That Boy…
"So, what are you going to do about that boy?" A maid said to another. "I don't know. Out of all the orphans in this orphanage, he seems to be the only boy that doesn't want to leave here."
It was a small orphanage owned by a Mafia family in Japan. Of course no one knew it was owned by the family and what they use it for.
It was an orphanage that the family use to 'dump' unwanted children. Of course if the police found out about the orphanage, the whole family would be in danger.
Usually, a child will be picked up again when he is useful or when they are looking for apprentices. The child doesn't know that he was part of the family and it is better that way because if any of the children found out that they were unwanted at first, then they will want revenge. But it seems that no one-absolutely no one-wanted to take that boy out.
"It's because of those habits he's developed out of the blue." The second maid said.
"Yeah, have you heard what they call him now? They see him lower than a piece of sh-"
The boy had heard enough. He shuffled off into his bedroom with his notebook. He shut his bedroom door silently and tripped past one of three things that occupied his room, the blanket. The other two pieces of furniture was a worn-out pillow and a plastic chair. He scuffed to the lone chair and sat, tucking his feet up in a crouching position. He wrote quietly on his notebook. Then looked up through the locked window.
"I don't care about them. I don't care" the boy said before sobbing
01:00am.
The boy shuffled quietly through the hallway. He made his way to the orphanage's study. Where the owner spends most of his day. It was a risk, but he was willing to take it. There was something sneaky going around here. He wanted to find out about it.
He opened the unlocked door. Luckily it was well-oiled and it did not squeak. The study was probably the only part of the orphanage that was cleaned properly and had proper furniture.
Every piece of furniture was made from a dark-coloured oak and the seat was leather with an oak frame, matching the rest of the furniture. He closed the door behind him and walked up to the huge desk, turned on the desk light and opened a draw.
It was filled with normal desk equipment. A pen, a book, ink, pencils, etc. The boy picked up the book and flipped through the pages, quickly skimming what was written.
It was a journal. The owner's journal was filled with comments on how he hated looking after the children and how he wanted them all to disappear.
The boy flipped through the pages again and something caught his eye. He flipped back trying to find the page that he saw it then he found it.
It was a journal entry. And what caught his eye was his name. The owner spent the whole journal entry chronicling his meeting with his father. The boy didn't breathe. He couldn't, as he read the conversation that the owner wrote on the journal entry.
The boy's fast brain figured out the character of his father through that conversation. The boy's father was a head of something and he was arguing with the owner whether to keep him or not. He found out that his father was someone who was greedy-for-power and would not stand aside for anything. Well, he can be wrong. This information was all from the conversation that was written down by the owner and the owner may have been a bit biased, but the boy was not surprised at the information that he deducted from the conversation.
As he read the end of the conversation, something that his father said to the owner made him curious.
"Make sure you keep the files well-hidden. We don't want it to be found so easily, or else the whole family will be in a whole lot of trouble. The police are still trying to look for the Vinceant family-my family-and I don't want them to find us anytime soon"
"Yes. Of course."
The boy closed the journal and placed it back in the drawer. Files? On what? Or even who? Thought the boy as he stood behind the desk, looking around the room. He placed that train of thought to one corner of his mind, putting a tab on it as he searched the other drawers.
He found a secret drawer behind the first drawer and found a single piece of paper. He looked at it. It only had a number on it. '1975' There was a definite connection so the boy placed the number in the same corner of his mind as the statement that his father said.
He looked around the room and couldn't find anything. Then he realised that he's been in nearly complete darkness, except from the desk light that was on. Maybe I can only see it when I have sufficient light, thought the boy, but that's impossible. If I turn on the light now, it'll only be a short time until someone woke up. And it's impossible for me to search the study during the day, the owner would be in here.
The boy decided to take the huge risk and got ready to turn on the light. "Okay, you only have a few seconds to look around the room, don't waste it." He whispered to himself.
He flicked on the switch and it seemed like his mind was counting down the seconds in his mind in slow motion.
6.
He whipped his head around his room and he noticed a small hole on the roof, a part of the roof that was not in light's reach when only the desk light was on.
2.
He noted where the hole was at looking at the furniture near the hole on the floor.
0.
He turned the light off, and sure enough, he heard rustling at a room near the study. He quickly turned the desk light off and hid between the wall a plant and a bookcase filled to the brim at the furthest corner of the room from the door.
He noted the slow steps that were coming to the study. Even though the door was closed, at night, the orphanage was so dark that anybody would notice if a light was on if they were on the same floor as the source.
The boy took a breath in and held his breath just a fraction of a second before the door opened and through the shadow that was emitted to the wall, the boy figured out that the owner was the one who woke up. No one else can be as big as him but still, that's bad, if he noticed that I'm here, I'm a goner, thought the boy.
