SEVEN

So far, she's found seven different types of bugs in the community garden.

Now she has something to talk about when she goes to Mr. Ren after dinner. Hopefully he'll take out the big insect encyclopedia and let her distract him with information he's already heard a bunch of times.

Okay. That sounded more plausible in her head.

But, it's—well—it's not like she's the only kid who has some problems with living in an orphanage. From what she understands, it's a very common thing. The library has a lot of books that have main characters with tragic backstories, and a lot of them are orphans.

So, yeah. It's old news. It's boring—overdone.

"Dinner, kiddies!"

Anyway, the scope of her world is pretty small, so she has to work with what she has.

"What've you got there, Elfnein?"

"Just some bugs to show Mr. Ren," she replies, holding up the jar.

The matron chuckles, ushering her in. See? Old news.

But from the corner of her eye, she sees a flash of pink that's really out of place in the system. Even though lots of kids here have crazy hair colors, none of them dawdle at all when it comes to food.

She turns her head, and, as the doors close behind her, she catches a glimpse of a woman with funny pink hair turning away.

Maybe she's Ken's new mom. She's going to take him away and show him the wonderful outside world. He's going to leave this system, he's going to explore, he's going to discover all sorts of stuff—and she'll be stuck counting the same things all over again.

…That really, really hurts.


a/n: Elfnein chapters are my favorite. Also, I do take suggestions/prompts! #13-14 are open.

Please review, too! :)