Once bitten, twice shy

For my misfortune, the demon woke up on time, and I had to take him with me. Not that I hoped I’d leave his ass behind.

He didn’t try to do anything stupid this time, and he won’t have any opportunity to do that. As soon as we reach Calena, I’ll dump him. I didn’t need any unnecessary baggage.

He kept bringing yesterday's subject, explaining himself thinking I was attracted to men. Upon telling him again that I wasn’t, he, naturally, came up with an idea.

“You can always be bisexual.”

Was he trying to make me one or what?

Nevertheless, I shut him up quickly.

As predicted, we reached Calena by late afternoon. We could see the characteristic dark green vines entangling the buildings from afar. On most of them, the vines grew so much they became plants bearing fruits exclusive for this region named cal fruits, known for their sweetness and taste of mixed berries. It became more convenient to use these plants for farming since they didn’t need that much care, and the quality of fruits was satisfying.

Such an extraordinary symbiosis quickly brought attention to literally anyone who could make money from that – starting from tourists to merchants.

Not soon after, Calena was known as The Green City and host of the biggest fruit market in the world. Thankfully it wasn’t the peak season yet, when the cal fruit’s quality was the highest and people were going ape mode to get them. City was then the liveliest, and poor plants had to handle so much carbon dioxide to process.

So much wasted oxygen in one place.

“Mikado, can you drop me here?” The man pointed at a house on the left, with a big tree growing in the front garden.

“Yeah.” I couldn’t deny I was slightly happy our trip was coming to an end.

I stopped the carriage and let him exit.

“Thanks a lot for the ride.” he said. “I do appreciate you took me. And I hope you don’t hold anything against me after that incident.”

“If you keep bringing this up, then I will start.”

He laughed lightheartedly. “Yeah, sorry about that. Good luck on your path.”

“And to you.” I muttered and went forth.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw him standing for a couple of seconds before going to the house. Truly, I had no idea what was going through his mind. And not like I should care about it anymore.

He was gone and I was back to my solitude.

Admittedly, I did complain about it, but I’ve forgotten how much of a nuance a person can be. Especially someone like him.

"Oh well, I’ll be fine”, I thought. “It wasn’t the first time nor the last. Time to focus on my job.”

This time I had to sell the fruits, vegetables and preserves from them, on the fruit market. I wasn’t the one to haggle with. I set fixed prices on the goods and people had to deal with that. I didn’t give a damn for an old hag whining “but it’s cheaper at X!”. For God’s sake, so go to X, for all I care! Old people seriously had nothing else to do in life but complaining about everything.

They wake up early in the morning, go to the clinic and talk with other old hags about their new aches. And then they rush to the church to get a place in the first row. After which they whine about how much their legs hurt. Then proceed to occupy the local supermarket in search of any bargains.

No wonder when you’re fucking rushing around the town whole day!

I might be exaggerating but that was how I remember it. Polish old people were built differently.

Nevertheless, I decided to start working the next day. Everyone usually goes to the market in the morning so there was no point for me to go there today as the day was slowly ending. I parked near the tavern I was staying at, secured the goods, and went for a walk around the city. I was craving a glass of calenade – a lemonade but made from cal fruits. There was one booth making a good calenade – freshly made to order, using the cal fruits from their vines. I went there and grabbed one glass.

While enjoying my drink, I had a quick look around the square. Nothing has changed during the few months I wasn’t here. Even the fountain, which has never been cleaned properly, was still full of moss. And people let their kids play in that water. Not that it was my problem, because it wasn’t, but they could do something with that. But for what? Better leave it as it was since the whole city was covered in greenery anyway.

After finishing drinking, I gave back the glass to the waitress. Since it was getting dark, I headed back to the tavern I was staying at. As I was getting closer, I noticed someone near Horse. He was an empathetic creature, but at the same time he wasn’t fond of petting him. Hence, I was surprised to see him being petted. But more surprised by who.

“Mikado?”

“What are you doing here?” I asked the demon.

“I was just passing by and noticed Horse. I wanted to say hi, even if we saw each other not long ago.”

“Mhm. And how is your friend? I thought you'd stay with her.”

“I thought so too, but her family was already there. They’re not fond of me and I had to leave after some time.”

“Pretty douche move from them. Especially in this situation.”

“I actually was prepared for that. I was able to properly say goodbye to her, and that’s all that matters.”

Horse didn’t move an inch from him. It was really weird. He didn’t behave like that before. Something felt off about this guy.

“What are you going to do next then?”

“I actually had something in mind.”