0707 Shame

When the golden, warm sunlight pierced through the narrow gap in the closed curtains and fell upon Louise’s forehead, gradually moving down across her long eyelashes, the contrast between intense light and shadow of her room caused a sense of discomfort in her drowsy state. With a slight flutter of her eyelids, Louise finally slowly opened her eyes.

Her dizzy head and insufficient sleep prevented Louise from fully controlling her body’s uncooperative movements. After several clumsy, failed attempts that left her frustrated and tangled in the bedsheets, she finally managed to prop herself up with her trembling arms and sit upright on the soft bed.

The room was extraordinarily quiet; apart from the gentle sound of her own uneven breathing, there was only the faint, rhythmic trembling of the wall clock. The countless tiny dust particles dancing in that single ray of golden light streaming into the room gave off an almost magical air of peaceful timelessness, suspended between yesterday’s mistakes and today’s consequences.

With several strands of her own blonde hair caught at the corner of her dry mouth, Louise stared blankly through the narrow gap in the heavy curtains, peering with unclear eyes at the world outside that was immersed in the pale, light of late morning.

Whoosh!

Suddenly, in an instant that sent adrenaline coursing through her veins, Louise violently threw off the down covers that lay upon her. She looked down at her body with rising panic—her nightgown, it was perfectly intact!

Her favorite coat that she’d bought on sale last winter, it was still wrapped around her, though it was wrinkled beyond recognition!

Her body… after careful self-examination, there was nothing unusual!

She anxiously looked toward the sofa beside the bed, which was piled messily with the underwear she had taken off after washing up the night before—yes, this was her room!

Louise heaved a heavy sigh of relief. The lingering tension from her moment of panic made her fingers tremble at the tips. She pressed her lips tightly together, staring with intense concentration at her quivering fingertips as her cheeks gradually transformed from pale to a burning, embarrassed crimson that continued to spread across her face. Suddenly—

“Ah!”

In the previously quiet room, a piercing scream suddenly broke the silence!

Whoosh—Louise hastily grabbed the fallen covers and pulled them back over herself. She curled up tightly under the layer of bedding again, drawing her knees to her chest and making herself as small as possible, as if only in a narrow, dark environment, wrapped away from the world, could she possibly avoid the inescapable embarrassment that was relentlessly hunting her down!

‘Damn it, what had I done?!’

Under the covers, Louise bit down hard on the silk cover she had frantically pulled into her mouth, her sharp canine teeth grinding through the silk cloth until they met.

She desperately didn’t want to remember the embarrassing events that had happened later last night, but those shameful, crystal-clear images tore mercilessly through her feeble attempts at denial, presenting themselves in front of her eyes with clarity in the artificial darkness she had created for herself.

She remembered that last night, unable to fall asleep due to overwhelming helplessness and sorrow, she had impulsively gone to knock on Bryan’s door after discovering that he was similarly awake.

The first half of their conversation had been perfectly normal, even comforting—appropriate, focused on the investigation. But later, as the sherry continued to flow into her glass, things had gradually begun to feel not quite right, shifting into territory that made her current self-want to disappear entirely from existence.

Louise couldn’t blame anyone else for this embarrassing situation, because the person who had mainly lost control of their mind was unquestionably her.

She had conveniently forgotten or perhaps had never properly accepted that her alcohol tolerance was actually quite pathetically poor. Under the intoxicating influence of the deceptively smooth sherry, she had ‘actually’ begun to flirt with Bryan Watson, not subtly or with dignified restraint, but blatantly, embarrassingly obviously.

Bryan’s slightly helpless expression still lingered in front of her eyes like an accusatory ghost. He seemed to have courteously offered to escort her back to her room when her speech began to slur, but with her emotions running wild and judgment completely compromised by alcohol, what had she done next?

Under the suffocating covers, Louise’s cheeks turned even redder. She kept her eyes tightly shut, as if this childish gesture could somehow prevent her from remembering further details of her embarrassing behavior.

But her own memory was crueler and gave no mercy—she seemed to have suddenly pushed Bryan forcefully. Caught completely off guard by her unexpected strength, he had lost his balance and fallen backward onto the bed, and then, under Bryan’s extremely shocked gaze, she had thrown off her coat and jumped onto his bed, declaring something about “not wanting to be alone tonight” in a voice that she now recognized had been embarrassingly slurred.

Um, then, just as she had begun to lean toward his frozen body, she seemed to have seen a flash of red light before passing out.

“Ah!”

Louise screamed again, though the sound was muffled by her covers,

“An illusion, it absolutely must be an illusion, this is all just a dream!”

Louise was panting heavily now, like an angry, cornered kitten, frantically clawing at the innocent bedsheets.

“I must have been overwhelmingly sad, under too much emotional pressure. Yes, that’s definitely it. This is just my stress-induced dream, it must be so, haha!” Her forced, slightly maniacal laughter echoed dully in her cloth cave, convincing no one, least of all herself.

About twenty minutes later, a thoroughly disheveled Louise finally poked her head cautiously out from under the covers. Her gaze was vacant and unfocused, seeming still utterly unable to realize or accept her behavior from the last night.

However, when she happened to glance at the hour hand on the clock hanging on the opposite wall, Louise suddenly jumped up.

“Oh, damn it!”

Louise hurriedly leaped out of bed, nearly tripping over the tangled sheets in her swiftness. She quickly shed her rumpled coat and twisted nightgown, leaving them in a hasty heap on the carpet, and scurried into the adjoining bathroom. Through the patter of water hitting tile, her angry, self-accusing shouts could be faintly heard,

“What in God’s name have I done?! What kind of professional journalist behaves like that?!

