D:CM Suspicion

PREVIOUS (Grandmother)
“I’m glad the meeting with his family went rather well,” Ryan commented as they browsed the outdoor mall in Fairen’s entertaining south district. 

“I’m glad too. Grandmother really scared me at first, but I think I like her the best now.” Amy made a face. “It feels weird to think of them as my future in-laws. I still feel weird whenever Jeriah introduces me as his fiancé.”

“Are you going to keep staying with him then?”

“Yeah. It’s more convenient for the story.”

“I still can’t believe you’re going through with this.”  

Amy fell silent. She didn’t know how to convince Ryan that Jeriah wasn’t a terrible person. But she wasn’t thrilled by the idea of marrying him still, so she kept quiet.

They were wandering down the street when something caught her eye. Amy whirled around, surprised. Trudging out of the South district station was Jeriah himself. 

He had his bag slung over his shoulder and a carefree smile on his face. Amy wandered in the same direction, keeping her eye on the figure on the other side of the street. What was he doing here? 

Jeriah strolled with familiarity down the street before turning down a a side alley she had never noticed before. Amy followed, and Ryan let her lead, telling her about the latest designs Passion Fruit had come out with. 

“I heard that Passion Fruit’s director of design will be here for a shoot,” Ryan said. “I volunteered to be part of the tech crew, so maybe I’ll even be able to meet— hey, why’d you stop?” 

They had turned down into a side alley lined on both sides with bars. But Amy was rooted in place, staring at a building with a bright red and pink sign that advertised services that Amy had never considered existed outside of shady back-corners or even in her hometown’s city at all. 

“What are we even doing here?” Ryan scowled. 

“I-uh, got lost,” Amy said, staring at the door to the pleasure house. Her stomach knotted itself together and her heart seemed to pump despair instead of blood. 

“Let’s just go,” Ryan said, pulling her away from the door of a pub and back out towards the shopping centers. 

“Yeah. Let’s get out of here.”

NEXT (Sister of a Feather)

Notes:
It’s not a hard split, but I think of this as halfway through the story, only because everything up to now has been more or less continuous over the course of one week. From here to the end of the story is supposed to cover about a month’s worth of time.