Ch.215Two Face’s Guests – Filling the Empty Seat

“Why haven’t you been opening in the mornings lately, Sarah?”

The female hyena said as she arrived at Two Face just as evening business was about to start. Originally, she had been sent by the hyenas to handle any problems at the bar, but Two Face was Two Face.

Dragons didn’t want anyone causing trouble at their regular establishments, and if someone did cause trouble, they should worry more about dragon magic than the gun this female hyena would pull out.

Because of this, this female hyena, Biche, often helped with the bar’s work. Despite being quite a sizeable establishment, it was run alone, so there was always a shortage of hands.

It wasn’t yet time to open the bar, but the sun was setting. Vitality began rising within her body. Strength flowed through her muscles and blood vessels, and the veins on the back of her hands writhed disgustingly.

Biche waved her hand dismissively. Werewolves often needed about a minute of understanding.

“Finish your transformation first, then talk. I don’t want to disturb a werewolf mid-transformation.”

Female hyenas were strong and had good stamina, but they weren’t on the level of transformed werewolves. Was a wolf really that much stronger than a hyena? It was more like saying an orc was stronger than a human.

Despite the considerate words, her mind was filled with excitement from the vitality surging through her body, and she couldn’t hold back her words.

“Ah, why! When I feel like I could tell you anything…”

Her words cut off. It was the precursor to transformation. Considering that werewolves spent more time as wolves in winter and more time as humans in summer, they were influenced by the sun’s movement, though the exact relationship remained unclear.

Her mind became momentarily hazy. Her skeleton twisted and grew. Thick fur sprouted, and the urge to howl rose up her spine, but she suppressed it at her throat. It had been quite a while since she’d howled at the moon.

Her elastic formal wear for werewolves adjusted to fit her new body, and she consciously retracted the claws that had emerged at the fingertips she’d placed on the bar. After brushing the bar with her fur-covered fingertips, she spoke.

“You should have asked nicely.”

It was a wolf’s growling sound. Though it was clearly an animal’s voice, it was also unmistakably a human voice. We were a species that maintained such ambiguity.

The reason she hadn’t been doing morning business lately was solely because of Mickey. He had come in the morning when she had barely returned to human form and said they should finally end their relationship, which was already in ruins. He hadn’t said it like that, but that was what he meant.

That day, she didn’t open for morning business due to the lingering feelings, and the next day, she couldn’t open at all because she was helping Mickey organize his room. It was a day worth spending that way.

Now only lingering attachments and obsessions remained in the room, with only the furniture that had long held its place. Currently, she lived alone on the second floor, so she could rent it out if she wanted.

“It’s nothing. I was just busy with some things to sort out. Why, were you planning to come for coffee in the morning, Biche?”

The hyena made a cackling sound. It wasn’t meant to be mocking, but hearing such a sound made right in front of her sometimes made her wonder if it might be.

“It wasn’t me who came. I heard that a man the Godmother had her eye on came here. Since Two Face was closed that day, I wondered if something had happened.”

Is Mickey living a more remarkable life than expected? If the hyena Godmother had her eye on him, he must have shown something… Well, Mickey is capable of that much!

Mickey had always been the most reliable among unreliable people. Even now. He was unreliable in that he participated in the Sol Invictus extermination mission but kept his mouth shut about it to her. Otherwise, he was mostly reliable. If he hadn’t been, she wouldn’t have been so desperately in love with him.

Instead, she joked with Biche.

“Nothing happened. I didn’t even know he had connections with you all. If I had known, Mickey would have gotten another scolding.”

Customers began to come in. Despite being called a speakeasy, people entered quite casually. Though there was a doorman, they didn’t turn away people that often.

Even so, if they ran the business too carelessly, the Prohibition agents might raid them, but Two Face had Yehoel.

Two Face had always been a successful establishment. When it was open, customers never stopped coming, and sometimes even a werewolf’s endless vitality could get a little tired. It seemed like a new employee was needed.

Not just Bar Two Face, but Cafe Two Face was doing well these days too. Thanks to the good economy, people were spending more money. There was enough money left over to hire not just one person, but maybe three.

There was also the room on the second floor of Two Face that she had cleaned up after finishing her conversation with Mickey, so if she advertised room and board, she could probably find someone cheaply.

Mickey would probably like that too. Keeping a room empty meant still longing for someone. For a room to have meaning or use, someone needed to live there.

It was also about filling an empty space again, and it could give Biche, whose original job wasn’t bar chores but watching customers here, a bit more freedom. She made up her mind.

She usually didn’t like postponing such matters, but if she tried to hold a pen in her wolf state, she would likely break the precious pen. She had once broken a pen Mickey had given her as a gift that way.

