A bell rang in the silence of the night, announcing the arrival of a new customer. Nobara had planned on closing the shop a while ago, and she would have done so if not for the message that had reached her a little earlier. Knowing who it was that had just entered, she walked out of the kitchen intending to berate him. Before she could say a word, however, he called out to her first.
"Old hag! Can we get a pack of ice over here?"
His request seemed odd, but not as odd as what she saw after climbing on her stool. The boy she was expecting had brought someone with him, and from the looks of it, he was a youngster as well.
"Oh! You brought a…" Her voice died down, and her eyes gradually widened.
The second boy was blue like a corpse—the battered corpse of someone who had taken a bat to the face. His left eye was swollen black, and his lips were split in more than one place. His nose seems to be broken as well, and his cheeks were puffed, making him look like a blue squirrel.
