Addison

The bait that Zinbad put forward to the man was successful as he invited the two of them into his house. "Sit." He said to Zinbad and Tanya. It was more of a command than a simple request. The two had no choice but to crumble under the immense pressure that the man placed on them.

What followed was a very tough few minutes. None of them talked. The man was staring right into Tanya's soul for the entire moment. Zinbad felt like his presence was unnecessary in this intense situation—he felt like he didn't belong there.

And as expected, Zinbad was the one who finally opened his mouth to salvage the very awkward situation. "Umm, you know what? I'm gonna go over to the other room and play with Kuro—just gonna leave you two up to it." He said as he laughed nervously and slowly got up from his seat.

"Didn't you hear me say? Well if not, let me say it again. Sit." The man ordered yet again. His voice wasn't coarse or deep enough for them to think of a lion's roar, rather the tone was rather calm. But the weight he placed behind each of his words bound Zinbad to the ground.

"You meant it for me too, huh? But, I'm just gonna be an eyesore. If you want to know about the gist of what happened, you better ask the girl than me." Zinbad said as he cried deep inside his mind.

"Don't care. Now, are you gonna sit?" The man didn't seem interested in anything Zinbad had to say as he repeated the same order for the third time.

"Fine. But, at least let me pat Kuro." Zinbad said as sweat rolled down from almost the whole body. This time the man didn't order anything but shook his head which led the small black cat right to Zinbad's arms.

This little exchange followed up with another miserable silence. All that anyone could hear was Kuro purring in Zinbad's arm.

But this time around, it was the man who broke the silence. "I'm Addison." He said, introducing himself.

"Oh, hi. I'm Tanya." Tanya had her head down as she replied.

"So are you gonna spit it out or are we gonna continue staring at each other like this?" Addison asked.

"Huh? Okay, here it goes." Tanya took a deep breath and narrated all the stuff that happened in the past few days as Addison attentively heard.

"I see. So, this vampire killed your sister and infected you with some sort of curse/virus thingy and now you're looking for him for a remedy?" Addison asked as he summarized the entire ordeal.

"That and a way to use those powers that he bestowed upon me," Tanya answered, her eyes brimming with hope and confidence.

"Is that a wise choice? Maybe using those powers is the catalyst for the erosion of your body." Addison asked.

"If that's the case, I might have started eroding already since I can remember myself using it against him that night," Tanya replied.

"Did it work?" Addison asked yet again, frequently changing his sitting postures.

"It did. But he had a superior version of it I guess, so I was bound to be defeated." Tanya shrugged but Addison could notice her clenched fists.

"I guess you might be eroded, but don't you think repeated usage of this power might accelerate the erosion rate further?" Addison continued to place certain doubts in Tanya's mind.

"Well, there's just one way to know about that, right?" Tanya's answer was firm.

"Right." Addison gave out a sigh and continued. "Now, I don't know what this idiot promised you, but I can't say anything for certain."

"Well, the promise was to find the VAM-PI-RE! Heard me? I said, VAM-PI-RE." Zinbad interfered with a slight smirk on his face.

"Don't you sit there with that smug look on your face. Do you think I got caught on your bait and invited you in? No. I just thought it might be interesting, not because of you, idiot!" Addison said as he looked down on Zinbad.

"Weren't you the one who said that you were too old to go on an adventure?" Zinbad sarcastically asked.

"That…" Addison had no answer to give.

"Guess you did catch on the bait, consciously or not," Zinbad said as he gave out a chuckle.

"Fine, you win. I'll put a little effort into finding this vampire dude." Addison gave out another sigh.

"That's fine by me," Zinbad said as he forcefully took Addison's hand and shook it.

"So, how are we going to find him?" Tanya interfered with the bro moment with her important question.

Addison laughed. "Find him? No. We wait—we wait for him to reveal himself, which he will.. For sure."

Tanya was dumbfounded. "Wait? What does he mean by wait?" She whispered to Zinbad.

"I guess he kinda has some sophisticated plan that our unintelligent minds can't comprehend," Zinbad replied whispering back to her.

Tanya decided not to heed the resident idiot's words and expressed her concern. "But how can you be so sure?"

"Well, a little bird told me so." Addison looked towards a tree by the window with a bright smile as he replied. It was as if Zinbad's assessment was right—he looked like he had a plan.

But Tanya thought the opposite. "Little bird, my ass! This guy seriously isn't gonna do anything, huh? Lazy bum."

Tanya didn't blurt out her thoughts and decided to act as if she took his words for granted. "I see. What're you going to do in the meantime?" She asked.

"Ah, I'm gonna dust off some historical records to look for an age-old vampire." He said as he prepared to leave the room.

"Do you want any help from us?" Tanya asked as a Good Samaritan does. Zinbad was not very happy since she seemed to drag him to help too.

"It would be helpful if you can somehow notice each and every movement that every single person of this entire town takes. You got something or someone who could do that?" Addison posed the question before Tanya.

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