Chapter 42: Fresh Air
It has been about 3 days ever since Eric’s encounter with the Astral Dawns, and nothing much has happened since then.
A couple more groups and smaller organizations had shown up to try and kill him, but they eventually turned away after Celeste explained everything, Aurora was still in the hospital and didn’t seem like she would be getting out anytime soon, and for the time being, he had been staying at the same safehouse he had went to right after fighting Aurora the other day until further notice.
Honestly, life was finally going great for Eric for once.
The only problem he really was having right now is that...
"Haah, I really should’ve asked the Astral Dawns for help when I still had the chance to." Eric rubbed his temples with his hand while laying on the safehouse’s old and slightly crooked bed.
The toxins in his body still hadn’t gone away whatsoever, and as a result, he still felt fatigued no matter how much he tried sleeping, and he still vomited blood from time to time.
Thankfully, it wasn’t to the point where he needed to be bedridden, or even that noticeable, but it was still annoying to have to deal with every single day.
"I’m such an idiot." Eric mumbled to himself as he quickly went to take a shower and then exited his bedroom.
From there, he headed downstairs and saw Celeste sitting at the kitchen table with her hands resting under her chin as she quietly read a book.
"Morning." Eric greeted her.
"Good morning." Celeste greeted back with a nod, "Nobody showed up to try and attack you last night."
"Really? That’s a relief." Eric commented as he opened the fridge to get something to drink.
"Yea, but you obviously knew that already." Celeste stated before adding, "By the way, I drank the last of the orange juice."
"...You’re really starting to get comfortable around me now, aren’t you? That was mine you know." Eric narrowed his eyes at her.
"No? Everything that’s inside that fridge right now was bought using my money. Therefore they’re all technically mine." Celeste countered with a light smile on her face.
"Wait, what?"
"You didn’t know? Remember on the night after the Astral Dawns left and we got here, you said that you’d order enough food to last us a week and told me to watch for the delivery while you slept? Well, the delivery never came, and so I took it upon myself to buy everything we needed instead before you woke up." Celeste replied.
"So that’s why there was a lot of healthy stuff in there when I woke up. I just assumed that the delivery guy had messed up." Eric sighed and then quickly checked the delivery app on his phone, only to see that he had set the address to his penthouse instead of the safehouse.
"Why didn’t you tell me this sooner?" Eric questioned as he closed the fridge back up.
"I didn’t think that I needed to. Food is just food at the end of the day. It’s nothing more than just a means of replenishment for us." Celeste shrugged before adding, "You’re welcome by the way."
"You’re offending quite a lot of foodies with that kind of statement you know, but fair enough." Eric said before thinking of something, "Speaking of which, do you think it’s safe enough for me to go outside now? I’d like some fresh air after being holed up in this house for 3 entire days now."
"I wouldn’t recommend it, and you know that I can’t follow you outside because there’s a chance that someone looking for me might come attack me again, but I know you’ll be fine as you stay in a public area with a lot of people." Celeste responded.
"I see... I’ll go out for a little bit then. There hasn’t been snow in the city for the last couple of years anyways, so it’ll be a pretty nice change in scenery for me." Eric stated as headed over to the front door of the safehouse and got his coat and boots on.
"I understand. I’ll stay here then. Have fun out there... and if on the off chance that someone trying to kill you does end up showing up and tries to attack you in public, could you please not..." Celeste began to hesitate.
"Yeah, I know. Don’t worry about it." Eric finished his sentence over her, and seeing as though she had nothing more to add, he waved to her goodbye and exited the house.
Afterwards, he quickly made his way towards a busy street nearby, where there were lots of pedestrians and vehicles coming and going.
The streets themselves were all also covered in snow, but thankfully the sidewalks were mostly clean thanks to the workers who cleaned them every now and then, and the streetlights above him all looked very beautiful against the white winter snow scattered across their surfaces.
Even though he was fatigued, Eric couldn’t help but enjoy the moment, and so he wandered around the busy streets aimlessly for a bit.
Unfortunately, he couldn’t even last 30 minutes before the toxins in his body began seriously bothering him.
As such, he began looking for some place to sit down and relax for a bit.
Coincidentally enough though, the street that he was currently on just so happened to have a cafe that he was very familiar with.
More specifically, it was ’The Grey Cup,’ the cafe shop where Aria works at.
Eric glanced through the cafe’s glass windows and looked inside for a little bit, contemplating whether or not he should go in.
But ultimately he decided not to, mainly due to the fact that he didn’t see Aria working in today, and the male cashier that had served him in the past back during his first encounter with Aria had noticed him looking at the shop from outside and had given him a nasty glare in return.
Eric could even see the young cashier telling some of his coworkers about him, which then caused them to start snapping pictures of him and typing on their phones for a while, and so he ended up going to another food place not too far from the cafe to eat and rest instead.
The buffet place he had went to though was unfortunately a bit too crude for his taste both in terms of appearances and food quality, and as he sat at the table closest to the window trying to stomach the food he had gotten, he couldn’t help but regret his decision.
Just as he finished his first plate of the buffet food and was thinking about whether he should leave or not however...
He saw Aria rush past the buffet restaurant looking extremely distressed, with tears in her eyes that she kept wiping away every other second.
Eric honestly didn’t think too much of it though, mainly because it genuinely wasn’t any of his business why she was crying in the first place, and so he just continued staring at his empty plate for a little while longer.
But not even a second later afterwards, he suddenly saw Aria quickly turn around and look at him through the window, and the tears in her eyes only started pouring down even more.
It was definitely a sight to behold.
And before he could even react to anything else...
Bang!
Aria slammed open the doors to the buffet restaurant.
Then immediately after that...
"Please... don’t leave!" Aria rushed toward Eric and clung tightly onto him as though her life depended on it.
"..."
’My body’s too exhausted to be dealing with this right now.’