Life as We Know it [Five]

Three

What is your favorite pastime?

January passed as well as February and by March, Emery had discovered a small alleyway that no one went to where he practiced using his abilities. By April, he had discovered twenty new ways to use light that he had no idea he could do before and was practicing whenever he had time.

No one had come knocking on Elliott's door with a pistol ready to kill Emery the first chance they got and the peace was strikingly odd. It had taken him multiple weeks to stop looking over his shoulder with every new street he passed down and multiple more to stop anticipating a fight.

And through it all, Emery would be lying if he said he didn't miss the nagging presence of Five Hargreeves critiquing his every move. He hadn't realized how normal it had become, to go somewhere and always expect Five to just be around the corner, threatening someone's life with that maniac smile of his or bandaging a wound gotten from a gunfight or talking Emery's ear off when ever they got into one of their arguments. Emery always gave himself a small slap in the face whenever he caught himself thinking about the boy when he was at work or wandering the streets. It was never the time. A few more months or years at least and Emery was sure the boy would be back to fighting with him like normal.

The days got longer and the temperature got warmer. And steadily, Emery was making enough money to get him a meal a day and a few train tickets if he so wished.

The thought crossed his mind to forgo waiting for Five's arrival and pool together his money for several train tickets and a hefty ferry ride to Strasbourg but it was like the boy was in his mind, criticizing him for thinking of such things and telling him how its best not to make too much of an impact on things in the past or rather- present.

So Emery settled for paying Elliott for his time, finding a small shoebox-sized living accommodation up the steps of a sandwich shop, and decorating the place with a lamp and a faux plant.

Business soared and at one point he was making close to twelve or even thirteen dollars a day on top of tips and the global economic boom. He was promoted to waiter by the third month and he found he could go into a shop and purchase a new shirt or trousers without worrying too much about the price. The next step would be to get a house so he was finally out of Elliott's hair (no matter how many times the man argued that he enjoyed a second person in his home) and the small apartment with a roommate was on the top of his list. Another few weeks and he would have enough.

Come May and Emery was moved in, working full shifts on weekdays and the occasional weekend. He had been able to leave a crisp fifty dollars on Elliott's counter the night before he left and then he was gone by sunrise, the few possessions he had managed to aqired tucked under his arm in a small box as he went.

His roommate was but a year his elder at seventeen with striking curly black hair that seemed to grow upwards instead of down with the curls that sprung from her scalp. Every effort to tame them was often futile for the first half hour until she eventually got it to cooperate from where she eventually tied it into a bun or tight ponytail.

"Why not just leave it loose?" Emery asked one hot day, sweat pouring down his neck as they cranked the window open as far as it could and had their singular fan blowing at the highest speed it could go.

"Oh honey, with this heat, my hair would look closer to a demolished bird's nest than what you see on those girls' pictures at the parlor."

Marianna was how so many people put it 'a ridiculously ambitious young black woman dedicated to her craft but not to the keeping of society's laws' or so as directly quoted from the most entitled man Emery had ever talked to. The girl was employed at the Ladies' Beauty Parlor as a hairdresser for black women and every night she comes home with a gleeful smile on her face as she recounted the way she learned a new skill or they enraged the larger white community that day with their mere presence.