The owner did feel that there was something wrong, so he did the first thing that he always do. Check the files. He went up and used a thin pole that was resting between a bookcase and stuck it up into the small hole that was on the roof.
That triggered a button. The alarm to the safe was off. He took out a book from a bookcase and took out a key. He then proceeded to drag a pot plant out of the way and then the glass cabinet and opened his secret safe.
You can't be too safe when it comes to protecting the files. He unlocked his safe and started checking through all the files. When he was satisfied that every file was there, he closed the safe and locked it; put the key in the book; place the book back and press the button on the roof again.
When he replaced everything, he walked out of the door, shutting it quietly. But the feeling that something was wrong didn't leave him. He shrugged off the thought and continued back to the bedroom.
While the owner had his back away from him, the boy managed to watch him go through his tradition. Tab all this down, he thought to himself as he listed the steps, pole, button, book; bookcase second from the left, somewhere in the middle of the 5th shelf from the top; pot plant and glass cabinet, safe, files.
When the owner finally closed the study door, the boy breathed again. He waited for a few minutes before getting out of his hiding place and replicated the owner's tradition and soon he was looking through the files from the safe. He gasped. He let the information flow into his mind. It all made sense now.
He decided something must be done straight away. He looked around and saw a trunk sitting at the corner of the room, right next to the desk, so that the owner can get it without getting up from the study desk, lazy bastard. The boy grabbed it and started filling it with the files.
Suddenly the door to the study opened and there stood the owner. "I knew it! I knew something was out of place. That's it, I'm gonna kill you! I'll say to your father that you died out of a fatal accident. He wanted me to kill you!" he bellowed.
The boy stayed calm, "I know."
"What did you say?" this made the owner confused. The boy took that chance and kicked him in the stomach. Since the boy was skinny and small, it made minimal damage internally to the owner but it was sufficient enough to make him stagger backwards and trip and hit his head on the frame of the door. He was knocked out instantly.
The boy knew that the hassle would have woken up the rest of the staff and that he had only minutes to finish his job so he grabbed as many of the files that he could and when he heard the running footsteps up the stairs, he abandoned the safe and at the last minute decided to grab the diary and rip out the page that the conversation that he read was on.
He ran to the window and as he suspected, the owner had much, much more freedom than the orphans and his window was unlocked, and unbarred, and was able to be opened. He looked down and found that nothing was gonna stop his fall.
Alright, time to re-think my plan, the boy thought. He looked out towards the sides and he remembered about the slanted roof of the back porch-a design from England that the owner borrowed. So the boy climbed out of the window, clinging to the window frame. To buy himself some more time, he shut the window with his left foot. He crawled vertically straight through and rounded the corner just as the maids opened the study window. He could hear them bickering on where he went.
He slid down the slanted roof and landed painfully on the ground. He stood up with the suitcase underneath his arm while he was massaging his sore wrist. He bounded over the fence. He needed to hurry to find a police officer patrolling before the maids called the family. Luckily one did come his way and took him to the police station.
9.00am two days later
The boy sat quietly on the seat. He placed his chin on his knees that were brought up to be in a squatting position. The sergeant came into the room and sat on the chair next to him. The boy didn't look. He just stared at the cup that was in his hands. He slowly placed cubes of sugar into the cup that was filled with white tea as the sergeant sighed.
"Easy on the sugars, will ya?" The sergeant said calmly. The boy still continued placing cubes of sugar into the cup. "Did you know, in the orphanage, we didn't get any kind of treats? Food was sludge, drink was water. I never had sugar before. Maybe that's why I'm this thin."
"Right. But how old are you? You must be pretty bright, even without education to find out something was not right about the orphanage." The Sergeant continued.
The boy stopped placing sugar into his cup and took a sip. Still not sweet enough, but he put his cup down anyway. He sighed, "I think I was just smart. Intuition or something."
"Yeah," the Sergeant looked down, "you do know that your father will try to find you out. We've got some of the Mafia family of yours, but he was one of the few that escaped. He's the boss, without our help he'll try and kill you, you know?"
The boy chuckled, "even with your help, it won't do much difference" The Sergeant's face hardened. "But, I'll receive help from you anyway."
The Sergeant's face softened once more, "good! And, to help you and guide you and teach you how to live, we've got someone who would be with you." The Sergeant called to a person outside the room, "you can come in now."
The door opened to reveal a man, around 50-60 years old, guessed the boy. But had a face that would warm anybody's heart. The boy knew that the man was a friendly man from the body gesture that he showed and his smile. The boy smiled back.
The Sergeant saw the exchange and was bewildered how much they understood each other without even speaking to each other. "I see, you guys have become friends straight away. His name is Watari, now that you're always in danger, you need to change your name or even have a name that you will use instead. What would it be?"
The boy turned to the Sergeant for the first time and smiled at him. "L."
