Like A Fairytale

Chapter 43

Icy

"Are you sure?" Icy followed Number 5 through the many corridors. "At the planned celebration?"

Number 5 nodded. "It's the perfect time. I'm going to hack into Mina's system. I'm being captured. I am leading the investigation against us in the wrong direction, and keeping our opponents busy with it. Meanwhile, you can check for vulnerabilities. Maybe I'll be successful too?"

"The probability is less than 1%. Mina's systems are secure," Icy objected. "You'll be stopped before you..." Finally, he nodded. Icy had to admit, it was the perfect time. "Good. For our cause."

"For our cause. Number 100?"

"Yes?"

"There was another person in the laboratory. Who was it? I was silent, played along, but... Was it one of us?"

Icy wanted to roll his eyes. He did not understand why this feeling came over him. "Lena Goldbird."

Number 5 tilted his head. The red mask sparkled angrily, but the wearer's voice sounded unimpressed. "Hm. Do you think she could be useful?"

"I stopped you before she heard too much." A lie? Yes and no. They had talked about their plans. Vague enough, like a code. The girl would not have been able to decipher the words. But if Number 5 had seen her at that moment?

"How much did she hear? Do we have to eliminate her?" Number 5 confirmed what Icy already knew.

"No."

"Not yet?"

"Not yet... Or never. We may be able to use them as leverage. Eliminating her would be hasty and would possibly jeopardize our cause."

"I agree." Number 5 crossed his arms. "Their celebration is the perfect time. You will carry out your task conscientiously?"

"Of course. Your sacrifice will advance our cause," Icy confirmed.

Flo

The laundry piled up.

It seemed to him as if the entire seat of government was washed and dried in these damp, stuffy rooms. Curtains, tablecloths, tea towels, the clothes of the staff...

He missed the kitchen and Alby's voice. Her eternal chatter and the jokes of the kitchen staff. In the large laundry room, on the other hand, it smelled unpleasant. Vinegar, soap, sweat... The work was harder than that of a dishwasher.

The staff chatted and joked too, but they were skeptical about Flo. They hardly spoke to him, whispered behind his back, and openly wondered why he was hired.

Flo wondered the same thing.

They did not believe him.

He had to have an influential family behind him! An orphan could never get such a job. Especially not one with an obvious mutation. "You're pretty," one of the older ladies had told him. "Only here, you are wrong. I like your hair, but the ruler..."

He often heard such comments.

A few of the men working here called him unmanly. A girl who couldn't carry heavy laundry baskets. Flo ignored these comments. Besides, it was true. So the one about the heavy laundry baskets. They were not simple laundry baskets, but large boxes in which the wet laundry was collected to be taken to the 'drying room'. And these weighed a lot. Too much for him.

Alby followed her aunt and helped with the organization: a party was being prepared, and she was to learn from her aunt. In the evening, the two friends fell into one of their beds together, moaning and sleepy. Both exhausted and too tired to do anything but whine and sleep. Alby liked to spend the night at Flo's, and he let her.

Her closeness helped against the feeling of loneliness that he could not escape in the laundry room. But in the morning, when he woke up, after Alby had almost pushed him out of his own bed in his sleep and was now half on top of him, there was no loneliness. He now bore the proud title of the 'best pillow Alby had ever had'.

Secretly, Flo hoped that one day he would be able to call such a male pillow his own. To wake up next to a man who loved him. But of waking up next to his best friend, on the other hand, his friend, who tended to rant about men while she was glued to him, he never wanted to miss again.

"If you ever find someone, then I'm included in the deal!" she had joked.

"Of course! Not without my Alby!" he confirmed with a laugh.

"Boy! Are you dreaming again?" the older lady who had called him 'pretty' threw a damp cloth at him. "Back to work. The laundry doesn't wash itself!"

In the laundry room, there were large, semi-mechanical washing drums, and a drying drum, which was driven by a steam engine. But some things had to be cleaned by hand with a washboard and hung up to dry. Not every material could bear the rough treatment of the machines, which enveloped the room in an almost unbearable heat. And Flo didn't know how long he could endure the rough, strict treatment among the people here.

The dry laundry was then picked up by other staff, or ironed and folded, and brought to a storage room. Fine tablecloths, curtains, and other things were waiting to be used there.

"I'm sorry!" Flo grimaced and gently rubbed the hand-made tablecloth over the washboard again. His hands hurt. The smelly, bleaching soap attacked his skin as he tried to get a large red wine stain out of the fabric.

Cloth gloves could not protect his hands from the agent.

No one wore gloves.

He wanted to go back to the kitchen.

"Good morning!" Someone entered the spacious room. An older Asian.

"Mr. Wang!" One of the muscle-bound men at one of the washing drums grinned. "What brings you here? Do you need fresh socks?"

"Panties?" shouted another, laughing.

Flo blinked. Who was that? The man wore a much fancier uniform. He was clearly a butler and had a higher position than everyone else. Were they allowed to call this man so... teasingly?

Mr. Wang smiled. "Not today. But if I do, I'll turn to you!"

The two brave men laughed, and Mr. Wang laughed softly with them. The laughter quickly died down when he finally cleared his throat. "As you all know, we are in for a small celebration. My master wants the finest tablecloths for his daughter's celebration. Pink. Ferry Goldbird said there was something suitable here. And also pink curtains?"

Everyone fell silent, except for the lady who had reprimanded Flo earlier. "Pink? They are in the storage. But the... Those were last used 20 years ago. And we were told to prepare the yellow tablecloths for the celebration? Yellow tablecloths, yellow curtains..."

The lace doily that Flo held in his hands was also decorated with yellow yarn.

Mr. Wang grimaced. "This morning, the young lady told her Uncle Ferry that she doesn't particularly like yellow. She prefers pink. Therefore... I'm sorry. You probably have to do double the work. We need pink, not yellow."

The lady sighed. "Fine. Pink. For the young lady. The tablecloths and curtains should be clean. They just need to be ironed... We can do that."

"Thank you. I'll leave everything to you." The man nodded briefly, wanted to turn away, but then he spotted Flo and frowned. He looked at Flo for a moment, seemed confused, then he smiled and left.

Flo looked after the man. What was that?

(c: sasi)