Chapter 42

The curious thing is that after exchanging a few sentences, Ivan’s attitude changed.

He became very tense. I had already finished serving him, and I picked up to get rid of what was no longer useful, but I didn’t leave right away. That gave me a bad feeling. I pretended I was going to put on the coffee pot and continued listening to them talk (Ivan’s Japanese was a little abrupt compared to his partner’s way of speaking; it had a lot of his Russian accent, but his fluency was good and he spoke quickly, with emphasis). The tone of the conversation became increasingly angry; the intention in their voices was very clear even though I did not understand what they were saying.

In the end, I started to get scared. It was evident that they were talking about something very serious. I imagined that Ishida might not have been very happy that Ivan was talking to me so freely about things concerning his people, and I understood that it bothered him, but…

At one point, Ivan st