Strongest Nova: Path of Vengeance

Chapter 229: Barber Shop

Nova walked along with Stanley, making her way to the barbershop at the corner of the street. They walked into the busy shop and Stanley looked around the place.

The shop was fully white, with the only other colors in the shop coming from the barbers and the customers, as well as the floating heads from holograms that changed continuously.

A head with long hair changed to one with spiny hairs. A bald head changed to one with fluffy hair. Various different changes were shown to entice the customers into getting different types of hairstyles.

The barbers worked with customers while Stanley and Nova went to sit down on one end.

"Wow, this place is packed," Nova couldn’t help but say. "Should we go to another place? We might have to wait for a while."

"It’s fine," Stanley said. "Let’s wait."

He looked around the shop at the various people who were getting their hair cut and judged them. He then looked at the barbers and judged them as well.

There was a reason why he had come to this place, and the reason was quite important as well.

After all, this was one of the 5 different locations where David, the arms dealer had spent more than 15 minutes of his time in the United Voras.

He wanted to see if he could see anything special about this place that made David come here. Anything about the barbers, the customers, the vibes, anything.

There were 5 various locations where David had stayed for longer than 15 minutes, and this was one of these.

If it were anyone else, they would have assumed that David had just come here for a haircut and that there wasn’t much for him to check here. However, that didn’t feel right for Stanley.

After all, David was bald.

A bald man coming to a barber shop and leaving the shop bald? That was simply impossible. There had to be something else that happened in this barber shop. Although what had happened was nearly 3 months ago, he still wanted to see what he could find.

"Hi, do you have an appointment?" a woman came and asked Stanley.

"No," Stanley said. "Is that a problem?"

"Not a problem," the woman said. ’I’ll just have you enter one right now. Do you want a human or a robot to cut your hair?"

"A human, thank you," Stanley said and let the woman set up an appointment.

"You should be the 8th in line," the woman said. "As soon as one of our barbers is free, the line will move forward. At best, you’ll have to wait for an hour. You may use our tablets to entertain yourselves for the time being."

She walked away, leaving Stanley and Nova to sit by each other. Nova looked around and shrugged. "I didn’t realize this was a male-only barber shop. No wonder she didn’t ask me," she said.

"Do you need a haircut?" Stanley asked.

"No, just talking to myself," Nova said as she picked up a tablet and started using it. She opened up a few different things and watched.

Stanley took one as well, but he wasn’t focused on it at all. He was too busy trying to look around the barber shop to see if he could notice anything shady going on.

He looked around for around 5 minutes in which neither of the two spoke. Then, Nova spoke up. "Did you have a girlfriend back home?" she asked.

"Girlfriend?" Stanley looked toward her. "Why do you ask that?"

"Just wondering," Nova said. "With Fred on the verge of getting a new girlfriend, I was wondering if you had one or not."

"I don’t," Stanley said.

"Yes, I can see that. I meant in the past," Nova said.

"Oh, no. I’ve never had one," Stanley said.

"What about a crush?" Nova asked. "Ever had a crush on somebody?"

"I..." Stanley paused to think. "Not until recently."

Nova’s eyes perked up a bit. "Oh, recently you say? What about before? Did you really never have a crush on anybody?"

"I... was just not in a state where I could see myself becoming a girl’s partner, so it never even crossed my mind that I could even have a crush on someone," Stanley said.

"Did you look down on yourself just because you were from the slum?" Nova asked.

Stanley nodded. "That and the fact that I never..." he paused. He nearly let it slip that he didn’t have powers until now. That was not how his current backstory was supposed to go.

"Anyway, I only recently got any form of confidence and found someone beautiful enough to have a crush on," Stanley said. "Actually, crush is probably not even the right word. She was just so pretty that I... I couldn’t help but worship her beauty."

"Wo-Worship her beauty?" Nova was taken back a little. She put down the tablet and coughed a little. "This girl, is she older than you?"

