This is the fifth part of a fanfiction series, my friend. You can still read it if you want, though. Order: Pride, Lust, Gluttony, Envy, Sloth.
Back against brick, hood over head, feet beside a tin can, eyes to the ground. Holding their gazes only made them uncomfortable and less likely to toss me their annual dose of charity. Spring just dawned, and heat began seeping into the city streets. However, I would remain in my three layers of tattered cloth all year. My filthy skin would show and once again, my chances of receiving their pity would decrease drastically. I shriveled up into a ball on the busy corners, attempting to appear even younger than I was, in order to allow empathy to more easily pierce their hearts. Even with all of the precautions and techniques I learned over my many years on the streets, the most I would gather after many hours of sitting here only amounted to a few coins. Better than many, better than nothing.
To pass the allotted four hours a day of waiting, I would listen into conversations as they passed. Only the tiniest of snippets of sentences were audible to me, but they were enough to occupy my thoughts.
"I swear to it! The man learnt us everything you'd needa…" a young boy yelled at his friend in a heavy northern accent, riddled with grammar and pronunciation mistakes so characteristic of the upper dukedoms.
"I swear to it!" I repeated quietly to myself, imitating the accent to near perfection, hand over my mouth as to not let anyone see, lest they think I was a loon. "The man learnt us everything you'd needa…"
"He is more of a bastard than an heir!" a tall gentleman with a very red face raved to the woman on his arm. "His ignominious behavior around Duchess…"
"He is more of a bastard than an heir!" I mumbled, voice now clear and articulating. "His ignominious behavior around Duchess… Ignominious, ignominious…" I did not know that word, and I detested not knowing.
The tintinnabulation of bells resounded in the air for the fourth time since I sat down, marking the end of my day shift. I gingerly grasped my dented cup and counted the change as I stood up and stretched my back. Seven. Not bad, I could buy a loaf of bread with this.
Slipping seamlessly into the constant flow of people gliding across the sidewalk, I made my way through the wealthy portion of our great city Toragay, the capital of our dukedom Elphegort. Around me were six-story flats and high-end shops that the upper class wastes more and more money in every single day. Not all of Toragay was like this, not where I lived. Some mistook my judgements as acrimony for the affluent, but in all honesty I had accepted my fate long ago. I held no resentment toward the woman next to me who gently fanned herself with velvet and who stepped rather obviously away from the dirty homeless girl beside her. I did not even hold resentment to the Kagamines, the duke's family themselves.
The buildings' faces grew gaunter and the people's grew more haggard the farther I walked on. Beggars and working women stood post at every corner, and you feel the need to check your pockets whenever someone ambled past you. The sky looked paler here. Finer shops were tucked in corners, the only reason why anyone who could afford a four-room flat would come down here. I glanced fondly upon one such store across the street and three steps later stopped in front of my home.
In between a flower shop and a brothel situated in a glum alleyway was a squalid black gate whose only lock was a wooden plank along the inside. The dinky sign hung prominently on its bars read: "Property of the Snake and the Rabbit." No one would dare enter here unless they wanted to end up like the last ones. A tea garden, long abandoned, laid beyond this entrance, a remnant of the café whose building the flower shop now occupied. No roof shielded its occupants from the rain, but at least brick walls protected them at night. I kicked the door three times and purple eyes peered around the corner.
"How much?" the man asked with disdain.
"Seven," I replied in my true voice, the one I only used around a select few.
We stared each other down for a few long moments before I couldn't hold in my giggles anymore. The man stepped out into full sight with a triumphant grin on his face and removed the wooden plank to let me in. Ah, it was lovely to be home.
"How much did you earn?" I questioned, plopping down on one of the two steel chairs that was also left in the garden when we found it.
His grin shrunk into a smirk as he fixed back on the lock. "Eight."
I shot him a glare. "I see you also received the royal treatment."
"I've always been this client's favorite," he said, twirling around to put his glistening purple hair on display and bragging with his eyes that he was able to take a bath in his client's house after the work was done. With this occasional treat, his hair was much nicer than mine, all ratty and dirty blond to match my tarnished gold eyes. Not that I cared all that much. It was my housemate Gakupo's job to look his best.
"Lucky," I grumbled to myself.
"If you want to rack in the money like me, you could always join the family business," Gakupo sang.
"Very funny."
He said this often. "Join the family business." In all actuality, he wanted nothing more but for me to stay out of it. The constant teasing was more of a reminder that I, too, despised the idea of selling my body like he did. I had been attempting to coax him out of it for years, but he insisted that his homosexual clientele paid the big bucks. We needed all the money we could get our nobly hands on.
I stood and dropped my coins into a jar we kept in the corner, listening serenely to the satisfying clink they made. Gakupo did the same and waited for me to do the honors.
"Four months and seventeen days until we have enough savings!" I announced. The echoes bounced off the closed space and into the sky.
"And then," my friend added, "We'll have two warm beds!"
"And wooden floors!"
"And a stove!"
"And enough respect that we could get real jobs!"
"And make enough money to buy tons of food!"
"And therefore!" I finished with the lingering air left in my lungs. "We'll be happy!"
Four months and seventeen days until we could afford a cottage outside the city. Our future was so close, so close. At last, that empty space in my heart, vacant for as long as my mind could grasp, would be filled, and I would let nothing disturb that peace once I find it.