50 Share the Pain

In a private room of a club owned by a friend of Lester, he along with Heinrich and Taurion are sitting around a table waiting for Astur to arrive. An empty wine bottle can be seen on the table standing next to a half-empty glass filled with a clear liquid in front of Lester. While Taurion and Heinrich have opted out from drinking, based on the pile of magazines next to the two of them, it's clear that the trio has been waiting for some time now.

"Lester, you told her the correct address, right?" Heinrich asks.

"Huh, oh, uhh…" taking out his phone, Lester briefly checks the last couple of text messages he sent to Astur, "Yep, I got the address right. Hadrow, 403 Österk Street, Club Otium."

"We've been waiting for almost an hour, what's taking her so long? " Taurion asks.

"Regardless of the wait, I'm rather interested in what Astur wants from me. It's been a while since we've spoken to each other. But knowing her, I get the feeling I probably shouldn't expect it to be anything decent," Heinrich says.

Getting up to stretch, Taurion walks over to the window for a change in scenery, but as he is looking down, sees a familiar figure. Although a bit far, Taurion can still make out the sight of Astur's distinct tail. Seated on a bench right outside the clubhouse, Astur has her hands clasped together with her arms on each of her legs while her chin rests on her hands.

"I'm not completely certain, but I think Astur is on the bench outside," Taurion says.

"Oh, I'll go bring her in then," Lester says, leaving the room with staggering steps.

Without wasting any more time, Lester comes outside to the long street bench to find Astur sitting there with a brooding expression.

"What's up with you? And have you been here this whole time?" Lester asks.

"... come sit down, I'll tell you about it," Astur says, glancing towards Lester without changing her expression.

"Alright."

As soon as Lester takes a seat beside Astur, she says, "Listen carefully, this bench, is freshly painted."

Quickly, Lester looks down and sees the part of his shirt he's sitting on is now stained with brown paint. Almost instantly, he sobered up and his good mood was now nowhere to be seen as he is sporting a similar troubled expression that Astur has had this entire time.

Three minutes passed, then five more minutes passed, and eventually, fifteen minutes have passed since Lester first left the room to fetch Astur. Getting impatient, Heinrich checks out the window to look for them and is surprised to see that both Astur and Lester are both sitting on the bench.

"I'm going to go see what's going on," Heinrich says.

Like Lester before him, Heinrich doesn't take much more than a minute before arriving at the bench, only to see the brooding faces that Astur and Taurion show.

Heinrich originally wanted to ask why Astur kept them waiting for so long and why Lester didn't bring her in, but upon seeing their expressions he changed his mind and asked, "What's got the two of you so troubled?"

Repeating Astur's previous actions, Lester glances toward Heinrich without changing his expression as he says, "Sit down, I'll tell you about it."

Although unsure of what's going on, Heinrich still decides to listen and take a seat. But unlike Lester, Heinrich immediately notices something wrong as he sits down. As he wears thinner clothes compared to Lester, Heinrich quickly found out about the bench.

"You see my good brother, this bench is freshly painted," Lester says.

Letting out a deep and heavy sigh, Heinrich suppresses his anger for not being told as he takes a similar sitting position to Astur and Lester. After quickly going through a myriad of emotions, Heinrich soon finds himself with the same expression as the two who tricked him into sitting on the bench.

Meanwhile back in the private room that Lester had booked.

"It's been ten minutes since Heinrich left, I wonder what's taking them so long?" Taurion thinks as he sets down his fifteenth magazine and looks out the window once more.

But this time, not only does he see Astur in the same position since the first time he looked, but both Lester and Heinrich are in similar positions. Knowing that they don't have all day and that enough time has been wasted, Taurion decides to go and bring the three of them back to the room. Just like his two friends, Taurion makes his way outside and to the bench.

But upon seeing the grave look on their faces, Taurion can't help but feel as if something important happened and asks, "What's going on? Did something happen?"

Just as the two before him did, Heinrich glances towards Taurion without a change in his brooding expression and says, "Take a seat, my friend, let me tell you about it."

Thinking he's in for a sad story or is going to be informed of a bad situation, Taurion swiftly takes a seat. But like Heinrich, he also wears thin clothing and immediately feels his clothes becoming wet as he places his hand on the bench only to find his palm now covered in brown paint.

"As you can see, the bench is freshly painted. We are all friends here, so we should naturally share the pain," Heinrich says.

"..."

Having been completely caught off guard by the situation, Taurion finds himself unable to say anything as he silently goes through several emotions before finally accepting that he got tricked and remains on the bench without saying anything.

After giving them a couple of minutes to dwell on the situation with the bench, Astur says, "Now that you're all here, let's get down to business," gaining the attention of the other three. "As you know, the bench is freshly painted, but it's only your parts of the bench that have a new paint job. And I was the one who painted it," she says as she gets up and walks into the clubhouse, revealing her spotless clothes.

"..."

The trio has been rendered speechless as they take a few seconds to process the information before realising that they've been tricked, they've been backstabbed, and they've quite possibly been bamboozled. Immediately upon realisation, the three of them run after Astur while tuning out the whispers of the passerby's as they point out and make fun of the paint spots on their clothing.

Although they lose sight of her, they figure given how she is, that Astur is probably already in the room they had previously been in and decide to check their first. And as expected, they find Astur seated on the far end of the sofa with a lit cigarette in her hand.

"Jeez, you guys sure kept me waiting. What took you so long to get here?"

"You know, you are really good at pissing people off," Heinrich says with clear disdain for her hypocrisy in his voice.

"I do try… so anyway, let's get to the reason I wanted to speak with you. I need to go grave robbing and want to know about the crypts the Church has that haven't been opened since their creation."

"I'm sorry, what?" Heinrich asks.

"I want to go and rob the crypts of the Church."