What?
"I will speak with you later, Maddox."
"...you are not concerned that I've done anything illegal lately?"
Vash stopped right in place as he had nearly walked through the empty door. Was he concerned now? It was why Maddox had said it, to get some sort of reaction. Vash usually was railing at him, trying to keep him occupied enough so that he would make certain Maddox was not doing anything. Maddox did not mind. As long as he had something to do.
"Maybe later."
"Oh." That was not what he had wanted to hear. "I will write everything down for you then."
Vash went inside, leaving Maddox to wonder what exactly he had done wrong so that this conversation had been the longest one they had had in weeks. Staring for a while at the door, Maddox frowned. Then he regained his normal face and walked away.
For once, Maddox found himself at a loss for what to do. There was one thing he usually did in this situation, though he rather would not do it, but Maddox was not the type to fool himself. No, that position was left for everyone else. He fooled them, not the other way around.
Still, he went to go see big brother Yao. If Yao was not too enthused by Maddox's presence, he would be able to give some good advice. Maybe. At least, he would say something which would open up Maddox's mind to an idea of his own. Chasing off Francis, talking with Heidi, trying to help Arthur, trying to talk with Vash... all of these things were not completely working.
The first two were, but the first two were mostly to help the latter two, which were not.
So Maddox let himself in through the back window (hoping that he would not walk in to see Yong Soo, though he could not hear him and so it was unlikely the Korean was there) and dropped into the kitchen. Hearing voices, he wondered how long he should stand in plain sight before someone noticed him, but moving to hear who it was... Muhammad and Yao. That was normal, really, but it was what they were saying which interested Maddox.
"...are here, aru?"
"Yes, I saw Marcus riding up. Now into motorcycles... silly man."
"That means all five of us are here again, aru. Do you think either of them are going to stay? How did they look?"
"What, do I look like I was wearing binoculars or something? I am assuming they look older. Unlike us–"
"All five of us are here again. It's strange. Have you seen Sadiq, aru?"
"Briefly. He keeps himself very busy. With how business minded he is, there is someone I think I could introduce him to."
"Don't you dare start, aru."
"What?"
"...did you leave a window open, Muhammad?"
Maddox dropped himself outside of the window and carefully closed it, sitting outside and staring ahead. What was that about? Not that he usually bothered in Yao's affairs, because that usually meant being too close to the other and Maddox liked being able to leave a place when he felt like it.
Still... what were they talking about?
Sadiq? Marcus? Did that mean Ludovicus was here as well? Not that Maddox knew any of those three very well. But he could assume those were the people they were talking about.
He wondered if Vash would be interested if Maddox made it sound like Yao and Muhammad were starting something up, but the only thing that came to mind were the mahjong bets and Maddox took part in that too. Damn.
Maddox decided that he would go home, watch a movie with Arthur or something, and just sleep on the entire ordeal. Maddox liked sleeping.
The conversation was pushed from his mind for the moment and he left to go home.
Notes:
The topic of that overheard conversation was originally going to be between Muhammad and Sadiq, but Sadiq is a bit busy now and so I switched it over. This is called foreshadowing. I assume everyone knows what that is, so I will not define it. Anyway, it is foreshadowing the sequel. I had the third story planned back when I planned this story, so I am simply weaving some of the introducing elements into it here. I will give a better explanation of what it will entail at the end of this story.
And this number five has nothing to do with that last number five. It just turned out like that.
