Chapter 13: Cheeky Nini, Part 1

Mushy Baby's Drift Country Bar and Restaurant.

8:30 pm.

While people from different walks of life are celebrating several things, including the settlement of the Otto Sarthou case…

One woman greatly enjoys the performance of Brave Ad 65.

And thus, as the duo wraps up their performance…

They are being given a letter that smells of cherry wine, direct from the woman herself.

And the letter's most distinguishing feature is its cherry-red kiss mark.

Fred and Leigh don't regard the letter as suspicious, but they, alongside Aurora, will inspect the letter once they all go home.

***

Hmm…

What's with this letter with the cherry-red kiss mark?

It's most likely a fan letter, since the woman who gave us this letter, who is straddling between a twenty-something and a thirty-something, is a nice, approachable girl with no hint of cruel intentions behind her persona.

But we mustn't lose sleep over this letter that also has this nice cherry scent.

Alright then, good night.

It's now morning.

After doing our usual morning rituals, we three inspect the letter over our breakfast of freshly-sliced tomatoes and air-fried hashbrowns. And our usual orange juice.

It's thankfully not booby-trapped, so we open the letter carefully.

There's more of that cherry scent that wafts in the air once the envelope's open.

And the content of the letter itself…

...is just a plain-white index card, similar in size to what Aurora carried when we rescued her, carrying another kiss mark.

Aw, what a bummer.

We anticipated something more appreciative, only to be met by a mysterious kiss mark.

Oh well, the message at least doesn't contain anything malicious.

And at least it's fan mail, so we relegate this to the box dedicated for it, which is located at the living room.

Over the years, Leigh and I receive quite a good amount of fan mail.

Most of it is in English, but some of them are in other languages – and we had to pay translators to get these letters of appreciation in our mother tongue.

This is proof that music is one of the languages that transcend actual language barriers.

We then laze the day away while preparing tonight's set list.

We don't want to think too much about the letter that contains just some kiss marks, or the identity of the woman who sent it directly to us.

After all, we've handled heavier matters before, and it's time for us to loosen ourselves a bit.

Tonight then comes.

We perform as Brave Ad 65 once more, using our set list that now has 25% originals and 75% covers, due to the songs we've composed over the past few days.

And once we wrap up our performance, we hang out at the bar as usual.

Surprisingly enough, the one sitting besides us three…

...is none other than the head cook, Felicia.

"Oh, before you ask, I'm taking my day off. I let my cooks do all the management for today only," she preempts.

Aurora asks her, "It's because you don't want them to be too dependent on you, right?"

"Yes. Besides, they're already used to the motions. I'm sure the chances of them messing up are… 10% at most."

"How perceptive of you. Seems your intuition has rubbed off on them, huh?"

"Beyond reasonable doubt."

She then segues to the thing about the letter.

"Oh, by the way, did you receive a letter with a kiss mark on it?"

Felicia just realizes that yes, one such letter is held in her left hand right now.

Her right hand, meanwhile, holds a glass of non-alcoholic Irish cream liqueur.

"Yup. I got one of these. Now I wonder about the woman who's just handing out those letters like free candy. She just disappears as quickly as she shows up."

I cut in, "Well… believe us when we say that this woman is not in anyway fishy or is hiding anything malicious. She's quite the amicable one, judging from the face we saw yesterday. But all the same… we're quite interested in her. We all wonder why she hands out letters in the first place, but at least we know she's doing it out of the goodness of her heart."

Felicia affirms, "Well, I believe you. We're co-workers for a long time, so we trust each other."

"Uh-huh."

"Well… all this talk has made me run out of Irish cream."

She then summons the bartender for another serving of the cream, to which the latter happily complies.

"Alright, I have to enjoy more of this drink. Catch you all later!"

"Later!"

Alright, we also have to enjoy our own non-alcoholic drinks, so we request Laurent for three glasses of virgin piña colada.

Minutes later, as we all indulge in the drinks, I start…

"Let's say, hypothetically, that I have this good, good feeling."

The girls just inquire, "Of what?"

"That girl handing out those anonymous kiss mark letters… she simply wants to spread the love… because she's in love herself."

"Ooh~"

They just chuckle as I go on.

"I mean… she's simply spreading love to the entire human race, starting with this little community within Atlanta. Like… she's paying it forward. After all, if humanity overall isn't so jaded and cynical due to everything that's happening in this world… there would be more people like her who just remind us all that, yes, there's still hope for humanity."

They just continue sipping as I continue giving out my wholeheartedly positive opinion regarding all this – that is embellished in reality, of course.

"I mean, just look at me. I'm a nice guy. (And nice guys aren't supposed to brag about being nice guys, sorry.)"

Leigh chuckles as she reacts, "Darling, you'd have to be so out of character just to prove your true colors, alright. But honestly, I believe you."

Aurora echoes, "Yes. I believe you too. So for now… we mustn't worry too much about this girl. We still have another day of work to look forward to."

"Yup," I concur. "We just have this letter and it's good enough for us all. End of story."

And as we all go home at the stroke of midnight, we three keep true to our words and never think of everything related to the letter or the woman who sent it in the first place.

Everything about them is completely harmless, plain and simple.

So then… good night.

Morning breaks.

We have our breakfast as usual, and have a pretty casual morning as usual.

But Aurora wears an uneasy face as she switches to her usual channel.

I hypothesize, "Why the face now? Is it because your favorite telenovela is ending its rerun?"

"Right on the money, Fred. And according to official TV schedules, it'll take several months or even a year before another rerun occurs."

"Hmm, so it'll take a while before you get to relive 'that darn cripple' moment for the umpteenth time."

"Yeah, and it's a bummer. Besides, we can at least fill up our day with other stuff, right?"

"I'm sure there is plenty else to do. See those DVDs and Blu-rays we've piled up over the years? Maybe we can watch them to pass the time."

I then point Aurora to the entertainment center below the TV, which is indeed packed with the discs.

There's also a Blu-ray player on the shelf residing above the discs.

To be fair, it's actually the DreamStation 3W6, a game console which has full DVD and Blu-ray playback capabilities, and it's regarded as the cheapest Blu-ray player one can get.

We three are not that interested in games, anyway.

And as for Leigh…

She's the reason why I have all those DVDs and Blu-rays.

When we first moved into this apartment five years ago, she not just has her entire collection of discs with her, but also the console itself.

It was because she already had those with her, and her parents even handed over their entire collection of classic films to her, as they had no use for it anymore.

Her impulse to buy more physical discs in an age of streaming video shot up the roof when she discovered the wonders of garage sales and thrift stores.

That was Leigh. And as her boyfriend, I could never ever stop her, as I admit I also had a much smaller collection of films myself – and I just simply handed it over to her, essentially combining our collections.

And if one is curious as to what kinds of movies we three prefer...

Leigh, in an interesting subversion, abhors chick flicks, as she considers them insulting to her intelligence.

Instead, she prefers films with strong female leads.

Well, who wouldn't be surprised at that fact, given that she has Scottish blood running in her veins?

As for me, I prefer action/adventure films with well-balanced action scenes and plot.

Sure, I also have films which are regarded by critics as "dumb fun", but these are guilty pleasures of mine.

Aurora… well, due to her predilection for telenovelas, is a connoisseur of drama films.

Truly, our diverse preferences in films make us three an unbeatable trio… sorta.