To Live Again, For the First Time!

Elijah sat in the car with his eyes closed, waiting for Liam.

As he replayed the day in his mind, he sighed at how uncomposed he was today as he reviewed his faulty plans.

Some of these things were due to his emotions being affected by his rush in finding M and others due to that annoying teacher of his.

"In hindsight, there were so many things I could have done differently, and more efficiently," Elijah spoke to himself in a quiet voice.

He had this habit to replay his memories every day in order to assist his self-improvement.

After all, he had only one teacher, and that teacher was too stingy to give him any hints, much less giving pointers.

He could only rely on himself.

"Mistakes, too many mistakes…" Elijah was very calm despite his words that reflected dejection.

Other than a small frown, there was no other sign of his bad mood.

One would think that he was simply talking about the weather as someone who couldn't care less from his tone.

Well, things had already transpired, so Elijah just took this time to plan out what he would have done differently.

It wasn't as if he could make many useful plans for the future before Liam came back.

On the other hand, Liam wasn't having nearly as much of a relaxed time.

…

"And when exactly was this?"

"It was around a few days ago, I can't quite recall exactly when," Liam remained calm on the surface despite his turbulent mood.

"Is that so?" The lady with her hair tied in a neat and refreshing bun asked suspiciously.

She looked very composed and mature.

In comparison, the young lady by her side with her hair tied in two cute pigtails seemed much more adorable and youthful.

"If Sister Riri said that she hasn't seen you here before then it must mean that you haven't been here before! Why are you asking for the surveillance footage!" The young lady hmphed, clinging to the mature young lady's side.

Liam was appalled.

Did this Sister Riri have a photographic memory or something? Remembering every face that came in and out of this place?

And did she also just so happen to be working every single day this past whole week?

Impossible… well, highly unlikely.

Which meant that Liam just had to bluff his way out.

It wasn't as if he didn't have experience doing such things.

The only thing was… why was this little girl with the cute pigtails glaring at him like he had killed her lover??

wtf.

"Young lady, I'm sure your right, Lady Rita seems very capable, and it is indeed not strange that she has never seen me before as this is my first time here. The thing I am looking for is for my friend, not myself," Liam started bullshitting.

Getting Rita's name from her nametag.

But he sounded so confident and looked so wronged that it almost made the two people forget what he had said before this.

Rita, called Sister Riri by the young lady, narrowed her eyes.

"Didn't you say you came here with your wife and that she may have dropped her wedding ring around here? And it also seems incredibly suspicious that you only found out you lost it and came back for something as important as a wedding ring a few days following its disappearance. Sir, I highly doubt you'll find what you are looking for here," Lady Rita replied calmly and seriously.

She was very professional with her customers, even when they were acting relatively suspicious.

There was no line and no one else she had to tend to right now, so she had time.

Plus, she always went with the motto, "Don't wrong the customer until you are sure they aren't being wronged." 

(It's just saying that she won't accuse customers of anything before she is sure of it.)

Liam cursed in his mind before he cursed out loud.

"F*ck that b*stard!"

Suddenly, the whole aura around Liam changed, leaving both ladies flabbergasted and speechless…

Like. Wait- wait- wait! Isn't this change a little too abrupt??

Only, one was able to control their facial expression better than the other.

The young one with the pigtails dropped her jaw on the floor due to lack of caution (oopsies), while the mature young woman flinched before returning to her usual polite customer smile that was just a little more awkward than the previous.

Well, what could she do when the customer was always right other than when they were harassing them?

Anyways, Liam didn't seem to be a threat as if yet.

"That b*stard! It's all because he made me come here. I'll never bet with him again!" Liam acted as if he were "showing his true colors" after blowing his fuse along with his original act.

But all this looked incredibly strange as the man was wearing a custom-tailored Arma** suit.

Liam didn't even seem to have the patience to wait for the two ladies to react as he took out his phone and pulled out a photo.

"You see this man! Damn it. He's the one making me do this, so if you want to, you can blame him, god damn. I'm sorry to have troubled you, but if not you, I would have to pull a random customer and hope they had been here on the days he had, and I didn't want to mess with your business," Liam seemed to want to keep swearing at the person in the picture, but he managed to restrain himself and apologize in the end.

When Rita saw the person in the photo, her eyes shone a little, reflecting some of her thoughts, but they quickly returned to their usual light.

She was also grateful that Liam didn't go disturb their other customers, but even so, she would need a full story to allow someone she didn't know access the security footage.

Even if they were just a cat café, there was still something called privacy, which they preferred to enforce unless there were special circumstances.

"Sir, you seem to have something with this man in this photo, if you could explain it to me, I'll do my best to assist you within my capabilities as long as it doesn't affect our protocol," Rita was the one that spoke.

She was both professional and accommodating, never promising anything that would corner her options of retreat.

And by the time the young pigtail girl finally snapped out of her stupor from seeing Liam's personality go through a 180 change, she was finally able to see the photo on his phone.

"Ah! How do you know this big brother?"

It was clear that this young lady, Daisy, knew him too.

Liam hid a smile that threatened to creep upon his face.

So it was true… Xander must have been frequenting here if even this airhead of a girl could recognize him and even say "this big brother" with a degree of familiarity.

The two of them definitely recognized him!

Indeed, the photo Liam had pulled out was of Xander, and it was a photo that had been taken secretly, one that looked like Liam would be the person seated somewhere close to him as they were having a meal together with some other people.

It was just the magic of some professional angling.

Of course, Liam wasn't in the photo, but it looked like he was the one taking it and it seemed to be a photo that was more directed at the food, so they looked familiar with each other.

Liam's way of addressing Xander also made it feel like they were quite… close.

Liam took a deep breath as if collecting his thoughts to explain the matter to the two girls.

"That ba… Xander," Liam spoke through gritted teeth at first, reluctantly changing the address from b*stard to his actual name.

"When he heard that I was coming here to the city, he told me that I had to come to the cat café here since he had come too. But I didn't believe it since he had never come to such places before," Liam knew that much from all the investigations.

He mixed truths with lies to make his act more believable.

"Then, he goaded me into making a bet on it…" Liam's voice trailed off as to say, 'and as you can see, this was the result!'

The two people said nothing as Liam continued.

"Since I lost, I was supposed to collect information on how many times he came here and when, since it had to be something he could check. Something to confirm that I accomplished the consequences of the bet properly… but I had to come under disguise and make up a character!" Liam seemed frustrated to no end.

"The idea was that I would come here as a cat lover or something of the sort and chat with other people around here to collect some information which would take the whole day, but since he didn't specify the method of collection of information, of course, I have to take the short cut!" Liam said as if it were only natural that he would opt for looking at the security cameras.

"Plus, it would be more time-efficient and cost-effective," he added shamelessly in his ten-thousand-dollar suit.

"That b*stard knows that I suck at keeping any act up and I'm terrible at lying so he just wants me to make a joke out of myself!" Liam was "fuming", so much so that he "forgot" to not call him b*stard.

All the liars and swindlers of the audience were currently applauding him.