America hates thirteen

Japan dislikes four

Unlucky numbers

they will bring

Misfortune on your door

But the worst number

you'll agree

Is one

like me.

As soon as Francis had hung up the phone, the resulting silence in the air troubled him deeply. Slumping back against the couch, Francis could hear the rumble of rain right outside the window. Here he was, thanks to Antonio's determination, in a shelter that left him dry, safe and with a full belly without having to give any money in return. Closing his eyes, Francis exhaled softly. He knew that above all else he should have been over the moon about his situation. At the same time, a dark and cold weight seemed to press harder and harder on his chest, threatening to pull his heart down into sinister depths.

He turned on his side. There was no way he could let these feelings happen again. After years of dealing with a hard-knock life that slammed terrible luck into him at every turn, Francis had tried his best to develop a mentality that took life day by day instead of fretting about the future. It had been essential for his survival. Whenever Francis had dwelled upon what his ultimate fate would be, there just wasn't any hope left in him to think that he would acquire a stable life at all. Then, he would just be too depressed to even try to go on, not having the energy to work, rationing too little food for himself, and starting a cycle of self torment that his friends would have to smack him out of.

On top of everything, Francis was growing more and more stressed from this living situation with Arthur and his children. It was only his first night, but he could see the tension within everyone and how badly they were suffering. It reminded Francis of just how terrible family life for him had been in the months leading up to his homelessness. He just knew the horrors that would befall the Kirkland household if he allowed this chaos to go on. Even though Arthur was difficult and frustrating, Francis would do anything to keep this family from turning into a copy of his own.

Francis wasn't particularly sleepy yet, especially not with how badly his mind was whirring tonight. In fact, he was positive that if he were to try to doze, horrible nightmares would invade his mind, bringing him back to remember the past. No. The past didn't belong to him anymore. He reached for the wine glass and took a slow, calculated sip. He appreciated the cool sweetness and was grateful for that tingling burn it left behind. Francis could understand why Arthur chased down that feeling so feverishly. He could understand, but he couldn't excuse it.

With one last gulp of his drink, Francis forced himself up off the couch and onto the floor, turning on the light so that he could sort through his luggage. He hadn't brought back much from his hotel room, the building was so cheap they didn't even provide their customers with soap, shampoo or even towels. Their usual clientele consisted of hookers and swingers, druggies and drunkards and of course the homeless. Since they had taken the term "complimentary" to the extreme, the hotel had been forced to only provide such toiletries to the rare naive and affluent customer, since they usually paid for the more expensive rooms anyway.

As Francis refolded some of his clothes more neatly, he thought about his time there. He wasn't sure how he felt about knowing such much about that place, but there was a lot that he knew about many other places, far worse little hovels than that hotel. He squeezed a sweater tensely as the thought passed through his mind, taking a deep breath. He was here now and safe now. That was all that mattered.

Aside from his clothes and personal toiletries, Francis had only one other bag that was essential to his survival. A large black and battered fabric briefcase that he unzipped and opened it up. On top of everything in the suitcase was a sizable piece of thick cardboard, edges reinforced with tape. Francis smiled warmly as he reached for it and swept the stray pieces of lint away laying it onto his lap. Reaching into the suitcase again, he pulled out a small stack of paper to pile onto the cardboard and searched around blindly for a pencil on the bottom.

With the weight of his beloved tool back in his hands, Francis smiled. It had only been a day since he had used them last, but it had felt like forever. Still, the sight of his makeshift desk made him feel somewhat sad. He flipped through the papers, lingering on pages that had sketches of the passerby's he had drawn while loitering on back on Canal Street. He blew lightly at the eraser shavings left behind on them and frowned, looking up again.

This clutter was only stressing him out more. After considering the pile of his clothes and his collection of art supplies, Francis resigned himself to the fact that they would have to be organized after asking Arthur for some spare storage space. Still, he needed to get his junk away from the doorway. He gathered everything back up and picked up his bags, still holding the cardboard, paper and pencil combo in one hand as he crept down the hallway quietly to Arthur's room.

