Cafe Retrospective Fifty-Three
In hindsight, Erich thought he shouldn't have eavesdropped on Bella Hearn and recorded a video of the American girl and this German girl sharing a table with her revealing her embarrassing childhood moment and then posted it on Weibo.
"You know, this is the second bloody time my face met an American fist in your presence..." Erich complained as he nursed his slightly broken nose. "You Americans sure knows how to throw a punch..."
Bella, who forced Erich to sit down with her and Constanze after that brief incident with his Weibo post, ignored him as she wiped the knuckles of her left hand with a piece of handkerchief.
Constanze, who bore witness to the brief incident, decided that she had said too much, and kept quiet afterwards.
"Well, you made me delete that post right before your eyes. You satisfied?" Erich sulked.
Bella finally responded by throwing the handkerchief at his face. "No, because it was shared by three people before it got deleted." She informed him with a glare. "And you know how social media works..."
"I know, I know..." Erich sulked in response. "That's still not a good bloody reason to punch me for." He added as he pressed the handkerchief to his nose.
"Whatever the case, I'm leaving..." Bella said as she got up and went to pay at the cashier before storming out of the cafe.
Erich watched the American girl storming out, all the while with a feeling of regret (about not having seen her punch coming). He then turned his attention on Constanze.
"So much for the 'nice Minnesota people' stereotype, eh?" Erich voiced his thoughts to Constanze. "And did she really copy what she saw in an anime when she was little?"
"Ja." Constanze gave a simple and direct answer.
Erich then grabbed Constanze's coffee cup and took a sip out of it, earning a look of ire from the German girl.
"I'm sorry about that..." Erich apologized as he gave the cup of coffee back. "It's just that after what I went through with my sister today, I needed to do something funny to vent some steam. And I never expected Maribel Lutwidge Hearn to-"
"Your sister?" Constanze suddenly interrupted. "Herr Flynn, did you not mean ze automaton you-"
Erich suddenly went into panic mode as he realized what Constanze is about to blurt out in public. The British inventor went over the table to cover the German mind-reader's mouth.
"What the bloody..." Erich cursed softly as he looked Constanze in the eye. "How did you...Are you a bloody Esper?!"
...
Outside the cafe
In hindsight, Bella thought she shouldn't have come to Retrospective Fifty-Three as Constanze has instructed. If only because the German girl blurted out her deepest, darkest secret within earshot of one of the worst possible person.
The knuckles of her left hand still sore after punching Erich in the face, Bella kept her paces steady as she walked away from the cafe.
She paused for a bit as she took her phone out to check her Sina Weibo dashboard.
Just as the American girl feared, the recording that Erich took and posted on his Weibo profile has already been reblogged and shared more than dozens of times in the few seconds it existed. And it is still being reblogged and shared right now.
Bella sighed as she put her phone away. This is something she knew she'd never be able to live down...
On the bright side, at least she got a definitive confirmation that Constanze is an Esper. Though thanks to the fiasco just now, the German mind-reader will have her work cut out for her if she still intend on joining the Sealing Club.
Bella then put that thought aside as she continued on her way back to the flat.
...
Outside the flat
The walk back to the flat is thankfully uneventful.
Bella has decided that she'd rather lock herself in her bedroom and lie on the bed under the blanket for the rest of the day, just like that time after she jumped off the second floor balcony of her grandmother's house (while straddling a broom, precisely as Constanze described) back when she was a kid.
Oh, the embarrassing nostalgia...
Just as she is about to walk through the main entrance of the flat, Bella noticed something out of the corner of her eyes that made her stop.
It appears to be a trio of little girls in fancy, frilly dresses. The one in a red-white dress has orange hair adorned with a headdress, the one in a grayish white dress has blonde hair arranged into multiple drill-like twirls, and the one in a blue dress has long dark hair adorned with a blue bow.
The most peculiar thing about them, however, is the fact that they have what looked like transparent wings floating off of their backs.
Bella blinked. She wondered if these little girls with wings are part of her vision or are actually physically there. She then shook her head, dismissing them as something not worth her time at the moment, as she stepped into the flat.
...
Instead of the flat, Bella found herself stepping into the streets of the same village that she last saw in one of her vision dreams.
Did I just...? Bella thought as she tried to figure out what is going on.
She turned around to see if she could just walk back through where she came from to get out of this. But instead of the outside of the flat in Manchester, UK, she found herself looking into a feudal Japanese textile shop.
She realized that she must be having another one of her vision dreams again.
Bella blinked in further confusion. Now, of all times? She thought. It had been so long since the last vision dream that she wasn't expecting to have one ever again. So the fact that this just happened caused much confusion and surprise to the American girl.
As she looked up, she saw the trio of little girls with wings sneakily strutting across the roof of the buildings.
Bella observed the trio slowly making their way to a candy store, where they then silently jumped down from the roof and proceed to...
Well, these little girls are shoplifting. Bella thought as she watched. They're not veterans, given how sloppy they are at grabbing a handful of candy each (and leaving a mess of the ground under the counter), but they're not sloppy enough to be considered amateurs at this. Clearly this isn't the first time they shoplifted.
Bella then wondered if she should stop the trio in any way. But before she can make her decision, the trio suddenly panicked as the shopkeeper ran out and yelled at them.
The trio immediately made their getaway by...flying away? Yes, they're flying away. Them having wings made it no surprise to anyone that they can fly. The trio dropped much of their shoplifted candy as they flew away in a hurry (while the one in the blue dress loudly complains to her orange-headed friend about not making them invisible).
