Blue Rose Host Club (IV)

"You can have it."

"Really?"

"Yea, in exchange, just talk with me for a couple more hours. There is no harm in that."

"This is real gold, isn't it?" My hands were snaking towards the gold. I lifted the gold up in the air and held it up into the light. "It is."

Rei clasped his hands together and leaned forward.

"How do you know that it is real?"

"The weight, the luster, and the feel." The gold coin danced, in-between my fingers. I could almost taste the sweet taste of gold in my mouth. It was challenging to keep control of my hunger when I only had one gold coin today. The injury that I had accumulated still wasn't fully healed, and the only way was to eat gold. I needed two more to keep my hunger for gold under control.

"I need an apple now." I gulped, pushing away the gold in hand. I pocketed the gold into my pocket and searched around for slices of apple. In front of me were apple slices from his salad.

Rei pushed the bowl of apples towards me. "Go ahead."

"I can't eat that. That's yours."

"I don't mind at all." He waved his hand in front of him, waiting for me to take it.

I gladly took his food and picked out the apple. The sweet taste of the apple exploded in my mouth, making me temporarily satisfied.

"Want to see something cool that I found yesterday?"

I turned my head curiously at him. Slowly I nodded and waited.

Rei slipped his hands in his pocket and pulled something out from his pocket. He placed it on the table for me to see. My eyes grew wide. It was a single white scale.

"A scale?" I tried to contain my voice from surprise.

"Yep, I found one today at the wreckage. I couldn't help but be excited about finding it."

My body slouched forward, my hands in front of me as it twiddled in nervousness. I had to pull it down to my legs to hide it from him. "W-what are you going to do with it?"

"Not sure yet. I took it to get it examined, but you wouldn't believe what they found."

"That is?"

"It's a mixture of the highest density of gold and some unknown element. The scientist stated that it's definitely harder than any known human-made materials or diamonds in existence."

"I see." I thought over what he said. "Wait, you said that there is gold mixed in with this?"

Rei nodded.

"Do you mind?"

"Go ahead," Rei observed what I would do.

I picked up the plastic bag and pulled out my white scale. This time, I actually examined the scale in front of me. Never in my life did I look into my own scale, until now I wondered what really happened to all the gold that I ate. Not once did I poop out gold chunks nor spat out the gold that I ate. It really was for my scales that I didn't notice.

The scale was smooth and vibrant in hue like a pearl. I could see a goldish-like shimmer around the scale. Bring it closer, I took a sniff. Yep, it does have a hint of gold smell that I usually eat, but my appetite for gold didn't stir.

"Your right. I can tell there is a hint of gold on the scale. I think about a third of the scale is made of it."

"You actually correct. Quite fascinating. You can actually tell the purity of the gold."

I look back at him, confused. "I meant it could just be a coincidence."

"Why don't we test out that theory."

Rei brought out different types of gold coins from his pocket and placed ten of them onto the table. My eyes brightened at the sight of these ten gold coins in front of me. My mouth was starting to water just thinking about tasting them right now. I gulped.

"Is this a good idea to have so many gold coins out like this?" I leaned over so he could be the only one hearing my voice. "You know people might mug you later if you are not careful."

Rei chuckled. "Hardly, some of these are not real gold."

"Oh." I leaned back to my chair.

"Well, go on." He motioned me to take a try.

Starting from the left side, I picked up the largest gold coin. Examining it, I could tell right away that it was a fake.

"Copper."

"Are you sure?"

"The weight feels different."

I placed the coin on the table. Then picked up the next. I felt a small stirring of my hunger, but it didn't overwhelm my senses. I was glad that nothing happened.

"This one has a hint of gold, almost one percent of it." Placing it down, I move from one to the next. "This one is fake. This one has a small hint of it, but you won't be able to tell. Fake. Fake. Fake. A thirty percent on this one."

Then I stopped in front of the last two. I could already tell that the two had a tremendous amount of gold already mixed in it. My hands were already inching towards the first one. "Gold purity 90%, and it smells like a melon." I took a whiff of the gold, bringing it up to my nose.

It took a significant amount of difficulties to place it back down on the table.

The last one made my hands tremble. I could tell the purity content was 99% right away without me even touching, smelling, or tasting the gold. Purely on instinctively overdrive that came over my senses, the numbers in my mind were apparent in my head.

"What's wrong?"

"N-Nothing."

"Are you sure? You don't look so well."

"I'm fine. My hand is a bit sweaty, that is all." I casually tried to blow it off, he was getting a little too curious.

"Go ahead, pick them up, and tell me."

His voice was like the devil telling me to eat them right there and then. My urge to eat the gold coin was strong. I knew that eating the gold coins will help speed up my healing process, how do I know this? I don't know. The thought was dropped into my mind.

"A-Are you sure?" I gulped. I really really really wanted to eat it right this moment. My hands

were already slowly reaching over towards it.

"Go ahead. I don't mind at all."

"I think it might be best for you to take them away right now."

"Why is there a problem?"

"No. No, absolutely not."

My fingers wrapped around the two coins. On my left was the 90% purity gold coin, and on my right was the 99% purity gold coin.

"90%. Melon." I turned my head to the right. "99%. A-App-"

"App?"

"Apples." Before I finished the word, my right hand-tossed the gold coin into my mouth. Crunch! Crunch! In one gulp, I ate the gold coin.

Rei stares at me, stunned. I stare back, realizing what I have done.

"Uh.…" I slowly place the gold coin on the table. Pull out the one that he gave me and slide it across the table. I got up from the chair and stood up.

"Thank you for your patronage. I hope you have a wonderful day." I bowed. Sweat fell from my face. I could feel myself burning from his glare.

Turning around, I quickly walked back towards the kitchen. Taking a right, I swivel my way towards the changing room.

"I can't believe I just did that," I spoke underneath my breath. Walking like a zombie, I made it into the changing room. Mindlessly, I put on my clothes and head towards the other side where Phil was.

"I should tell Phil." I stopped. "No, that's going to be a bad idea. He's going to kill me first when he hears about it. Wait, maybe it would be best if I could explain to Rei what just happened.

Maybe I can clear up this misunderstanding. Yea. That might not be a bad idea."

With my dedication absolved, I turned around and traced my steps back. When I was about to take a left, I felt a sudden pain on the side of my head. The explosion of white and a loud ringing like sound could be heard from my ears. All my senses were utterly whacked out to the point where I couldn't say anything around me.

The blinding white light went completely black, and I fell into oblivion.