I hope you enjoy.

Without further ado.

Let's BEGIN

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*Three Months After Meeting Saecul Cinders POV*

Another boring day. At the laundromat, there's really nothing to do. I just stare at the old ceiling lights. They probably don't have much time left in them with how their starting to dim. Hmm… I wonder if Sam has any magazines around here.

I don't think there's anything interesting here. Not in any of the days that I've worked here has there been a single worthwhile memory.

I start turning my head, looking for something.

I look at detergent on a washing machine. Nope…

I turn my attention towards the old metal washtub for when customers want their items 'hand washed.' No…

The Necronomicon type book Sam was reading earlier. No way in Necronomicon land…

I look at the fire extinguisher. Never again…

Aha! Something!

In the middle of the store is a boy. His name is Saecul. He's wearing blue jean, sneakers, and a black sweatshirt. He's currently sitting on a washing machine. The only reason I'm even thinking this is because there is nothing else interesting in this general vicinity. I turn my head away and start to look for something else.

"So… Cinder," Saecul calls out to me. I turn my head back to him and gesture for him to continue. "How often do you work here?" he asks.

"What brought this on Saecul?" I ask him puzzled. He's never really inquired about me for the time I've known him. He's pretty quiet around me and Sam. But lately, he seems to be a bit more chatty. Maybe he's opening up to us?

"I just feel like I should get to know you after I've been going here for three months," is his reply.

"Fair." I nod my head in agreement. It has been a bit since he's been coming here. Honestly, I think my paycheck comes solely from him. It's only fair to get to know him.

"Well, I usually work whenever I can. I look older and act more mature than others my age so I've gotten by pretty well so far. No one really suspects me and even if they did, with how the financial situation is in the lower class of Mistral, no one would really care."

"Wait. How old are you?" he asks in puzzlement. He must not have realized yet.

Going up to there, I stop myself and think for a moment before opening my mouth and answering truthfully.

"I'm 11…" I say after hesitating.

"You're my age and you're already working?" he seems a bit shocked at this. "Why?"

"Well, long story short, I don't live in a fancy household and my parents have some… unsettled debts to pay off."

"Are they making you work to pay them off?" he says with a frown visible on his face.

"No! Of course not!" I exclaim at his incorrect guess. "My parents are wonderful. If anything it's more my fault… And quit it with that look of pity!"

"Sorry." He chuckles. He wipes off his look of pity and goes quiet for a moment before saying, "Do you have a dream, Cinder? Something you want to be?"

I stand frozen for a solid minute at his question while I try to come up with an answer. "No… I really don't…"

"What? Really? Nothing?" he asks with some amazement in his voice.

"Nothing…" I reply in a downcast voice.

"Well, what do you like to do? Hobbies or any other activities are fine." He ignores my attitude.

"I, um, well…" I grow a little embarrassed at this question. This is probably a little strange for someone my age. My cheeks turn red as I open my mouth and answer,"I… like to sew."

He gives a small grin at that. He doesn't seem to think anything of it. I guess it's not as weird as I thought, huh. He opens his mouth. "That's a nice hobby. You should spend enough time to really invest in it later on. You never know what it could be useful for."

I sigh at that. "Trust me. I would love to, but I just don't have enough money to buy the materials and every cent I gain goes towards either debt or bills"

"Hmm… Maybe I can help with that," he said with his hand on his chin.

"What do you mean?" I ask with my eyebrows scrunched together.

"I know a guy. Goes by the name Mephisto. I could go and ask him for some things. Even if he doesn't have them he definitely knows someone who does."

"What would you be giving him for that?" Sometimes I'm not as naive as people want me to be.

"Nothing! Me and Mephisto go way back," he answers with certainty.

"Are you sure?" I ask him suspiciously.

"Of course!" If he's lying I can't tell because of how sincere he seems. I guess I'll trust him. But there's still one problem on my mind…

"Why?" I ask him. "Why would you do that for me? You don't even know me."

"Well…" He looks sheepishly at me. "I want to do something nice for a potential friend. We… are we friends?" He looks at me nervously. His eyes are wavering and his eyebrows are scrunched together. It seems as if he's unsure of how to handle such situations.

"Do you want to be friends with me?" I ask in mild disbelief.

"Yes!" he answers immediately as if afraid of missing this chance.

I smile. "Alright then. We are friends from today onwards." I chuckle. "Can I call you Sae?"

"Absolutely not!" he answers with a bright smile on his face.

We both fall into a fit of laughter.

"Hey!" Sam calls from the back. "Quit goofing off with your boyfriend!"

I pout. "He's not my boyfriend!" I say a bit too loudly in retaliation, not noticing the growing blush on Saecul's cheeks.

"Y-yeah!" he says after a bit of hesitation.

*Sam's B-Day Just After Walking Out of the Laundromat Cinder's POV*

"W-woah Saecul! Hang on! Where are we going?" I ask while literally being dragged around town.

"Well we're going to buy Sam a present of course!" he says with a huge grin on his face. "And what better present than the most high-tech laundry machine money can buy?"

"Hold on just a minute! Where do you think you're gonna get all that money from?" I ask with an incredulous voice. A machine like that must cost at least thousands of lien. Maybe even more.

"Well… You see... " he tries to find the right words as he stops, puts his hand on his chin and turns around to face me. He looks me right in the eyes and says, "I'm… actually rich."

