, and he smiled brightly.

However, Gerold didn’t return alone. Eddie, who was approaching, stopped without realizing it the moment he saw a strange face standing naturally next to Gerold, looking around the inn.

It was a man he had never seen before.

He was about the same height as Eddie. Which meant he was quite tall. He was a handsome man with black hair, black eyes, and sharp, cat-like eyes. He had a unique feel that you wouldn’t forget once you saw him.

So it was normal to feel unfamiliar.

But for some reason, Eddie felt that the man was very familiar.

The man looked at the refrigerator containing banana milk near the entrance, saying, “Heh,” and then saw Eddie, who had come out calling Gerold’s name, and made a very happy face, just like Eddie had when he saw Gerold.

It was a face that showed he was overjoyed to see him. The man opened his mouth with a bright smile.

“Pa…”

Thwack!

If there was a minor accident, it was that as soon as the man opened his mouth to say something while looking at Eddie, Gerold smacked the man on the back of the head. With a smiling face.

“Ugh!”

Thanks to that, the man’s words were cut off in the middle.

The man, who had been ambushed and offered his head, turned to Gerold with a ferocious face, but after seeing Gerold’s face, he seemed to realize something belatedly and made an “oops” face.

“Ahem.”

The man cleared his throat and put on a bright face again.

“Eddie~!”

Then, he belatedly called Eddie’s name and ran towards him with a very happy face.

But Eddie had already heard some of the words the man had almost uttered.

…Pa?

The man hugged Eddie very naturally, and Eddie ended up hugging the man who had rushed into his arms.

Eddie was stunned by the sight of Gerold hitting someone on the head, and by the fact that this man was being so friendly to him.

This wasn’t Lee Jeong-hoon’s acquaintance, the current Eddie.

It must have been an acquaintance of the original Eddie.

The problem was that he had no idea how to react to this friendly handsome man, what the man’s name was, or anything else.

But even so, he was familiar. He didn’t know anything about him, but he had a strange, instinctive sense of déjà vu, as if he had seen him somewhere.

The man was looking up at him with a beaming smile in Eddie’s arms. Unfortunately, the other man’s body was better, so Eddie awkwardly put his arm around the man’s shoulder.

Eddie felt like the man was waiting for him to call his name.

He really, really didn’t know him.

Eddie felt like he knew who this person was.

It was close to the instinct that this “Eddie” felt.

“…Ebon?”

Eddie called the man’s name. No, he didn’t know if the man’s name was correct. It was just an instinct. Something like an instinct or habit that was embedded in this body.

Regardless of Eddie’s confusion, he saw the man smile brightly at those words.

It was a smile that anyone could tell was the correct answer.

The man, Ebon, handed Eddie a note with a smiling face. Eddie accepted the note in a daze.

The note, folded in half, had a strange sense of déjà vu. A neatly folded piece of paper, folded twice.

When Eddie unfolded the note, it read:

[Nine, completed]

At the same time as Eddie’s eyes widened, the man in his arms shouted in a cheerful voice.

“E is back~!”

Finally, E had found Eddie.

***

“Ah, this is crazy.”

A groan escaped from Sebastian’s mouth as he opened his eyes and realized that the sun was high in the sky.

The inn had been too busy lately.

Gerold’s Magical Spirit was competent and did almost as much as Gerold himself, but it wasn’t as good as Gerold being there in person.

Seeing that, Eddie said this.

“It’s like a robot vacuum cleaner… It does a good job, but it’s always missing something…”

He wondered what a robot vacuum cleaner was, but he agreed with the content itself. It was competent, but something was always missing.

Thanks to that, since the day Gerold left, Sebastian, as the only employee of the inn, had to work his butt off.

After being overworked like that for several days in a row, Sebastian had been consistently late every morning.

The mornings were relatively quiet, and Eddie knew that Sebastian was having a hard time, so he didn’t say much about being late…

Even so, Sebastian, who was a fairly diligent employee, didn’t like the word “late” itself.

“Ughhh.”

Even though he knew he was already late for work at the inn, Sebastian couldn’t get out of bed easily. Rather, the thought that he should just lie down a little longer since he was late dominated his mind, and the muscle pain was unspeakable.

Ha, but I have to get up.

Eddie clearly looked like he slept a lot, but he was strangely diligent, and even though he was suffering as much as Sebastian, he would wake up early and start working.

Ketron was the same when it came to waking up early. He didn’t come down right away, but he had seen him wake up early several times.

Were the couple just not morning sleepers at all…?

Sebastian, who firmly believed that the two were a couple, grumbled inwardly.

A few days ago, on the day he had reluctantly woken up in the early morning due to a complaint from a noisy guest, he had witnessed Eddie and Ketron hugging in an embarrassing position.

After telling them to close the door and going back to sleep, he had woken up in the early morning because he had to go to the bathroom urgently, and he had heard a strange groaning sound.

It was coming from Ketron’s room, which was located across from Sebastian’s room.

He wondered what that sound was, and when he listened carefully, he heard a blush-worthy sound, and Sebastian, who was a virgin, could only cover his face with a blanket in embarrassment.

Even so, once he became aware of it, the sound continued until dawn.

Sebastian, who had spent the night tossing and turning, struggling with sleepiness that day, had a terrible time.

Fortunately, even though Sebastian was distracted and made minor mistakes while working, Eddie, who seemed even more distracted than Sebastian, didn’t notice at all, so he was able to manage somehow.

‘Damn couple.’

Sebastian was on guard that night to see if he could hear any lewd sounds from the room across the hall, but fortunately, he didn’t hear any more sounds after that day. It was a very fortunate thing.

“Hey, you’re pretty amazing, aren’t you?”

Even so, Sebastian, who was pissed off by the fact that he had been kept up all night, sarcastically threw these words at Ketron, who was passing by.

I know what you guys did that night.

That was the nuance.

“…”

Of course, he regretted it a little the moment Ketron’s unique cold gaze turned to him.

I’m crazy because I’m sleepy! No matter how sleepy and annoyed I am, who am I picking a fight with!

But surprisingly, Ketron didn’t seem so upset.

He just replied like this.

“Not really.”

“…?”

“We didn’t do it that much.”

He left those words behind and disappeared leisurely.

“…?”

Clearly, when Sebastian woke up briefly in the early morning, the two were in the middle of doing it(?), and after that, almost until morning, until the sun finally rose late even though it was winter, they kept doing it, so what do you mean they didn’t do it that much?

He was dumbfounded, but the person he wanted to argue with had already disappeared.

“Ha.”

Sebastian, who had recalled that far, groaned and finally got up.

Damn it, Mr. Gerold. When are you coming back!

Sebastian washed his face roughly, brushed his teeth, and put on his clothes, praying that there would be fewer customers today, and went downstairs.

“Huh?”

And as soon as he came down to the first floor, he couldn’t help but widen his eyes at the bizarre confrontation he saw.

That’s because Ketron and a strange man he had never seen before were glaring at each other with frowns on their faces, with Eddie in between them.