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You get back upstairs, find the door with "Adrien Labeque" etched onto the disposable piece of paper, and knock. There is no response even after a minute. You knock a little harder the second time, but that doesn't yield results either, though you think you hear some sort of sound (snoring?) from behind the door stop. You wait for a while again and look around the corridor. No one in sight. Taking that into account, you knock VERY LOUDLY just to finally determine whether he's there at all, and hear something heavy fall behind the door, followed by chaotic sounds of struggling and footsteps.
"Please wait a minute!" a pleasant baritone asks. He has a staple southern accent.
A bit of time passes as the sounds from behind the door continue, and soon a dishevelled, sleepy man with long black hair opens the door. You would call him rangy at first glance, but as you talk you notice he has decent muscles under his shirt. His face is pleasant and clean, with no scars or anything of that kind, and no bristle either.
"How may I help you?" he asks.
"Adrien Labeque?" you ask, and he nods. "I heard you encountered some sort of... ratmen hideout in the woods? The counter boy told me that. Mind sharing what you know?"
"Ah, of course, of course." he smiles. "Please wait for me downstairs. I will be there to discuss it shortly. Oh, but you didn't tell me your name?"
"Ancille Mangruben."
"Hmm... Isn't that a girl's name?"
"It is. I'm a man with a girl's name. Fate turns in weird ways, doesn't it?" you smile and give him a glare telling it's best to drop it.
"Haha, for sure!" he says, seemingly getting your message. "Well, downstairs in 20 minutes, alright?"
"Alright."
As you go down to the first floor you are reminded of your name. The girlish spelling has made you the object of a good deal of mockery at the neighbourhood school, and for a long time you hated it, but as people matured and forgot such petty issues you came to have a mixed opinion about it. Some part of you thinks a proper man's name would be better, but another accepts it as a part of yourself by now. It's hard...
(1/3)
(I am very bad at finding fitting images that I am content with sorry anons they will be few)
