He’s looking out the window, eyes traveling along with the distance, then bouncing back, repeating the cycle all over again. Seems I’m always on the move these days. I try not to pay him any attention, but even with my face planted deep into the table, his endless cycle of boredom is all I can think about. Perhaps because I’m feeling the same way. But that can’t be though. There should be plenty on my mind right now. Perhaps I’m looking for a thought to escape to. Perhaps he feels the same way.

I shove my hands into my coat pockets then take a breath, still resting my head against the polished wood.

“How long’s it been?” I ask, breaking a seemingly endless silence.

Alfred snaps out of his trance, turning and seeing what must look like a lifeless corpse sitting in front of him. Though a corpse that speaks.

“Since we left the station, four hours.” He responds, promptly.

I recall the map and timetables that I was studying one of the nights before.

“Four hours sounds a little bit long, doesn’t it? Shouldn’t we be there by now?”

“We stopped for around an hour a while back. You were sleeping then.”

He leans back into the cushioned seat, and crosses his arms around his chest, and puts a leg over the other. I don’t see him do any of it, but I just know that’s how it is. It seems like something he’d do.

“They’re changing the timetables on the fly for some of the important shipments, so it’s affecting the rest of the schedules as well, and unfortunately, passenger trains like ours don’t rank very high up there in terms of priority.”

I think I almost let out a grumble upon hearing this, but I can’t say for sure.

“Why didn’t you tell me that sooner?”

Alfred doesn’t answer my question. That’s not a surprise though. I was whispering to myself after all.

The train makes a slight turn and the glaring evening sunlight shifts directly into my eyes, so I drag my face across the table and look the other way. But seeing the shut cabin door reminds me that I’m almost about to suffocate in this tiny room.

“Why couldn’t they get us a spot on a private train?” I ask, audibly this time.

Alfred has no reply.

“You don’t have to answer that,” I continue, lethargically. “I already know why.”

He shifts uncomfortably in his seat.

“I’m talking with my colleagues up top. It’ll just be a little while longer.”

There’s that same response again.

“How ‘up top’ are these colleagues of yours, anyways? You think I’ll ever get to talk to them?”

The table that my head rests upon bumps up just slightly, and I roll my eyes over to look at Alfred, who has shifted back in the position he was before. This time I see it though. So I was right last time, I must have been.

“They’re not telling me much either.” He says, in a somber tone.

It’s like he’s trying to convince me he’s not lying. But that’s rather unnecessary; I know he’s not. It’s not really his style. But I don’t tell him that.

“I guess they don’t trust either of us.”

The air in the cabin turns stale, as the disturbance of the short tunnel winds howls on the other side of the compartment. I wait until we exit before talking again.

“You don’t have to answer this, but,”

I preface my question, speaking sharply, and turning to look out the window, but still keeping Alfred in the corner of my eye. There’s a pause as I judge his immediate reaction. The brief moment of intrigue, and a slight raise in his eyebrows tell me more than any words he could say. There’s something there. But I won’t get it now.

“What have you been up to, since, then?”

Alfred grimaces at the table.

“I took a break, from Conservatory. Ended up running into an old friend from the orphanage I grew up in. Turns out he’d opened up a small bread shop that’s been doing quite well, and I passed my days helping out there.”

His sentimental tone almost makes me forget about it all. But his next sentence brings me back.

“They called me back when you showed up again.”

I sit up in my seat, hiding away from the sunlight.

“I’ve been meaning to ask,”

Alfred cuts me off, anticipating my question. His expectancy must have been brewing all this time as well.

“They told me that they searched for just a few weeks. They figured you were dead. It’s up to you whether or not you want to believe that though.”

He avoids looking in my direction, but when he flicks his eyes to catch a glimpse, he’s startled to see me studying him so intently.

“You don’t speak the same way you used to, do you?” I ask him, the realization only just appearing in my mind.

“What’s that mean?”

“Don’t you mean, ‘oh, how so?’”

I cross my arms on the table, one over the other, leaning forward.

“That’s what you would have said before.”

Alfred smirks and faces the side, with no intention to provide any kind of answer. I look the other way, out the window again, feeling no need to get that sort of acknowledgement. A thin cloud passes over the afternoon sun, and the cabin dims, leaving just a single beam of light still shining through, and the dust that dances within it.

“By the way,” I begin to ask, out of the blue. “did they ever tell you anything about Ciel’s sister?”

“Priscilla?”

Alfred responds.

“Not a word.”