Arthur was sound asleep, his breathing as steady and sure as the raindrops on the glass. He was on his side underneath the covers, facing toward the window. Francis held his breath, not wanting to wake him up by causing too much noise. He'd just stuff his things temporarily underneath the bed and then head to sleep himself.

Francis got down on his knees, bending to see a good place to shove his things in. What surprised Francis was that, for a grown man, the underside Arthur's bed was remarkably already filled with things. Francis spotted a couple of wooden hoops along fabric, a pile of scattered letters among photographs and several composition notebooks as well as a small padlock box.

He would have to clean under here eventually anyway… So it wouldn't hurt to take a closer look at these things, if only to loosen up the dust a bit. It was weak reasoning, but it made enough sense to Francis, especially since it gave him permission to try to get a closer look at Arthur's personal life without all the drama and whining. He reached forward and froze in horror, having touched something fuzzy in the darkness. Dear god did he hope that it wasn't a mummified dead rat.

Carefully, Francis pulled the little treasure out and found himself faced with what appeared to be an old scrapbook. It was very well used, the light pink faux fur completely missing in a few patches on the front as well as a collection of loose line paper sticking out in awkward angles from between the pages. There was a white square in the middle of the cover that was supposed to have a title or at name of who this belonged to, but Francis couldn't make out the scribbles on the line. They didn't even resemble real letters. Was it…Japanese?

Francis had half a mind to put the book back where he had found it and pretend like he hadn't seen anything but upon closer inspection he found that a couple of the scribbles weren't actually foreign letters at all, but small, doodles. They were amateurish and simple, but Francis could still…feel the emotion emanating from the sad silhouettes and desolate drawings. Gulping Francis cracked open the book, unable to deny his growing curiosity any longer.

As expected, he was only greeted with more text that he couldn't read. He couldn't even make a guess as to what it meant as there were no drawings on this page for context. If the whole book was just going to be undecipherable without outside help, he might as well put it away and forget about it, no matter how interesting it had seemed to be. Just as Francis was about to close it again, he stopped suddenly, his eyes widening when he detected English at the bottom, in the same handwriting.

I will soon escape

They wont hurt me anymore

I found a savior.

Francis could feel his heart pound in his chest, feeling as though her were on center camera in a horror film. He read the poem over again, and again. And again. He couldn't believe how strongly 17 simple syllables were affecting him. Who in the world was this person? The only one Francis could think that might have written this was Arthur's wife or ex wife, seeing as she wasn't around anymore. Then again, that was pretty presumptuous of him. This book could have easily been written by a mother, or sister, or hell even an old boyfriend. Francis couldn't help snorting at himself at the last crazy thought. Now he was just stretching things.

Francis flipped hastily through the book, engrossed by its mystery. As expected, there was mostly passages in Japanese that Francis could not figure out at all, but next to a few of them were scrawls in different handwriting completely, written in green ink. They were all beautiful poems, mostly haiku's when he considered them, although some of the setups seemed to have broken the rules when translated into English.

He drank in the beautiful poetry, each one resonating withing him. Most seemed to have a tone of sadness and struggles although there were a few that seemed to express actual joy. He was inspired, frustrated that he couldn't know what the rest of the words meant. Among the haiku's were also longer passages both in the original and translated handwriting in English.

Just as Francis was about to read one, he heard Arthur groan and stir above him in the bed. In a panic, Francis pressed himself to the floor, holding his breath to keep the noise to a minimal. There was the sound of the bed frame creaking as Arthur rolled onto his other side, facing the doorway. Francis swallowed, nose deep into the book when he spotted another poem that he couldn't stop himself from reading.

When the suns rise

Scared little rabbits hide

Despite wolf's demise

He almost felt insulted. With a sigh, Francis pulled away and quietly closed the book, pushing it back under the bed. How could an old book that had nothing to do with him resonate so deeply with his life? Francis tried to push it out of his mind as he carefully pulled himself back up with the help of a chair, having forgotten that his original goal was to shove his things underneath the bed in the first place.

