Welcome back! I like to thank those who read the first chapter and review. Some people might have noticed that I changed the name of the story slightly. This was because I was going through the RoChu fanfics and saw that there was a fanfic with the same name. I don't do copyright so I changed the name.
'So, my plan to leave the country backfired. Who knew that they didn't offer train rides across the country of Russia?' I sighed. It would be stupid for me to leave through the Ural mountains, so I have to go the other way. 'I somehow need a way to get out of the country.' I looked around at the snowy terrain. It's October here so Moscow isn't completely frozen yet. The train ride here was generally short, but in my standard. To those who are reading this might think that 9 hours is a long time. Anyways, enough with this useless information. I've walked a distance away from the train station, supposedly going east (I don't own a compass). Because of this, I resorted to following the roads. My legs should be able to take me to the closest town to Moscow. But then it hit me.
Literally.
I apparently was so lost in my thoughts that I didn't noticed that I was in the middle of the snowy road, or that there was a car coming, or even that I was hit by the car and now lying on the ground. I appear to be fine but I am a large man so I don't really have to worry about that. However, when I turned around, I noticed that one of my glass vials fell out of my satchel and bloodied the white ground under me.
"Shit," I muttered. I think it was the vial I just got today too. But I didn't have time to worry about that, because the man who was in the car got out.
"Hey, are you okay?" The man yelled in Russian. I looked at the blood on the ground and it gave me an idea. I picked up a handful of the red snow and rubbed it onto my heavy coat. Then I started to groan in 'pain'. Then the man ran over to me. "Oh man, you lost a lot of blood! Please don't sue me! I can't afford to pay your insurance!"
"It's okay," I said in exaggerated pain.
"Nyet, you might sue! I'll do anything!" I gave him a weird look.
"Anything?"
"Da, anything, no matter how crazy." The man said.
"Drive me to Vladivostok." The man backed away.
"Except that."
"But you said 'anything'," I said with feigned innocence, which helped with childlike face.
"But that's on the complete opposite side of the country!"
"And you'll be on the complete opposite side of my hospital bill if I don't get to Vladivostok," I threatened, struggling with the part of me that wants to pull out my pipe and bash his head inward.
"Why do you even want to get Vladivostok?" The man questioned.
"That's information that I don't want to disclose with somebody I don't know," I said honestly.
"Can I at least get your name because this is at least a three day drive?" I sighed.
"My name is Mikhail, Mikhail Osipovich Chirkov," I lied, but very well. This is the name that I put on my passport so I can go out of the country without question.
"Okay, Mikhail," the man said, "My name is Alexi but you can call me Nikolai."
"Why Nikolai?" I asked, genuinely curious.
"Nikolai was my father's name but I like it more than Alexi," The man said happily, then looked around, "Um, no offense, but how do I know that you're not a murderer?" I gave an innocent smile.
"If I was a murderer," Then I switched to a glower and my dark aura, "I would have killed you already." Alexi swallowed hard.
"Um, da...Let's get going then…" I nodded and followed him to his car.
My time with Alexi over the next four day was rather interesting. Alexi was a man of at least forty, had light blond hair but darker than mine, and was tall but shorter than me. I thought he reminded me of my older sister that I'm now leaving in Russia. 'I haven't seen her in several years. I wonder if she misses me...' I fingered my scarf at the thought of my older sister for she was the one who made my scarf.
"Thank you, Alexi," I said, reminding myself that this is not a time to be reminiscing about my family, "Thank you for taking me to Vladivostok."
"I said to call me Nikolai," Alexi said, pulling some his items out of the trunk, "And there's no need to thank me, just pray that I make it back to my family in Moscow."
"You have a family?" I asked.
"Da, two sons, a daughter, and my wife." I looked at my feet.
"I didn't mean to take you away from your family," I said honestly.
"That's okay, because now I can tell them I had a three day adventure with a wonderful man." My heart and stomach dropped simultaneously at that statement. I leaned onto the car.
"Nyet," I said, shaking my head, "I'm anything but."
"Don't sell yourself short, Mikhail," The man said. I flinched at my fake name, "Good luck in Harbin."
"I need it," I said, getting off the car. "but as a thank you…" I opened my satchel, pulled out ten banknotes, and handed it to Alexi.
"W-what?!" Alexi said as he looked at the notes, then looked seriously back at me, "Mikhail, you realize that you gave me 10,000 rubles?" I smiled.
"Da, you took the trouble to drive me across the country so I'm relieving you with 10,000 rubles."
"T-t-thank you!" Alexi stuttered, then hugged me. I guess Alexi is first person I can consider a friend in over 5 years. I thanked him again then started walking inside the train station. I looked around the station and didn't seem like it had a lot of security for a train station that allows trips to other countries. I then walked up to the closest ticket counter.
"How may I help you?" asked the woman at the counter.
"Da, a ticket for the next trip to Harbin," I said. The woman nodded and started typing on the computer in front of her. Then the woman looked back at me.
"You're very lucky. The next trip to Harbin isn't for another hour and a half and it isn't crowded," The woman typed something else. "Da, I need your passport and identification papers." I nodded and pulled them out of my satchel. The woman grabbed the paperwork and started typing into the computer. "Mikhail Osipovich?" I nodded. The woman typed again. "Is this your first time traveling over the Russian border?"
