4. Cute lil bro

I recognized the place immediately. As Ray said, the school wasn’t far off. It was Saturday, and everything was quiet. I headed straight to the subway station, took out my high-schooler card, and went downstairs.

Luckily, my wagon wasn’t so crowded, so I could easily avoid physical contact. It took twenty minutes to arrive at the Old Docks District. All this time, I kept thinking: breathe and blink, act natural, breathe and blink…

I was a wreck of nerves.

But I kept telling myself: I’m fine.

I left the subway station and walked down the main street, in the opposite direction of Ray’s old place. All my senses were assaulted by things I barely noticed before: the sound of fishermen’s voices and jangling ship ropes thrummed my ears; I was dazzled by the clear view of the old buildings in the front line, the docks, the white clouds, and the deep, blue sea; even the scents were new, as if my sense of smell had completely changed and couldn’t recognize the smell of fish or wood.

I stopped and looked at the sea for a moment. I had always been very sensitive to cold, but now, despite the winter wind hissing in my ears, I wasn’t cold in the slightest.

So, it was true. I was dead.

A sudden gust of wind ruffled my hair, but I could hardly feel it. I didn’t blink. I listened to the waves slapping against the docks. Everything around was making noise, but my heart wasn’t. My lips stretched into a ghoulish smile, more angry than cheerful. Laith, was it? That bastard’s name. At last, I remembered it.

I turned away from the sea.

Some minutes later, I reached the Market Street. At that hour, it wasn’t busy. All the idle shopkeepers waved at me.

“Hi, Armen!”

“Hello, Armen!”

“Yo! A school bag on Saturday?” the Seafud’s owner asked.

“Ah…” I waved back. “Midterms are coming up so…”

“Well, well, do your best!”

I smiled sincerely.

“I will!”

Next to the Seafud’s store, there was a narrow staircase. I climbed to the second floor and searched my pockets for the key. Our neighbor had turned the music at full blast again… He was a skilled opera singer and almost exclusively listened to classical music. My big sis and I called him Beethoven. Thanks to him, I was familiar with all the famous classical composers’ works throughout history. But, as a person, I couldn’t take him. He was a jerk.

I was about to open the door when I realized my hand was shaking. I clenched my fists but didn’t feel any relief.

Act naturally. Breathe. Blink. Act naturally. Everything will be fine.

I smiled, turned the key in the lock, and entered.

“I’m home!”

The sliding door of Azritz’s room was wide open, and I saw her sitting on the bamboo floor in front of her computer, muttering and staring at the screen. Her blond hair was shorter than mine. That’s because some weeks ago she had wanted me to cut it, I'd made a mess, and she'd had to ask one of her friends for help. I kept telling her I wasn’t good at manual labor but… Well, I honestly did my best. Luckily, Azritz didn’t get upset.

“Aaaargh! Why are you so slow?!” Azritz growled, glaring at the screen. “Wake up, lazy gastropodous!”

“Hang in there, computer, don’t give up,” I joked, as I put down my bag.

Azritz turned her eyes from the screen and raised a hand:

“Hi, hi! You came sooner than I expected. I was so busy I didn’t even begin to make lunch yet. I put the alarm on, but with Beethoven as deaf as usual, I didn’t even hear it. That jerk.”

“I feel bad for the real Beethoven here. Also, don’t worry about lunch: I told Ray I would be right back anyway.”

“Is that so?” My sister sighed. “Sorry I can’t help. Today is really a busy day.”

“Did something happen?” I asked as I sat down to pile up my textbooks scattered in my corner.

“Grr… It’s the new software they want us to use to keep records of the events. It’s so poorly done that I spent the whole morning dealing with it and I’m not done yet. It’s so slow it drives me mad.” She snorted. “I’m sure even a high schooler like Ray would have done a better software than they did. How is he, by the way?”

“He’s fine,” I said. Where did I put my math textbook again? “That guy ranked first in the mock exams.”

“Oh? Since he’s a third-year, I wouldn’t be surprised if he was scouted by the Nyomin College. I heard that, if you rank among the best in their tests, you can even get a scholarship. So lucky!”