At the tail end of that night’s business, Yehoel, already quite drunk, opened the bar door. Though he was a doorman, only Mickey had enough courage to stop an angel.

He greeted her with his golden right hand, which he claimed was bestowed by the God-President himself. His voice was characteristically slurred.

“Good dawn, Sarah… I heard about another inspection coming up… so I came to pay my respects to our civilian collaborator’s former… whatchamacallit, and my friend! For the next week, they’re sweeping this district with inspections. So… I want to drink at Two Face, and you want to sell drinks at Two Face! Let’s work for our mutual benefit. Yeah. That’s it.”

He’s completely drunk… Anyway, this was how Yehoel helped Two Face. Being a former Prohibition agent, his information network… but could he even know inspection schedules?

Though she didn’t expect a straight answer from the drunk Yehoel, she approached him as he sat on a stool and asked.

“Hey, you mentioned inspections? How does someone who’s finished their Prohibition agent shifts know about that?”

At that, Yehoel burst into laughter.

“No, that, where is it. There… that place run by the Germans. I was having a drink there when the Prohibition squad leader came in for a drink? He told the bartender there about the inspection schedule, and I eavesdropped from a table where the leader couldn’t see me. After that, I became grateful to our esteemed superiors. They created me and then sent this guy to Internal Affairs. What haven’t they done? I almost got screwed…”

Just because someone becomes a Prohibition squad leader doesn’t mean they forget the people they knew until the day before, nor does the desire to drink disappear. He probably wanted to tell a bartender he liked.

Yehoel… though she wanted to put it more nicely, he was remarkably incompetent as a police officer. Instead, he was exceptionally competent at living day by day as a person.

Since the inspections were starting, she could close the bar for about a week and comfortably look for someone. It wasn’t burdensome to let them know that it also served as a speakeasy after hiring them.

Not many people were completely dry anyway, and even if someone who was truly dry reported them, police coming during the day wouldn’t find anything, and those coming at night would be their friends.

Bar Two Face ended its business for the day by serving one last drink to Yehoel and the doorman. She then went through what used to be Mickey’s room, which was no longer kept closed, and returned to her home on the second floor of Two Face to sleep.

She was a wolf when she fell asleep but a human when she woke up. While she could often feel the transformation from human to wolf, the reverse usually happened while she was asleep.

From early dawn, hyenas came with alcohol. Whether the news had already spread to the hyenas or not, they left the alcohol with the message that the inspection period would last until next Friday.

She randomly opened a bottle, mixed it well up and down, and took a sniff. It was clearly Canadian whiskey, either undiluted or diluted with a relatively decent spirit. At least it didn’t have an unpleasant smell.

Though hyenas often cheated in such matters, they didn’t try to deceive a wolf’s nose. After handing over the payment for the alcohol and protection fees to send them off, she decided to delay today’s business by about an hour and went up to her room.

She wrote a flyer. Cafe Two Face, help wanted. Room and board provided, plus compensation of at least $25 per week based on a 6-day work week… The fact that the compensation was this much even with room and board provided suggested it wasn’t just a cafe. And preference given to those skilled in various beverages or cooking. That covered everything that needed to be written.

She put up the flyer while opening the store. Due to the reduced morning business lately, there weren’t many customers in the morning. At most, there was only Mrs. Grimes, who always came with The Reasonable Insight.

She was memorable because she would quietly have just one cup of coffee, read The Reasonable Insight, enjoy her own cultural life, and leave. Well… at least she didn’t pressure her to get married like other customers did.

Since Mickey wasn’t here anyway, she decided to blame him. It’s because little Mickey set his sights too high. Not bad. I didn’t even badmouth him, but I feel much better.

With such idle thoughts, she spent time serving the occasional customer. A little past noon, as she was about to close the store briefly for lunch… someone was standing in front of the store door.

A girl who looked about seventeen or eighteen… too ambiguous to call a child, but still too young to be called an adult.

Brown hair, black eyes, and a human with no visible mixed heritage. There were probably at least a million people in New York with similar faces. She could even be said to look a bit like Mickey.

With her lips pursed, holding the flyer I had put up, she flinched in surprise when I approached the door. She seemed to think I was approaching her, but she didn’t run away.

Somehow, she gave the impression of a stray cat. I spoke to the girl who was still staring intently.

“If you’re here because of the flyer, you can come in. It’s lunchtime anyway, so you won’t be seen by customers.”

Only after I opened the door with those words did she enter the store. She was the kind of person rarely seen in the residential area near 14th Street. People here generally had plenty of leisure or were good at pretending they did.

