Having to choose between possibly saving another person's life or revealing his most closely guarded secret had left Clear sitting in a corner by the waiting area close to the security checkpoint after declining getting searched by the security man from before. The man had eyed him suspiciously the moment Clear had refused to take off his mask, but had not followed after him when Clear had made his escape while yelling to have forgotten something at the previous counter in lieu of a better excuse.

He sighed behind his mask.

This was awful.

Shouldn't the decision be quite easy, though? Mink's life surely weighed more than Clear showing his face to others, even if he were to scare the other party by removing his mask as he feared it to happen. His grandfather had just been so insistent on Clear promising to him not to remove this thing sitting on his face and hiding his facial features from the world. He surely had his reasons to tell Clear something like that. For him his grandfather's wisdom was something akin to an absolute truth. If he had told him something about the world, Clear had taken it to be always correct. There was no reason to doubt his grandfather's motivations when he had forbidden Clear to reveal his face to others now. There surely must be something very wrong with his own face, Clear was convinced of this to be the truth. He had been told to be different from other people, so he guessed he must look heinous below that mask and preferred to hide his face so as not to disturb other people with his looks.

Unfortunately that also meant that he couldn't take a step further towards the plane waiting for him to board it and the minutes kept ticking away as Clear sat in his corner and was still at a loss what to do.

A few meters away from him was a pile of luggage placed by some nearby group of chairs and a little boy was playing with a superhero figure on his own. The elderly person supposedly watching over him had fallen soundly asleep on one of the chairs next to him. The boy held the toy in his outstretched hand, circling around himself as he made comic-like soundwords up to accompany the superhero on his journey to watch over the good citizens of this place and ward off any evil that might come across his way. He didn't notice the lace on his shoe coming undone as he went and tripped the moment he stepped onto the string, being too distracted by his play to prepare himself for the fall.
He never hit the floor, though. A man in a white coat with a scarf swinging behind him nearly like a cape had dashed to his side and had caught him in his fall in a split second, when there had been only centimeters between him and the floor.

The boy's eyes widened in wonder.
A real hero with a black mask on his face had just shown up right in front of him!

Now the situation he had faced just now might not have been something deadly; a hurt knee or the like might have been the result had he hit the floor, but that didn't keep the boy from grinning widely at his super fast savior and grabbing at his white coat in excitement as he was put back on his feet like he wouldn't weigh a thing.

"Are you a hero, mister?", he squeaked in joy and Clear felt flattered and scratched the back of his head as he chuckled.

"Oh, I wouldn't say that. I guess I was just there when you needed some help."

"Isn't that what heroes are doing anyway? Being there for people when they need some help?"

Clear blinked behind his mask and looked towards the boy.
Suddenly the whole affair with Mink and him having to take off his mask seemed to have such an easy answer.
Still, he clenched his fists at the prospect of giving up the barrier that had kept his face hidden from the world for so long now.

The young boy looked at him in concern.
"Is something wrong?"

Clear flinched when he was reminded that he still had an audience and he went down on one knee to pat the boy's head.
"No, it's alright. It's just that you reminded me of something I must do. There is a friend of mine I need to follow and to do this I have to board this plane. But the security man wanted me to remove my mask before he would let me through and I... hesitated to reveal my face."

"Well, a hero's secret identity is important, right? It must be kept a secret at all costs!"

The boy's eyes sparkled as he spoke and Clear was unsure why he was thought of by the little one as a hero when all he had done was to keep him from falling to the floor. He rose from his half-kneeing position and looked towards the security area while letting out a sigh.

"There seems to be no way for me other than to remove my mask if I want to save my friend, though."

Clear tried to quieten down his inner struggle to go this far and kept saying to himself that he did this for Mink, not to scare other people with how he looked or to break the promise to his grandfather. This was an important mission and he knew it. He tried to collect all of his strength to finally lift his hands towards the buckles fastening the gas mask to his face, when the little boy tugged at his coat.

"I think I know a way to get you past the guard without you having to remove your mask, Mr. Hero."

"Eh?"
Clear thought he had misheard what the boy had said at first, but the little guy lost no time to elaborate further after he gestured for Clear to squat beside him so that only he could hear what he had to say.

"I've made my dad pass through security control by this method before. It would mean for me to become a bad boy for a while, but I think sometimes the end justifies the means, right?"

The kid seemed unusually serious for his age and his view on how the world worked baffled Clear. He only tilted his head in confusion.
"And what do you intend to do?"

"That is a secret, but we will play a game and you have to play it with me. If we succeed your identity will not be revealed."
There was some kind of a conspiratorial aura about the little boy that astonished Clear, but he was interrupted in his thoughts as the little man motioned for him to follow him to the pile of luggage next to the sleeping old lady on her chair. The boy rummaged in one of the bags and produced the flight tickets of his family, holding them in front of Clear.
"These are the tickets that we need to board the plane. Mommy has told me over and over again that they are in here and that nobody is to forget where she put them."
He held out the tickets to Clear.
"One of them is for my daddy and one of them is for me. I cannot read which of those is which yet, but with these you can pose as my dad and we can board the plane together."

"But then your father won't have any ticket for himself.", Clear stated, but earned a shaking of his head from he boy.

