• the wolf of totsuki •

chapter three

"whoosh and just like that, the knight had saved the day"

It was pitch black in here. The air was reeking heavily with rancid smell.
Everything was simply so hard to identify and with how sensitive his nose was, it just made it harder to focus on finding the garbage cart while the growing chagrin kept fogging his mind. In the end, he did find what he was here for but not a second after he had managed to climb to the edge, the door suddenly creaked open.

He knew what was coming to him once the storeman happened to catch him rummaging his dumps for something to eat, yet he was so damn frustrated at his helplessness in order to survive.

He was scared.

" You brat! You went through my garbage again! Go back to the slums! You piece of trash! " the man sneered at him, hands hastily grabbed onto something to "shoo" him away, and what misfortune when that something was a long wooden stick.

He automatically raised his arms up in a pathetic attempt to cover himself from the blow about to land on him. He was somewhat prepared for it. But what he didn't expect, like at all, was that the supposed painful feeling didn't visit him this time. In fact, nothing did visit him. He instead, recalled mildly hearing a feminine voice yelling at the man in some language he didn't understand. Out of curiosity, he lowered his arms slowly to see what happened, and what he found in front of him, was indeed, a girl.

' What's a girl doing here? '

A person of the opposite gender was strange enough, but her attire looked like she was having more than enough to feed herself, and her hair. Yes, her hair was super . . .gothic. He thought that was the word. It was black and white, he had never saw anyone with that kind of hair before, but he couldn't really sure since he hadn't gone anywhere else beside this ghetto area.
Speaking of which, he still didn't process a single thing those two had said, it was like alien to him. More importantly, it seemed like somehow their roles were reversed and the small eight year old was the adult with much more authority and the man was merely a kid in wrong. Odd, sure, but it was true.

And now the male between the two was bowing and nodding frantically under her scrutinizing gaze before scampered off doing who knows what, leaving him had to make a rough guess that she had demanded something from him in return. A bit lost in thought, he didn't really aware her vision was then casted on him until she brought him back to reality and to her uninvited presence.

" Hi. " She said.

He was, in all honesty, quite surprised that she was able to spoke in his mother tongue. Guess that made it easier for him to communicate with her, despite his body language had told the latter otherwise when he flinched.

" Are you alright? " he swore he could sense the frown in her concerned words even with eyes clamped shut. She had hesitated when asking that. But to him, it was more or less a normal thing, since no one from other foreign places was used to handling people like he himself. They were scums of society.

So he decided to keep quiet.

She didn't though.

" Raj is getting the truck for us. We should go right about now. " then it was his turn to frown. Going where exactly? Why should he go with her? And who was Raj, the storeman?

And as if she could do some freaky psychic abilities and read his thoughts, she replied. " Raj was that guy who's trying to hit you. And I'm taking you to my place. Don't say that you're not going since you must be desperate to even eat garbage. "

He gulped under intimidation, wondering how the hell did a girl his age nonetheless can had such incredible dominion over people while his head meekly nodded instinctively.

" Good. That's what I like to know. " As soon as she finished her words, the girl intertwined their hands and tugged on him to follow her — his eyes widening at the intimate skin contact but did as told nevertheless.

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The place they were standing in front of — where what she called hers — wasn't close to what his mind had first imagined up. And you couldn't possibly blame him if you haven't seen this.

It was a diner stuffed with families and locals, the chefs and waiters were shouting over the too lively atmosphere, craning their ears to hear each other. And given the fact that — he subtly glanced at her appearance — she was dressing in a frilly short black dress, hovering slightly above her knees with a scarlet scarf that didn't looked to be customized for her size. Two glistening gold hoop earrings (which he assumed to be the real deal) hanging on the girl's lobes and a pair of vintage brown sandals.

Who would've thought?

" Come on. " She continued to lead him — with their hands still intact by the way — through all the crowd of citizens eating their lunch and the ones were selling them, and into the back of the building to a humble residence. It fit approximately four grown women but too spacious for two kids barely reached ten years old.

" You should clean yourself up. The bathroom is down the corridor to your left. I'll go get you some clothes, and don't wander out of this place without me. We wouldn't want the incident back then to happen again. " With just that, she was out in a blink of an eye, quite literally. But, acting so kind to someone of his category, it was scarce but . . .it was a nice thing. And he thought he sort of . . .liked it. Her voice was soft, and wary as if he was the most fragile being. And every syllables she uttered was seemingly sincere, to him at least, and that alone was enough.

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