The place was full of people. All sorts of people. There were tall people with muscles, there were short people with scars. There were people who had hair of several colors and there were people whose hair was devoid of all color. There were people sitting at the tables of the kitchen, people who were lounging in the living room. There were people who were arguing. People were everywhere and Aladdin found himself moving around them all, looking for Alibaba or Ja'far, someone he knew.
It was in doing so that he ran into the woman who was wandering around. Their bodies collided when he was trying to sneak out of the living room. He fell back, unable to comprehend what was happening. The air flew passed him for a moment as he realized only barely what had happened. Yet the woman didn't let him fall so simply. Her arms shot out, wrapping around him to prevent him from getting hurt. They both fell to the floor in a clatter though, the woman not suspecting him to fall against her. The others reacted in a flash, guns pointed, gazes locked on them. The men and women in the room stared over at them both before a white haired man laughed a bit.
"We're good. We're good. Put the arms away, boys. I've got this." He moved forward passed the others and leaned down, offering a hand to both of them. "Well good morning, Morgiana. Stranger boy."
"Hi," Aladdin said bashfully, accepting the help to his feet. "My name is Aladdin. I was brought here with Alibaba, Ja'far, and Sinbad."
"The name's Sharrkan," the white haired man replied with a sly grin. He tossed his hat on Aladdin's head before he looked over at the woman. "You alright, Morgiana?"
"Ah, yeah." She shook her head a bit before smiling over at Aladdin. "Sorry about that. I should have been paying more attention. Do you want me to get you-"
"You don't have to get the kid anything," Sharrkan interupted to say. He stood the girl up and slapped her ass. "Go spend time with my student or something and stop trying to do everyone's work for them. Geez, what kind of human trafficking slum was using you for anything like cleaning guns?"
The woman blushed, looking away as Aladdin frowned. "Human trafficking?"
"Ah, shit." Sharrkan shook his head. "Forget I said anything Aladdin. I'm being stupid again."
"Not like you don't do that all the time," a woman nearby piped up, making the white haired man growl. His eyes darkened, his face developing a fierce glare as he looked over in her direction, now ignoring both Morgiana and Aladdin in lieu of the woman.
"What are you trying to say, you old witch?"
"I'm just saying that you don't have too much going on up in that head of yours… or anything really." the woman smiled as she turned back to reading her book, adjusting the police uniform she was wearing. "You aren't very talented at much of anything. If I had to count, I would say I've had to bail you out of getting almost arrested for gun possessioin… eight times this month? Nine?"
"It's not my damn fault the Kou familia has been treading around in our territory, Yamuraiha."
The woman laughed mockingly. "Treading in our territory? You make it sound like we own this town."
"Well if the shoe fits."
"How cute," Yamuraiha replied, closing her book and smirking at him. "Do you tell all the women that when you try to go get laid?"
"It would probably work better than you boring them to death with the laws of California." Sharrkan stood up, walking over to her and towering over her. "'You'll never guess what loop holes this town left. I could go shoot someone's balls off and get away with it'. So bright, yet you scare all your dates away saying that kind of shit."
She blushed, glaring harder at him as Aladdin turned away from their bickering. Aladdin headed in the direction he had seen the woman before run off to, seeing her working in the kitchen with some others. He looked around a bit before he felt a hand rest upon his shoulder.
"Aladdin," Sinbad greeted. "Can we talk?"
"Uh…sure." Aladdin looked towards Morgiana for a moment before he was steered through the building, into a room with a desk and two seats. "What did you want to talk about-"
"Can you tell me what Ugo was doing in this area?" The man began without preamble.
"We moved here. Ugo-kun and I liked to move a lot."
"Why though? Did he have something? Did he tell you about where he used to work?"
"We moved… we moved around because I get picked on a lot." Without a thought, Aladdin's hands were on his hair, stroking his braid as he looked down. "People are really mean. I don't know what you all have planned for me, but please at least leave me with someone as kind as Ugo-kun… He was a father to me."
The other's gaze softened a bit more as he moved across the room, sitting backwards in the chair and rubbing his shoulder in comfort. "Relax, you can stay here with us. You don't have to go anywhere. We're just all wondering what had brought Ugo into this area. He was our only lead to find a young person. We don't know anything about them, gender, height, looks. We haven't a clue if they are even truly real and alive, but we thought Ugo would know."
"…I don't think I can be any help to you."
"That's alright. You're enough help by just saying that you don't know. That means that either your father wasn't involved or he was just very good at covering his tracks." Sinbad smiled. "That leaves me with one very big question though."
"What's that?"
"Do you mind telling me about Ugo over ice cream?"