"Yes," Stanley said. "Quite older than me."

Nova’s eyes widened slightly. She didn’t know how to respond. "Does... does she have unnatural colored hair?" she asked, twisting her own braid in her hand.

"Quite," Stanley said. "I had never seen that color on a person’s hair before leaving my home."

"Oh," Nova said. "I... I am flattered that you think of me that way, but I’m afraid I’m not looking for a relationship right now."

Stanley frowned a little and looked at Nova. "What... are you talking about?" he asked.

"What are YOU talking about?" Nova asked. "Didn’t you just confess your crush on me?"

Stanley gave her a weird look. "I don’t have a crush on you," he said. "Why would you think that?"

"But... you just said so," Nova said. "You said you had a crush on someone you recently met, a girl who is older than you, and has an unnatural colored hair."

"Yes," Stanley said. "What about it?"

"Am... am I not that girl?" Nova asked.

"No," Stanley said. "I’m sorry if I gave that impression, but no."

"What?" Nova felt offended. "You said you just met her recently."

"Yes, about 3 months ago. We only met half a month ago," Stanley said.

Nova was flabbergasted. "You said she was older than you. That’s not me?" she asked.

"You are older, but by what, 8 years?" Stanley asked. "That’s barely older compared to the woman I was talking about. She is dozens of years older than me."

"DOZENS?" Nova couldn’t help but shout out softly. "That’s an old ass woman!"

"She doesn’t look her age," Stanley said.

"You have a crush on an old woman. Dozens... what is she, 40?" Nova asked.

"Maybe," Stanley said. "Maybe older."

"So she’s old enough to be a grandma," Nova said. "You have a crush on someone’s grandma?"

"As I mentioned, she’s not married or anything, and looks quite young," Stanley said. "Also, as I mentioned, it’s not really a crush. More so, it’s just... a feeling to enjoy her beauty. I don’t know how to make sense out of it."

"Yeah, none of what you are saying is making sense," Nova said. "But if you like grandmas, that’s alright with me. I don’t judge."

"She’s not a grand— whatever," Stanley said, and sighed. "You’ll know if you even see her."

"Where is she?" Nova asked.

"I... don’t know," Stanley said. "It was some hospital. She was a doctor or something."

"I see," Nova said. "Anyway, I’m surprised you weren’t talking about me at all. I could swear the descriptions fit me."

Stanley didn’t know where to laugh or not, so he simply gave a half-hearted smile and said nothing.

Half an hour passed, and soon it would be his turn to get his hair cut. At this time, he saw nothing suspicious at all.

He wondered if he was even in the right place, but this had to be the right place. He remembered the location, the picture, and the name of the shop beforehand.

Stanley wondered if he was going to see something funny happening soon, but instead, all that happened was his turn.

"Alright, I’ll get my hair cut, and we can leave," Stanley said and walked up to the barber who seated him and placed a cloth around him to catch the hair.

The barber looked at Stanley’s hair, touched it a bit, and asked, "What sort of cut do you want?"

"Do you have any suggestions?" Stanley asked. His mother used to cut his hair back in the town, and after that, it had been his brother.

Real barbers cost quite a bit of money, and as poor people, they were forced to not get a real one and had to cut each other’s hair on the farms.

Now that he could get his hair cut normally, he wanted one done by a professional.

"Hmm, looking at your hair, I think it will look good if we cut along the sides with a thin..."

The man’s voice paused for a moment and Stanley saw his eyes moved to the side through the middle. "...with a thin razor and then just take off a bit from the top."

The man continued explaining, but Stanley’s eyes were already on the thing that had gotten the man distracted just moments before.

He looked in the direction of the door where a man in a black suit had walked through and had sat in the waiting area. He wondered who this man was to cause the barber to be shocked when he noticed something else.

Even Nova seemed surprised to see the new man sit next to her.

She knew this man.