Ah, there you are, I thought as I saw my math textbook on the low table in the center of the room. A sheet had been carelessly left on it. As my big sis was talking about how she had struggled to get into the Nyomin College, I read the first sentences written on the document. My eyes opened wide.

“Azritz!”

My sudden interruption startled her.

“They offered you a post in the Quirk Research Department? You didn’t tell me!”

Azritz froze, then rushed forward, grabbed the sheet from my hands, and crushed it into a ball.

“You misread.”

She threw it into the bin.

I couldn’t believe my eyes. Being a quirk researcher had been my sister’s dream ever since she was a kid. She had come to the city to study hard and enter the Nyomin College. She even took out a loan to pay for her studies but finally didn’t get the post she had hoped for and ended up doing a bureaucratic job for the Nyomin Union. She used to complain about that all the time. But now she was being offered a post of assistant in the very department she dreamt of… and she didn’t want it?

“I definitely didn’t misread.” I glared at her. “Why?”

Azritz turned her back on me raising a hand.

“You don’t need to know.”

I clenched my teeth, because, inside me, I knew. And right now my sister’s acting was seriously getting on my nerves. I had to stop her.

“You think I don’t know. Don’t be a fool. This job is your dream. Are you giving up on your dream just because you think I… I can’t live on my own?”

Sitting in front of her computer, she frenetically clicked the mouse.

“Dreams can be forgotten, Armen. Why is it so slow, dammit!”

I stood up, shaking with frustration.

“Hear me out, sister! What happened last year won’t ever happen again, so stop worrying about me! And stop thinking you being at home all the time makes me happy!”

Azritz looked a little shocked. I fell to my knees again, not even breathing as I muttered:

“How can you think that giving up on your dream would make me happy? Are you stupid?”

There was a silence. Then, my sister clapped her hands on her knees.

“Well. Can’t be helped.” She came back and sat in front of me with a calm face. “Listen, Armen. I understand how you feel. But think that me worrying about you is my own selfish way to forgive myself. You say that what happened last year won’t happen again, but you still don’t want to tell me what exactly happened. If you can’t tell me, that means you didn’t get over it. I can’t let my little bro on his own knowing that.”

Her dark eyes pierced me. She was determined to reject the job request. I couldn’t bear the fact it was my fault.

“Azritz…”

“Yes?”

She looked at me intently. Did she imagine I would be talking about last year like that? As if I could.

I sighed and composed myself.

“Ray just moved next to our high school. I’ll be staying at his place for studying. He even said I could live with him.”

“Are you two getting married?”

I choked.

“What??!”

My sister chuckled as she annoyingly patted my head. Ray said I should avoid physical contact for now, but a pat on the head should be harmless as long as I was wearing my knit cap, right?

“You get flustered so easily. My lil bro’s so cute!”

“Stop it, big sis…” I complained.

“Heh… So you’re telling me I don’t need to be at home to take care of you because you’re a grown-up now, that’s what you mean?”

“Well, something like that. Also, it will be easier for me to concentrate if it’s quiet and…”

And if eventually my sacrilegious nature got exposed, Azritz couldn’t be blamed for keeping it a secret or whatever. I got up and began to jam my clothes from my closet into another bag.

“Mm. You look determined. Okay, let’s do that,” Azritz said. “By the way, I got a letter from Mom and Dad this morning. They say this winter will be cold, so Mom knitted scarfs this time. She said we could use them before Christmas. Here, that one’s for you.”

It was a black scarf with red lines. I carefully rolled it around my neck.

“It looks good on you.”

I had to admit it. Even though I couldn’t feel any warmth, it felt nice. It made me nostalgic.

“How are they doing?” I asked.

“They’re doing fine! Taking care of the lighthouse. A peaceful life.”

I smiled. A peaceful life. That was wonderful.

“I’ll write them when I get my results.”

“You’re obsessed with your exams, huh? Don’t push yourself too much. Anyway, I told Mom to buy a cellphone, but they really don’t care about this stuff… Sometimes I think I get them! So, you’re going? Take a little more money too, you won’t squat at Ray’s place for free, will you? And take your toothbrush, when you’re at it. Oh, wait a moment, where are your glasses?”

“No need. I can see better now.”

“Whaaat? You serious?” Suspicious, she raised her hand. “How many fingers?”