*Hotel Lobby*

The impeccably dressed hotel manager stationed behind the reception desk on the ground floor lobby watched with poorly concealed alarm as a young girl with wet hair hastily tied in a messy bun rushed down the staircase in noticeable confusion.

“Excuse me, where have Bryan Watson from room 501 and Kingsley Shacklebolt from room 502 gone?!”

She anxiously looked around the lobby, and before the manager could approach to politely inquire what assistance this distressed lady might require, she had already charged over to him with the ferocity of someone prepared to extract information by any means necessary.

The hotel manager as a dignified gentleman in his fifties who had dealt with all manner of unusual guests in his long career, was nonetheless startled by Louise’s furious expression. He unconsciously stepped back half a step, and his professional composure was briefly shattered, his mind was frozen for a few tense seconds before he came to his senses.

“Oh, you must be Ms. Louise Williams?” He asked, recognizing her from the information provided by the two gentlemen who had checked in with her.

Louise grabbed the manager’s forearms, and nodded heavily.

The hotel manager breathed a sigh of relief, relaxing his tense shoulders, and the professionally polite smile that had served him well through decades of customer service finally returned to his face with ease.

“Mr. Watson and Mr. Shacklebolt left instructions for me before leaving the hotel early this morning. They told us that, if you happened to wake up during their absence, you should wait comfortably in the hotel, perhaps enjoying our complimentary breakfast in the garden terrace, as they would certainly return before twelve o’clock–“

“Twelve o’clock?!”

Louise exclaimed somewhat hysterically. It was still an hour and a half until twelve, and these two men, these two who had promised to include her had gone to investigate without her. Even though Bryan had clearly promised to let her take part in the investigation of her brother’s murderer’s whereabouts, he had now broken that promise.

‘They could have easily woken me up before leaving,’ Louise thought resentfully!

Louise abruptly brushed past the startled hotel manager, and she instinctively headed toward the doors, about to rush out of the hotel in search of those two. At the last moment, perhaps a flicker of rational thought breaking through her emotional haze stopped her. The bright glass embedded in the hotel’s dark arched doorframe reflected her conflicted expression.

She could indeed go looking for Bryan and Kingsley, but the chances of accidentally running into them in such a vast university campus if they had indeed gone there was very slim. And if they returned to the hotel while she was out searching–

For the next hour and a half, the increasingly concerned hotel manager watched as the blonde lady in extreme agitation and frenzy paced relentlessly back and forth across the lobby.

Sometimes she would abruptly change course and walk to the undecorated Christmas tree standing in the corner to viciously kick its base. At other times, she would walk to the brass floor directory hanging on the wall and frantically scratch at it with her nails. When the manager kindly went over to gently remind her that she would have to pay for any damages to hotel property, the blonde lady glared at him as if she wanted to devour him.

About every two minutes, Louise would glance at the old clock beside the reception desk, agonizingly waiting for time to pass.

Dong, dong, dong!

When the clock finally struck its crisp chimes announcing the arrival of noon, Louise impatiently looked toward the hotel’s entrance. Right on cue, as if he had been waiting outside for this exact moment, a tall young man with gray hair wearing a coat, pushed open the glass door and walked in.

The pale light scattered and refracted by the glass door caused Louise to instinctively raise her hand to shield her sensitive eyes. By the time her vision recovered from the sudden contrast, Bryan Watson was already standing directly in front of her.

“You’re awake, Louise?”

With his back to the bright light streaming through the entrance, Bryan faced her with a warm smile.

“Mmm—”

Louise’s agitation, anger, and unease suddenly vanished. The astonished hotel manager watched in surprise as, almost in an instant, the blonde girl who had seemed on the verge of an emotional breakdown and quite ready to burn down the hotel in her frustration, mysteriously quieted down at the presence of this gray-haired young man. She even took a moment to ladylike smooth her disheveled hair.

“Yes, I… I just woke up a while ago–“

Louise’s voice squeezed out from between her tightly pressed lips, as quiet and barely audible as a mosquito’s distant hum in a summer garden. She avoided Bryan’s gaze, only daring to stare intently at the middle of his chest.

“Where’s Kingsley?”

“Oh, he’s still visiting some former students who had connections with that ‘interest club’. It’s quite challenging and time-consuming work, because that student society was disbanded several years ago. They’ve all graduated. Most of them have returned to their own home countries and only a small portion are locals. Of those local people, not many are still in Bologna–“

Louise showed a slightly surprised expression at the information they had uncovered; being able to learn all this in just one morning was already quite impressive investigative work.

“Hmm… what about that professor?” She asked,

“He–“

Bryan was about to answer this question, but was unexpectedly interrupted by a polite request to please make way from an elderly guest who were attempting to pass by them in the somewhat narrow space between the reception desk and a massive potted palm.

“Let’s go, Louise. I guess you definitely haven’t had breakfast, and I need to replenish some energy too. We can talk while we eat–“

“Shouldn’t we wait for Kingsley to join us?” Louise asked.

“He’s perfectly capable of finding a suitable place to eat without my guidance. Bologna is famous for its cuisine, after all,” Bryan replied with a slight smile. “Come on, I specifically came back to the hotel to wake you up—”

Bryan said casually. He turned again toward the door, beckoning with his hand while keeping his back to Louise.

And Louise—

Her heart skipped a beat heavily in her chest. She softly murmured agreeing that was nearly lost in the ambient noise of the busy hotel lobby and quickly jogged a few steps to catch up with Bryan.

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