Itsy Bitsy Spider

15. No One Cares

Lucky Pinōson was anything but what his name implied.

Normally, this would cause one to think that he was clumsy, had gone through some hardcore trauma, something like that. Not quite. It was just that anything that could go wrong tended to around Lucky.

He was clumsy to a degree, sure. But that was normal for most people. What wasn't normal was what else happened when he was present. Around him, lampposts flickered (sometimes unhinged from the ground entirely), park benches broke (or were removed by force along with the nearby soccer goal to the dismay of the local middle school soccer team), seagulls stole chips from tourists (and one time an entire steak and the tablecloth from a forever traumatized waiter), and much, much more. But those incidents involved things. Items. Not people.

People were a different story. Several women had given birth around him, some people choked on their food, playground swings snapped off and left children crying, to name a few. He'd gotten used to these and was now an expert at first aid, and calming hysterical fathers. He'd been to the hospital so many times and had saved so many lives that they'd tried to offer him a medal or a plaque of sorts. He'd refused. He didn't need more publicity or attention, because here was the thing: he was able to help people if they were normal.

Criminals weren't exactly normal. Lucky didn't voluntarily hang around shady characters if he could help it. But he couldn't help it, which was why there were plenty of suspicious losers who hated his guts because he had the unfortunate knack for witnessing their crimes. More publicity meant more means for these people to find him again. Lucky needed every single advantage he could get because he miraculously somehow always managed to pass every single brooding criminal, and happened to walk past every single gang out for blood on the streets.

He'd seen his fair share of robberies, assaults and pickpocketing. Usually, if he could, he would try to help the victims. This has yet resulted in more saving people and even more becoming hated by the criminals of Yorknew. Seeing as he saw a lot of them everyday...

Lucky rubbed his temple with one hand, holding a coffee with six extra shots in the other hand as he dragged himself down a city street at 2:00 am. The lamp lights flickered as he passed by, and one died altogether.

He was too young for this.

Lucky, however unfortunate of a person he may have been, was not stupid. He hadn't been walking in the city in the middle of the night just because.

A kid had broken his arm and knocked himself unconscious while Lucky was present. Lucky had driven both the kid and his dad to the hospital, until everything was fine at 1:00 am. Then the whole "please don't tell anyone about me" conversation had stretched into forty painful minutes before Lucky was finally able to get back to his parking spot... without a car in it.

He'd been unable to call any taxis, and everyone he knew might willingly help him was asleep. So Lucky did the only thing he could. Taking the long way around to make sure he passed through the nicer neighborhoods instead of the shadier ones, he started to trudge back to his apartment.

It was a rental anyway, he reasoned as he walked down the street. Insurance would cover for the theft of the car. The kid he'd driven to the hospital was safe, and he had yet another doting family he could ask favors from. And while he had to walk home, at least he wasn't passing through the more suspicious neighborhoods. At least he could walk relatively in peace. Maybe he'd witness only one mugging today.