Olivia's thoughts were still tangled, Kafka's strange blind spot, the women's longing stares, the weight of questions she hadn't asked yet.
She wanted to press him, to dig deeper into this mystery he seemed so casually to ignore. Her lips had just parted when—
"I told you to leave us alone, right?! Why can't you understand that? Just leave us alone!"
A sharp, panicked voice cut through the evening air and both Olivia and Kafka turned their heads toward the commotion a little ways down the sidewalk.
There, near the edge of a side street, a confrontation had broken out.
Two young men, clearly college age, tourists from the way their clothing and backpacks looked, were standing far too close to a small group of girls.
The men had broad, cocky smiles plastered on their faces, their body language loud and careless. The girls, however, were anything but comfortable.