Francis looked up at Arthur to see if there was any danger of him waking up soon. He blinked in surprise. For once, Arthur had such a peaceful expression on his face. Francis sat in the chair for a moment, simply staring at his features. The moonlight from behind was bright, but the marks of rain on the window casted an interesting texture and arrangement of shadows on Arthur's face. Francis couldn't describe this view as anything other than…riveting.

It had been so long since Francis had been truly inspired to draw something without the added stress of doing it for money or simply for the sake of building up his portfolio with better examples. He found himself automatically reaching for his pencil and cardboard, the weight in his hands driving a renewed energy in his heart. Maybe, just maybe, in capturing Arthur on the page, Francis would somehow be able to understand the puzzling man better.

Aside from the pattering of rain against the window, the night was still. Arthur didn't move again. He didn't shift or stir or snore, it was almost as if his body was encapsulating the behavior of the perfect model. It was perfect for Francis' focus as he carved out the contours, perfected the proportions and slapped down shadows. Soon, Francis was satisfied enough to scribble his signature down in the corner and leaned back with a sigh to get a good look.

He could feel the sadness ebbing from the paper into his bones although he wasn't sure if he had recorded what had seen or if it had been a reflection of his own emotions tainting his vision. Perhaps it was a combination of both, culminating into a picture that looked both tense and forlorn. Francis had honestly enjoyed the creation nonetheless. He smiled thinly as he ghosted his hand carefully over the drawing, appreciating how much he had improved recently.

A sense of euphoria and fatigue overcame Francis and he set the drawing on the bedside table, groaning weakly. He felt a lot better after making use of his craft but the day had still been extremely taxing on him both mentally and physically. Trying his best to stifle a yawn, Francis pushed the rest of his things under the bed with an outstretched leg and stood up. He tiptoed around to the other side of the bed, taking great pains to be discreet and quiet as he lifted up the blanket and barely sidled in, nearly balancing on the edge.

He hadn't even bothered to shower or change clothes but neither had Arthur. Turning on his side to look out the window, Francis noticed that the rain had stopped. He didn't even have to worry about it anymore, he was dry and safe for once. What comforted him even more as he closed his eyes was thinking of that mysterious book he had encountered. Even now, he could hear those poems echo in his brain, reminding him of his troubled past and, more importantly, how he wasn't alone in his suffering.

Despite the fact that the book was obviously a treasure that Arthur wanted to keep secret, Francis was positive that he wasn't able to resist. He could already imagine how he was setting up a trap for himself when Arthur eventually found out. Until then, Francis vowed to himself that no matter what happened, he would take the time to peek, even if it was only one tiny haiku, and try to use that book to help piece together the puzzled past and this perturbing present.

AN: It's always way too long in between updates than I would like. ;_; I'm at least glad that I did warn everyone in the last chapter's end notes, otherwise I would have felt very guilty. The truth is, I had to rewrite Chapter 13...Twice. Thus, I'm very certain that it will be unlikely if I can upload Chapter 14 before the end of October, but I will try.

So good/bad news depending on how you look at it. This November, I will be embarking on NaNoWriMo again in order to write up another 50,000 words for this story. I'm not sure if I will try to have it 50,000 words of rough drafting for new content ahead for future chapters so I can get back to updating every 10 days, or if I will try to get a buffer going and rework some of what I already have. It will most likely be the former.

I'm doing well so far in my new home and got a job at a grocery store across the street making $11 an hour. In addition to commissions, it's very nice ^^. What is even nicer is seeing all of the kudos favorites alerts and reviews I see popping up in my email every day. By the time this chapter is up I will try my diddly darnest to reply to everyone, because I want you to know just how much I appreciate you.

So this is probably a jumbled mess of an Author's notes but here's a summary:

* Hiatus for November, Will dedicated to working more on the story with at least 50,000 words of rough content

* Managed to get stable housing and a good job

* Please keep up the feedback!

Thank you all so much for your patience. I hope to see you guys soon!