Useful to the Mafia

Flashback 4

(Day Seven reference)

In the busy streets of Red, I stroll along the illegal stores that knew my name and face. I've become quite popular due to my influence and power.

"Boss, Ma'am! You finally show up. And here I thought you forgot about us, lowly folks." 

Hamin, an average-height male with blonde hair and a mole under his left eye, owns a small human trafficking business. The front of his place was bustling with people.

"Hamin, it looks like business is going well for you." I smoke from my pipe, tucking my free hand in my suit pockets.

"What can I say? My benefactor is a competent person." He winks at me, and I scoff.

"Don't forget your vow, Hamin," I say with a bit of warning. "I'm starting to hear stuff from the Upper Ground. Your boys aren't treating my cousin so nicely."

Hamin freezes momentarily from his place and looks her in the eye. "Ha...Ha ha, So that happened. No worries! I'll make sure to give those little pups a lesson."

I could only roll my eyes and smoke before continuing my stroll along the main street. 

After checking on the area, I returned to the mansion. I sneak into the kitchen's backdoor and enter a hidden staircase that only three people know about. It was around midnight when I finally laid down on my bed and settled in. 

Now, I think you guys deserve to know the real story.

The beginning of YN Orochi. A dark, cloudy day that threatened a downpour came that day when I found my mother staring up at the sky from the patio of our traditional Japanese house. My steps were small and quiet, hand clenched on my skirt as I looked up at my mother.

"Mom?" I called to her, a six-year-old who saw the world as a gigantic place.

"It has been done, YN. There's nothing more we can do about it." She spoke, almost whispered. I was a child who did not know what she meant, but I clung to her side as if I needed to comfort her. 

"Mom...are you hurt?" I look up at her in worry. My mother's beautiful silky hair brushed down her thin arms and shoulders.

"Hurt? I am...in agony. In many more ways, you can imagine. But what does a child even know of my agony?" a sad smile upon me. I had no idea what she meant, but I knew she was hurt. I hug her by the waist. "Now, little one, my scarlet drop of tear, will you come with mommy?"

"Where?"

"A place where none of this mess will ever happen."

It took me a while, a few years, to realize what she meant. She wanted to kill herself with me so I could stay by her side, but she took pity on me. I saw everything: the rope, the chair, her hands that gripped and struggle...and her eyes that lost their shine slowly.

"YN Orochi! You are not worth your mother's sacrifice. Stay out of my sights!"

Grandfather wouldn't understand. No one understood what a child like me had to go through. Seeing her own loving mother tie her neck with the ropes that hung her head. I had no place to stay, so I lived in silence.

A shadow...

An omniscient being...

Until I finally had the upper hand.

Thunder rolls and lightning becomes a source of light as she stood in the middle of the stone path glaring at the old man that held his katana. "There is nothing in this lifetime that you can do to stop me! I will have you on your knees begging me to spare your life!" The heavy rained poured and drenched her clothes, the coldness was nothing, the wet sensation of her clothes was nothing, and the roaring sound of the sky was nothing. Nothing compared to the emotions that stirred her pained heart. She was out for revenge and vengeance.

"Leave at once and never set foot in this household again." Her grandfather, with his eyes that glare like a threatening lion. Behind his stoic and cold appearance he was just another father that lost his child but he too was also won over by his emotions.

"You will regret this." And that was there last conversation. The years had past and YN went through loads of hell. There were points of giving up and just killing herself but every time she remembered her mother's face, the life they could've had, she had to stand up and move. 

On a cold day of December she met a boy, his hair was a mess and his body was thin and frail. He was slouching sitting on a upside down crate in a corner of an alleyway. The suburbs in this area was poor and the numbers of beggars was pitiful. The boy was covered in dirt that his skin was dark. YN sighed, the boy doesn't deserve this kind of life. She walked over to him, handing out a sealed cream bun.

"Eat it, it's yours." She said, her hands were cold and so were his as his took the snack off her hand.

"Thank you...but I...have nothing to give you back." his voice was low and weak as if he has not drank anything for days.

"You don't have to." I reach for my bag and pulled out my bottle of water I bought from the store and gave it to him. "You don't have anywhere to stay?"

The boy, munching on the bread shook his head.  She thought for a while, as he ate with a curious look in his eyes. YN was now working for a store in the Red Streets, a fish market that was secretly also a Black market to sell illegal goods. She had a vacant bed he could stay in. She knows she doesn't really have much to feed two people but leaving him like this in this awful weather was too cruel for her.

"What's your name?" 

"Felix."

"Won't you come with me, Felix? I work at Red Street, I'm sure that I can help you find some work there. You'll have a place to sleep and eat." The boy was unsure, it was evident in his gaze, but he knew he would die if he stayed out here in the snow.

"Why are you helping me?"

"Let's just say...We're both in a tough situation that got us abandoned, and I wanted to help." I reach for his hair, it was stiff and dirty but I couldn't let go when i saw the way his eyes shined as he felt my hand on his head. 

From then on, YN gained a companion, a very loyal follower that owed his life to her. He devoted his body and soul to her because without her, he would have never been able to live for long.