FULL CHAPTER HERE —> A CURSE UPON THEE 3-13

“Huh.”The noise around him seemed to hush, everything in the depot finding a quiet that was unknown to the place— at least to his ears. The grunting of the workers, the chatter of the hunters, and the clanking of the machinery; all of it found a way to quiet down as Finn stared down at the digits printed in front of him.Big numbers had the effect of forcing you take a long second look at them, the extra zeros almost hypnotic as Finn tried to reconcile them with reality. He took a third look, even, but the zeroes were still there.

Without a word, Phineas McHale signed his name in romaji; the pen on the little chain barely long enough to reach the bottom line of the form. He slid the stack of documents back across the counter and the clerk didn’t waste a moment in stamping it twice.One torn sheet later, the top copy was handed back to Finn.“Oooh.” Something purple came to rest on his shoulder, Mal hooking her chin right over his collarbone with eyes wide and shiny. “Finny, are we rich?”“Shh—” Whether they were or not, it wasn’t the time to go advertising that. Even still, though, it wasn’t like Mal was wrong to ask. It was a good check— almost ten million yen. Four Devis’ worth, all taken down in the last two days and dragged in to be assessed at once. Even after the depot took their usual chunk out of his pay for what he burned, it was still the biggest number he’d put his name under since—Honestly, since ever.“We’re rich!”“Mal, quiet.”“What? I’m right.”She actually wasn’t, technically. Considering they’d made about forty million yen in the last month since they’d started hunting, they’d been comfortable. Rich was heavily arguable, but they were at least comfortable.

“We should celebrate! Buy me wagyu!”

While he wasn’t against the idea, it simply had to be made clear that… “Mal, you’re making it worse.” He folded the slip in half and kept his hand flat over it on the counter. “Seriously. Inside voice.”People were looking, after all.They’d been looking a lot recently and it’d been hard not to notice. With the Minami-ku depot busy for a weekday afternoon — eight or nine private teams just milling around waiting on payouts, complaining about fees, or just haggling over the fact something had apparently been mostly intact when they loaded it. 

He even knew a couple of the faces.Knew, at least.Pretending like he’d done anything more than some mild exchange of words over a weigh scale was just claiming far too much.People knew his face, too. Everybody knew his.In fact, one guy standing next to a cart — the hauler filled with something that looked like wet laundry with teeth — was staring right at Finn like he hated that face.Finn gave him a nod with a friendly little smile. The guy looked away and the smile slid right off Finn’s face. Cool.Apparently, doing well wasn’t a real crowd-pleaser.

FULL CHAPTER HERE —> A CURSE UPON THEE 3-13