Chapter 7
The apartment was small: three bedrooms, a bathroom, and a conjoined living room/kitchen/dining room. It was already furnished with a bed in each of the bedrooms, a sofa, a dining table with a few chares. And to Kai, it was perfect. It was home.
Tobi's birthday was still three days away, and Kai was determined to find a job. Sabuki and Hizuki didn't mind if she didn't work, in fact Sabuki would be perfectly happy if Kai stayed at home and cooked. But Kai wanted to support them somewhat. She had been paid for her tutoring at Sanctuary, but now that she didn't live there, she was no longer receiving a paycheck for her services there. She wanted to be able to help with the bills, buy food and books (for Kai and Tobi always had a book of some sort in their hands.), or something that would make her feel like she was doing more than just sitting around wasting money. And she could start her own savings, for you never knew when having some money stashed away would come in handy.
Kai eventually found the perfect job: a small cafe down the block had hired her. While it wasn't shadow owned, it had a lot of older kids from Sanctuary working there. And because she lived with two gang members, she and Tobi were considered gang relatives and were placed under gang protection. This kept members of the Hunters from messing with her.
After her initial meeting with the Hunters, she had learned a lot about them. They targeted runaways, especially those who had monetary rewards or "bounties", turning them in to the police when caught. The ones who roamed the streets normally weren't very high up and were simply looking for kids who could be caught till a bounty could be given. They didn't earn much and took what they could get. Higher ups drove fancy cars and would often collect higher bounty kids or make their own by kidnapping some kid from some outer city rich home, then turning them in later. But lower members tended to avoid conflict with Shadow.
Shadow took much better care of it's new members, giving them to an older gang member, untill the "newbie" was considered trained. Then they were free to hook up with a partner, who would help in holding shifts and meant that every one had a "buddy" of some sort to watch their back.
Hizuki and Sabuki were still on gang payroll. They still got a portion of the money that the businesses in the aria gave in exchange for protection. This meant that the buildings became a regular hang out for members.
Rules were strict: the building could only be marked with Shadow's symbol, nothing else, and employees could not be targeted for muggings.
All in all, Hizuki and Sabuki thought they had pretty good jobs. All they had to do was stand around at a building during their time slot. As Bu would put it, "We get paid to be lazy, not good gang fighters."
They all arranged their schedules so that Tobi was never home by himself. Kai even looked into a school for Tobi to attend. A local one didn't charge too much for pre-school and Tobi could easily pass as a four year old with his small frame. All she had to do was think up a good last name.