"Wait what." I just stand there and look at him with a frozen expression on my face. After what seems to be forever I slowly unfreeze and stiffly say, "Haha good one… that was a joke, right? Right!?" I cannot believe it. Really, this idiot must be spewing lies.

He looks at me nervously for a second and says, "You're more shocked by this than I thought…" He's serious!

"Of course I am!" I scream at the top of my lungs, earning strange stares from passersby. "I just learned that the person I see come to the laundromat every day covered in mud and grime from head to toe is rich!"

"Hey, Cinder… " he tries to hint towards me. But I don't get the message.

"Oh no. You are not going to weasel you're way out of this one mister!" I say in a very upset voice.

"Cinder… " he says again a bit louder this time.

"We are so going to talk about this! WHY have you never told Sam and I that- " I continue.

"Cinder!" he shouts loud enough to snap me out of my rant.

"What?!" I shout exasperatedly.

"We're kind of attracting unwanted attention right now…" he hints towards the people watching us.

"Oh… " I turn quiet and my face flushes red now that I've realized where we are. This isn't exactly the time or place to be interrogating him.

Men and women alike have stopped working for a moment in the general vicinity and look at us strangely. Some are even enjoying this drama no doubt. Don't these people have anything better to do!?

"Don't these people have anything better to do!?" I repeat aloud this time.

"No, they don't." Saecul moves closer to me and grasps my hand once more. Tighter this time. "And we should probably get out of here." He says with genuine concern.

"Eh… Why?" I ask him, slightly confused.

"You don't just shout 'you're rich' and stay hanging around the lower class of Mistral." He looks up towards the sky and gazes at the sun in the distance.

"Oh." Of course, I get it after he tells me that. I mean… I really haven't been having that kind of troubles yet because I am pretty dirt poor now. I mean, who wants money from a flat broke person? It's akin to kicking a dead horse. Not that it'll always stop them though.

"Anyways, it's still early so we'll probably be able to get back by around the afternoon," Saecul says while heading towards the upper-class shopping district.

"Come on. It'll be fun!" he says with a noticeably cheerier mood. This guy… I really wonder what he'll be like in the future. Probably some sort of street comedian with the way he acts. Oh wait, he's rich...

"Alright… " I say while reluctantly following along. Meanwhile, Saecul is unsuccessfully trying to call a cab for us.

It's going to be a long day...

*Mistral Store-Quicksilver Qleeners-30 Minutes Later*

I've walked into a pretty good looking store. By good looking, I mean not completely run down. It has a nice and shiny white marble floor and flowers planted inside vases in the shop including roses, marigolds, petunias, daisies, and some pink flower whose name I can't even pronounce!

Besides that though, most things are ordinary. Looks clean and unshaken as if nothing too bad has ever occurred here. Nothing too special for a shop in upper Mistral. Of course, it's many times better than anything I've been to in years. This is more than I expected from Saecul, but it still doesn't mean he's too rich. Probably a part of the lower-upper class I take it.

Still. He will not avoid a good scolding from me once we get back home. I mean- to the laundromat! Ugh. I can't even think straight.

He doesn't act anything like someone from the upper class. Most of them are privileged snobs. At least to my knowledge. But he's just… not like them.

I'll save it for after we're finished shopping. I start to look around for a washing machine to buy for Sam.

"Hold on Cinder." Saecul stops me. "We want to get something more expensive." He pulls me over to the counter where a man in a brown vest and grey hair is attentively standing on the job.

"Hello, how may I be of service?" He asks.

"Hi!" Saecul flashes a smile. "Me and my friend here wish to purchase something a little… extra." He pulls out a white Lien card and slides it across the table. The man takes a look at it and grabs the Lien, pocketing it.

"Of course." The man says with a smile. "Nothing but the best for our honored customers." The man bends down under the counter and seems to pull on a lever before standing up again. He gestures towards his left where the entrance to behind the desk is. "Please allow me to show you our most recent facilities."

"Of course," Saecul says while pulling me behind the counter.

Behind the counter, you can hear the whirring of wires and gears turning as the ground seems to split and declines in a staircase.

"Are we really going down there?" I ask with hesitation. You could tell I do not like walking into creepy holes in the floor. I especially don't like creepy staircases in a store that sells washing machines and dryers. Why would they have something like that? And more importantly… Who would willingly go down there!?

It seems that Saecul would because without answering my question he just pulls me by the hand and leads me down, leaving the man upstairs.

After we walk about 10 steps the hole in the staircase closes and lights suddenly turn on in the tunnel, making me wince and cover my eyes for a moment. I'm not sure if Saecul did the same since, by the time I recovered, he had started walking again. I hurriedly walked to catch up to him.

This whole situation is too strange to even think about! And what did he mean by 'something extra!?'

While my head has been filled with this kind of thoughts, we walk in awkward silence for about two minutes before there's an opening to another area.

The place up ahead seems a little too strange to be real. Like something you'd maybe see in movies.

The room was very dark, only being lit up by an occasional red light. The light seemed to make the surrounding area even more ominous. Not to mention… everyone in this room was wearing animal masks!

It looks like some sort of scene of a cult ritual or something!

"Put this on," Saecul whispered to me as he handed me a fox mask.

"When did you get this?" I ask with growing irritation. He just shrugs off my question and continues to look forward.

What the hell is going on anymore!?

...

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Thank you for reading.

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Till next time.