“I’m Corinne Lockwood. And, yes, I saw the paper… but I was hesitating because it seemed like too much money for the job. Is this place…?”

At that age, she either had never tasted alcohol or… had tried everything she could drink, whether appropriate or not.

Still, she didn’t look like someone hired by the police. If the police were going to hire someone, they would have used a more sociable and bright-looking young man. That had generally been the case so far.

I showed her the invitation to Bar Two Face, turning it front and back. With a slight smile, I explained.

“It’s a cafe during the day and a bar at night. The customers are generally quiet, and it’s not a place used for meetings in the red-light district… You look quite stern, do you need to know who supplies our alcohol to be satisfied?”

She waved her hands in embarrassment. It seemed I had teased her too much. Ah, it took less than a few dozen seconds to forget her wariness.

“No, no, I just really want to find a job…”

Corinne’s face reddened simply at my words that seemed to blatantly treat her like a police person. I must have taken the joke too far.

“Sorry, sorry. Was the joke a bit too much? Anyway, including working at the bar at night, it’s $25 with room and board. For serving, you just need to bring things over, and I’ll make the cocktails… We sell simple meals during the day, but we don’t sell food at night, so you only need to cook in the morning. I also live on the second floor here, and there’s a room that just became vacant that I can give you… Want to see it?”

Now her eyes began to light up a bit. She seemed to think that among her first proper job opportunities, this would be less strenuous than factory work and she would get to see many enjoyable sights.

Still, as if wanting to make sure, Corinne cleared her throat once. She was trying to set the mood, but she still showed her youth.

“I may not know much about drinks, but I can cook. What should I call you? It wasn’t written on the paper you put up.”

“Oh right, silly me. I’m Sarah Dunham. You can call me Sarah comfortably, or if you want to sound more professional, you can call me bartender. People who are called by their profession are generally cool!”

At that, Corinne made quite a… Mickey-like expression. Somehow, I pretended to complain that it was an expression that hurt people, but I was glad that with this one sentence, she seemed to understand what kind of person I was.

“Ah, yes. Since it seems Sarah will handle the drinks, will my job just be chores and cooking?”

At that, I lightly flexed my arm muscles and showed them. Ah, they weren’t that firm when I was human. After shaking off my arm, I said with a voice mixed with laughter.

“I’m a werewolf, you know. I can handle the heavy lifting at night, so that should be enough. And, I can teach you about coffee too… Is it too early to learn about alcohol?”

Corinne shook her head vigorously. The younger one is, the harder it is to have good memories about alcohol. It was visible that she was trying to change the subject, so I went along with it.

“Rather than talking about alcohol… Oh. You said you’d show me the room. I’d like to see the room first, Sarah.”

I took her up to the second floor of Two Face. Except for the lack of an entrance door and the stairs connecting to the lower floor, it was a scene from an ordinary house. The telephone was in the living room, and the furniture was generally of two types: one sized for when I was human and one for when I was a wolf, so there would be no problem for Corinne to use it.

Corinne entered what used to be Mickey’s room and let out a comment as if letting it slip.

“Whoever used this room before kept it neat.”

“It’s quite clean even though someone lived here for a long time, right? He was someone who didn’t know how to make a room dirty. The furniture is what the previous resident used, but I’ve already changed the bed sheets. For meals, you can eat with me when I eat… Since I’m a werewolf, there won’t be a shortage of food in the evening. Do you like it?”

Corinne nodded her head vigorously. She seemed to lack expression at times, but occasionally her reactions became strong, which made her seem like she would be quite enjoyable to have around. She was also quite sharp in her own way.

“Still, you’re not running a charity, are you?”

“Ah, that’s true! Shall we see your cooking skills? It’s lunchtime anyway. I was planning to hire someone decent and teach them cooking if necessary, so don’t worry… but I hope you cook better than me!”

Those who were to leave had left, and the empty spaces were quickly filled. Her parents had left her with the store and this house, which was too big for a single person to live in, saying they were retiring to California. It was a bit… no, they were just irresponsible parents. Telling a newly adult twenty-year-old, “The store is yours. Call us occasionally,” and disappearing—how is that responsible?

Anyway… Corinne was a good cook. Her expression when complimented on her food, or the way she just chewed with her lips pursed, as if thinking she had now become a full adult with both a job and a home, was quite enjoyable to watch.

Next time Mickey visits, I should tell him I’ve found a better roommate than him. Mickey will still come to Two Face. We sorted out our past, not torn up Two Face’s invitation.

But there will no longer be instances of closing Mickey’s room door. I won’t feel that pang in my heart every time I see that closed door. Somehow, it felt a bit refreshing.