"Hmph! Godsdamned fairies!" The shopkeeper complained before turning around and walking back into the shop.
Bella just stood there, more confused than she could possibly imagine. She had never been able to figure out anything about her vision dreams, but this one takes the cake by showing her fantastic things that none of the previous vision dreams have. She racked her head trying to make sense of all this...
And that's when something loud assaulted her ears, causing her to jump in shock and face-plant onto the ground...
...
When Bella pushed herself up from the ground, she found herself looking at the tiled floor of the Manchester flat, as a familiar voice laughed loudly behind her.
She turned around and saw Adam, levitating an airhorn with his telekinesis as he laughed at the very apparent prank he just pulled. Standing behind him are Renko and Jing-Jun, who both glanced at the English Esper disapprovingly.
Renko and Jing-Jun then both slapped Adam on his back, putting an end to his laughter and causing him to drop the levitating airhorn as his focus gets broken.
"You had your prank..." Renko told him.
"And she fell flat on her face just like I said she would..." Jing-Jun also said.
"Now apologize to her." They both added as they glared at Adam.
"Alright, alright." Adam exasperated as he bent down to pick up the airhorn by hand. "Well, uh, sorry about that. I just felt like being funny today..."
Bella did not approve of what she just experienced, even if it did snap her back into reality. "News flash: it wasn't." She responded with a disapproving glare.
Bella usually don't glare at anyone like that, so the fact that she just did immediately tipped off Adam that she isn't in the mood for anything "funny" at the moment. Knowing what that meant, he stepped back and did the zipping-shut motion over his mouth.
Jing-Jun stepped forward and extended a hand to Bella. "Don't mind Adam." He said. "You need help getting up?"
"Thanks." Bella said as she grabbed the outstretched hand, and got up from the floor with Jing-Jun's help.
After getting up, she found herself holding on to the Taiwanese boy's hand for longer than needed. At the same time, she looked into his eyes, and he looked into hers...
A throbbing heart soon followed as Bella found her face as red as it is humanly possible. Is this what it's like to be...infatuated?
Bella quickly let go of Jing-Jun's hand, and covered her still-blushing face. "I have things to do. I'll see you guys tonight..." She said before rushing into a lift in the flat that coincidentally opened its doors at the moment.
Adam, Renko, and Jing-Jun watched as the lift closed its doors with Bella inside, taking the American girl up to the floor where her room is.
"Why does that look like a scene right out of a shoujo manga?" Renko lampshaded about what she just saw.
...
Old Adam's Dateless Bar
Later that night...
In hindsight, telling Erich to delete that video was utterly pointless.
"WHAT THE FU-"
Bella slammed her face on the counter top upon hearing her own voice uttering those words coming from the mobile phones of her fellow International Sealing Club members.
It turns out the video that Erich recorded and posted on Weibo is actually a livestream, and it has been seen by the whole world as it was happening. So deleting it made absolutely no difference.
Worse of all, Adam Latency Junior (who's running as part-time bartender in the pub for today and the following weekend) has decided to invite over the German mind-reader who caused it to happen in the first place.
"My apologies, Maribel Lutwidge Hearn..." Constanze expressed her sympathies.
That didn't make the American girl feel any better as she kept her face buried in the counter top. God, she wished she could have something strong to drown out her feelings right now...
"I wonder what happened to the 'don't try this at home' warnings that came before each telly program in the USA?" Adam sarcastically pointed out, much to Bella's embarrassment, while he sorted out the used beer mugs to be washed later.
"There was never one." Renko pointed out for Adam as she comforted Bella. "Outside of Japan, that series was never made available outside Netflix."
Adam reacted with surprise to the correction. "Huh. Well, there's no bloody way for me to watch it now, since Netflix is one of many American companies that went bankrupt thanks to the Sinophobia Accords."
Jing-Jun did not join the conversation. Even though he found the livestream actually pretty funny, he gave it (and as many instances of it that he can find) a "dislike" out of it being taken without Bella's knowledge and ruining her dignity. Once that is done, he set his mobile phone down and turned toward Adam and Renko.
"Will you two mind having some courtesy and show her some respect?" He bluntly told the two. "Especially in a public establishment like this one?"
"Sorry." Adam and Renko apologized together as they put their phones away.
Jing-Jun then turned to Constanze. "And as your membership in the ISC is not yet confirmed, Miss Vormirberger, please don't say anything unless you are asked a question directly by one of us." He told the German girl.
Constanze knew he would say that, owing to her ESP powers of mind-reading. But out of respect (and compensation for the video fiasco), she decided to wait for Jing-Jun to finish before answering with a nod.
With that, Jing-Jun turned to look at Bella, whose face remains buried in the counter top.
"I'm not in the mood to talk about anything today..." Bella sulked. "Just give me something so I can get wasted and forget about today..."
Poor Bella. First she has her deepest, darkest secret revealed by a mind-reading German girl. Then an English techno-geek with an android for a sister recorded said reveal and posted it on social media. And then she gets thrown into one of the strangest vision dreams she ever had. And then she got snapped out of said vision dream by a friend pulling the "airhorn next to ear" prank. Finally, she found out that the aforementioned recording is actually a livestream...
In hindsight, it seemed pretty cruel for me to make her the butt monkey of this delayed chapter.
And gee, I am really teasing the Bella X Jing-Jun ship, huh? Will this be replacing RenMerry? I have no idea!
I have no need to explain who those three little girls are. If you don't know their identities, then you aren't reading enough (or the right) Touhou print works.
"And that, as they say, is that."
Afterwords end here...