"Da, it is." I answered. She handed me my ticket.
"Хорошо, if you have things to declare to customs, you need to go to the red channel. If you don't, go to the green channel. If you don't know if you don't whether or not you have items to declare, go through the red one to be safe."
"Спасибо," I said then started walking away.
"Wait," the woman said. I turned to her, "the train will stop in Grodekovo, where you have to get off and switch to a train to take you to Suifenhe then Harbin."
"Okay, thank you," I said then started walking away. I turned back to the woman. "Excuse me, but where's the bathroom?"
"Oh, down the hall, to your right." I thanked her and walked to the bathroom. When I got in there, I checked every stall to see if anybody was in here. Empty.
Perfect.
I immediately walked into the stall, locked it, and pulled items out of my satchel. I needed a way to hide the vials of blood in my bag because I've heard that Chinese customs is very strict. They don't allow any animal or human byproduct (Like blood) but what country would? So I had to think of to get rid of the blood. So I stuffed it in my pants. Da, I know it's an odd place but it was the only place that I can think of in a short amount of time. I then stuffed everything else back in my bag and walked out of the bathroom. I scanned the horizon of the train station. I spotted the green channel. 'Let's hope I don't get caught up.' I stood in line and waited for them to check my bag. The man checking it (I suppose) was an older Chinese man with glasses. I gave him my bag. He searched the bag then gave it back. When I got far enough away, I sighed in relief.
After the long, 12 hour trip to Harbin, I was exhausted. I practically staggered off the train. When I got on the train earlier, I placed the blood containers back in my bag. From what I could tell, they suspect a thing from me. So, it now being 7 in the morning, I'm tired. I walked out of the train station and looked up to the clear, blue sky. 'Harbin is indeed pretty...' Then I felt like a weight was taken off of me. Then I looked at my satchel and noticed it was gone. I looked back up and noticed someone with long, dark brown hair was running away.
So I ran.
Ran as far as my legs could take me. (And I apologize in advance for my weird writing style because you'll be seeing it a lot.) Anyway, I ran past the crowd to catch up with that person that had my satchel. I ran into and bumped a lot of people in the process. The person then ran into a building and I followed after. I followed them up the stairs and through the halls. Finally, we stopped at the roof, where I found my thief, contemplating jumping off. Then the person turned to me. It turned out that my thief was a beautiful, young woman.
"你说什么语言？" The woman asked. Well, it sounded like a question. "你说汉语?" She then asked. I just looked at her, not knowing what to say. "Русский?" I nodded at this because it was the only language that I could understand.
"Да, русский…" I repeated back.
"好, that means we have a common language," the woman said. I just looked at her awestrucked.
"Wha…"
"My name is Wang Yao." She said.
"Wang?"
"Yao," she corrected, "Many westerners fail to realise that our surname goes first, aru. 请问，你叫什么名字？ Can I ask what is your name?"
"Ah," I froze for a second. Normally I'm not like this. There was something off about this girl… "Mikhail Osipovich Chirkov." The woman nodded.
"That's nice, now what's your real name?" I was shocked.
"What do you mean?"
"That name's too nice, aru!" She exclaimed, "Besides, you don't look like a Mikhail. You like a Joseph, or a Nikolas, or an...Ivan." I looked up to Yao's eyes. Yao smiled.
"Do you have a last name, Ivan?"
"Look, is there a reason why a beautiful, young woman like yourself is stealing people's bags?" I asked, trying to change the subject. Yao scoffed.
"Joke's on you because I'm actually a man." I then suddenly had a coughing fit. Yao smirked. "That's not a problem, is it?"
"No, not at all," I forced out. Yao laughed then looked at my satchel in her, I mean, his hand.
"What's in this thing, anyway?" Yao asked before he started rummaging through my satchel. Then he stopped and pulled something out. "What's this?"
"What?" He held it up in the air.
"This, aru," He said. He was holding one of my blood vials. "Red ink?"
"Nyet," I said calmly, "Blood." Yao immediately dropped the vial onto ground, where the glass shattered. Yao looked up between the glass and me and back. "I seem to have lost a lot of blood this week." Yao looked at me.
"Why do you have that, aru?!"
"That is my business," I said to him. "You shouldn't even have my bag." Yao grunted in response.
"Fine," Yao stepped off the ledge then gave back my bag, "You can have it."
"One, I was mine to begin with," I said, "And two, we did all of that running just so you can just give my bag back?" Yao looked back and smiled.
"Think of it as a reward, aru."
"A reward?" I repeated, "A reward for what?" Yao turned around to face me.
"You are the first person to catch up to me after I stole your stuff. Consider that an achievement, aru." He then started walking away but stopped. Then he turned back to me. "Do you have a place to go?"
"No," I said in skeptical tone, "Why?" Yao visually hesitated at that question, but shook it off.
"Follow me, aru," I didn't know whether or not I was going crazy but my legs stopped listening to my brain and followed the peculiar man named Wang Yao.
Sorry for not updating in a while! This chapter a lot longer than the first one but I got so far in this chapter that I forgot that there had to be other chapters. So stay tune for chapter 3. Hasta la Pasta!