Chapter 4

After he looked both ways to see if no one could see him, Tanner dusted off his clothes, put on his hidden blades, and walked into the internet cafe.

He saw Charles at one of the tables, with his PC setup and a few biscuits. Tanner decided to accompany him.

Charles looked up from his screen to see Tanner.

"May I have one?" Tanner asked, pointing to the biscuits.

"Oh, sure," Charles replied, handing one to him.

"Thanks," Tanner said as he took a seat. He started consuming his biscuit, enjoying the rich flavor.

"So what did you need from the museum?" Charles wondered.

Tanner scanned the whole cafe to see if anyone would look at them, but everyone was either on their phone or their laptop. He then partially rolled up his sleeve to reveal one of his hidden blades.

"Oh..." was Charles's only response. Charles saw anything in the museum as a survivor of history, letting anyone who observed them feel it's history, and those blades were in the museum for as long as he could remember, staying on display, being perfectly maintained, and now they were strapped onto someone who not only ghosted him for a few years, but definitely didn't know how to maintain them.

"Now I know this may be a little crazy-" Tanner was starting to explain.

"Little crazy is a big understatement," Charles pointed out.

"But the reason I got these was because of this, primal urge or something, I don't know how to explain it. But it felt like they were calling out to me, begging me to free them. And I couldn't get it out of my head, I had to get them back. Now I feel at ease with them next to me. But I do understand that I might have gotten you in trouble," Tanner explained, speaking from his heart. He then realized he was opening up to Charles, and it felt nice.

Charles was silent for a while, pondering all the events so far, and then he decided to change the topic by saying, "What happened all those years you were ghosting me?"

Tanner realized what he was doing, and silently agreed to go along by saying, "Not much, actually. Just school, visiting the museum every once in a while, all that mundane stuff."

"Hmm," Charles responded, slightly underwhelmed.

They continued exchanging small talk for a few minutes until Tanner got ready to leave.

"Wait," said Charles.

"Huh?" Tanner said.

"I was thinking about this after you showed me the blades. I was thinking, do you want me to help you learn how to use them and all that? I couldn't live with myself if I help steal something and have it get broken right afterwards," Charles requested, hoping to get along with Tanner after so many years.

"Sure... Does tomorrow sound good?" Tanner said after a little bit of contemplation.

"I guess so," Charles confirmed.

They both nodded at each other as Tanner went for the door.

Charles smiled as he got back to doing schoolwork on his computer, happy to see an old friend tomorrow.