“Fifteen.”

“Am I a monster?!”

“Heh. My eyesight improved a lot, I swear.”

“Well, I’m really happy about that! So… You’ve got everything you need?”

“I think so…” I took my two bags and put them on my shoulders. I hesitated as I went to the door. “You know, Ray’s a very down-to-earth person. I’ll be fine. So, take the job. If you don’t,” I said, grabbing the doorknob, “I won’t forgive you.”

There was a silence.

“Did you tell Ray?” Azritz asked suddenly. “About last year. ”

I frowned and shrugged.

“It’s none of his business. I’m fine now.”

“Okay. I’ll trust Ray.”

I turned as I stepped through the doorway, making a face.

“You can trust me too, you know.”

My big sis grinned and patted my head.

“Oh, Armen, you’re too cute…!”

I wanted to complain but chuckled instead.

“You’re cuter when you smile, big sis.”

“Pfft… Where did you learn to sweet-talk like that? Heehee… Study well and take care!”

“You too!”

She waved cheerfully before mumbling something about the cold outside and closing the door.

I didn’t take the same way to go back to the subway station. The streets around the Old Docks shopping center were crowded and I had a hard time trying not to bump into a passerby. I didn’t get close to the shopping center. I reached a back alley and entered a small bar. Winged Bulls’ lair hadn’t changed. As I thought, the incident four months ago hadn’t affected those guys.

“I’ll be damned!” the barman cried out. “If it isn’t Little Armen!”

A gloomy black-haired man and a gorgeous woman in gothic clothes, both sitting at the counter, turned to look at me. Banjeel, Sora, and Devil, or so they called themselves. I tilted my head, smiling calmly.

“Hi there.”

“We haven’t seen you since last summer,” Banjeel, the barman, went on. “We thought you were dead.”

“Ahaha… Am I?” I said cheerfully as I put down my bags and sat between Sora and Devil.

Banjeel’s red eyes sparkled. He leaned on the counter and placed a glass before me.

“Running away?”

“Kind of.”

“Youngsters nowadays are so carefree,” Devil commented. She ran her fingers on the back of my hand. I kept smiling as I withdrew my arm. Maybe I shouldn’t have sat down between those two… At my left, Sora’s dark eyes were staring at me like a falcon staring at its prey. Out of those three weirdos, this quiet guy always gave me the creeps the most.

They were Winged Bulls. Their small gang made money by doing odd jobs for bigger gangs, like collecting information. They were the ones that had dragged me into the Underworld.

“So?” Banjeel inquired. “What will it be?”

Under their careful eyes, I took out a white sheet and a pen and drew a black flower with six petals.

“Do you know which gang uses this mark?”

I had seen it on Laith’s palm when he had grabbed my face to kill me. I didn’t tell anything to Ray, though. Despite his father being a necromancer, Ray wanted to lead a normal life. I wasn’t going to involve him in something only a resentful loser like me would do.

The three Winged Bulls turned a little pale. Even Sora frowned.

“That’s… a mark from Swallow Prison,” Banjeel said, lowering his voice. “Anyone wearing a six-petal black clover is either a criminal recidivist or… a murderer.”

I frowned. So it wasn’t a mark from a gang but from the prison system. That was disappointing.

“You didn’t know that, huh?” Devil fidgeted with a lock of her black hair as she leaned toward me, her long eyelashes fluttering. “Say, did you see someone wearing that mark?”

“Well, hehe…”

I swallowed. Her face was too close. I realized I hadn’t blinked or breathed naturally for a while now, and I stood up nervously.

“I’ve got to go.”

“Mm. Hey, brat,” Banjeel called me out, “I don’t know what you’re up to, but remember not to bite off more than you can chew.”

Says the one who introduced me to the former most powerful gang in the Old Docks. I couldn’t help but give him a cold smile.

“Thanks for caring, old man.”

“…? Hey. Hey, ungrateful brat! You calling me old? Come back right now!”

I shut the door and walked away from the alley, carrying my bags. Well, I should have expected that I wouldn’t find my killer that easily.

I took the direction of the subway station, lost in thoughts. I was arriving at the platform and the next train was just coming in when my phone buzzed. It was a call.

From Darkness12.