"You tried to board the plane before, right? Then you have a ticket of your own. Just switch yours with my dad's and then it's fine."

Clear hadn't thought about this. This kid's logic was even a little frightening to him. He wouldn't have come up with such an idea by himself, but if there was no risk of the boy's father not being able to board the plane later, Clear didn't see much harm in exchanging tickets for this plan to work. He disliked the idea of having to lie towards the security guard, but if the kid's scheme would succeed, he could spare the people on the airport the look at the terror that his face was most likely to be without his mask. And another look on his wristwatch ensured him that he didn't have much time left to board the plane Mink was probably on already. Letting out a sigh through his nose, Clear took his flight ticket out of his coat pocket and exchanged it with one of the tickets reading "adult, no discount" and put all of the other tickets the boy had handed to him back in the bag they had come from, aside from the one that was labeled as "reduction for children" and most likely belonged to the boy.

"Your mask doesn't look very hero-like.", he heard the boy say as he grabbed for his hand and lead the way towards the security checkpoint they were nearest to, "But I still think it looks cool. It's like from one of those movies my mom forbade me from watching where they throw these things around that explode into a cloud of smoke before they charge in and attack or something."

Clear couldn't deny that the original usage of his gas mask was in fact to save its wearer from inhaling harmful substances. But it also covered his whole face up, so he guessed that was why his grandpa chose this item for him to wear after he had most likely found it on the junkyard they had lived close by to.

"Well then, here goes, Mr. Hero.", the boy stated when they had arrived at the security checkpoint. "We will play house and you'll be my dad for now, okay?"

Clear nodded and the boy who had appeared to be almost too silent for a kid his age suddenly went wild like crazy and yelled in a loud voice all the while.
"Lift me up, daddy! Lift me up!"

Clear complied to the boy's wishes without any hesitation and after having him on his shoulders - and the security guard's attention on the both of them from the loudness appearing in front of him now - they made their way towards the man in uniform.

"Yay! Yay! I'm high up! Now the zombies won't get me!", the boy shrieked and appeared to be in his own little world despite his surroundings. He kicked his legs into the air as far as Clear's hold onto his thighs and knees would allow it, making it a bit difficult for Clear to hold his balance and let him sway from right to left quite a bit in an attempt to keep the kid steady on his shoulders.

The man glanced from Clear towards the boy and back, making a face as if he wondered whether this strange man with the gas mask really was the father of that kid. But the way the boy behaved so unruly but without any fear led him to the conclusion that they must be parent and son after all.
"I see you have no hand luggage, Sir, but do you carry around any dangerous items with you?"

"I-", Clear wanted to explain, but the kid on his shoulders went quite wild and he had to steady his posture a few times before he could go on with what he was saying, "I am sorry, I have my hands full at the moment. Would you be so kind as to check my coat pockets? I believe I am carrying a hunting knife with me at the moment."

The security guard and the boy both flinched at Clear's statement, but before the guard could say anything, the kid immediately thought up something to cover up for Clear.
"Boo! Daddy is a scatterbrain again! You always tell me that no knives are allowed and then you forget to take yours out of your pockets! And it's so long since we went to the camping trip where we needed it, too! Daddy is always so forgetful!"

Clear huffed a sheepish laugh towards the guard, getting that he had slipped up and the boy had just saved his neck, but his embarrassed expression was hidden by the gas mask sitting on his face and the thing was partly taken hold onto by the boy sitting on his shoulders at the moment, too.

The security guard seemed to be convinced that the fact that Clear was carrying a hunting knife was not on ill intend, though, and he had told him about it, so he began searching Clear's pockets for the item.
"I must inform you that I will have to confiscate this before you board the plane, Sir. It is not allowed to bring any weapons on board."

"I understand.", Clear stated, but was busy with trying to keep the kid on his shoulders again as the boy had begun to loudly play with his action figure while loosely holding onto Clear's head with his other hand and leaning backwards quite dangerously. He briefly wondered if he should really be worried for the kid's safety, but then thought it was all just an act put up for him to get him through the security check and probably to divert attention from his mask, so he tried to play along as best as he could.

The security guard rummaged in both of Clear's coat pockets and the longer he had to search for the item he was looking for, the more desperate he became with the things he was actually finding instead. By now his loot already consisted of a see-through vinyl umbrella he had no clue how the man could have fitted it into his coat, a pen and paper, some glass marbles and even a neatly folded piece of fabric that turned out to be a frilly apron when he unfolded it. Doubting his own hands when he could finally feel the hilt of the hunting knife at first, the guard then pulled it out and double-checked that he really got everything out of these way too deep pockets of this strange man. Then he patted Clear's pants down to make sure that he didn't carry any other odd objects around, but couldn't find anything suspicious.

"Are we done yet, daddyyy?", the nagging voice of the boy was hearable, while the little man had his fingers clawed into Clear's gas mask and impatiently bobbed up and down and back and forth on Clear's shoulders, displaying a child at the end of his patience perfectly.

"Uhm... I think so?", Clear voiced the question towards the guard, who looked pretty much done with this weird customer that was in front of him.

Art first the guard nodded and Clear was about to leave the security area, when the guard came up to him again and told him to wait for another moment.
"I need you to take off this mask, too, Sir."

Clear wanted to turn around, but the boy on his shoulders suddenly clamped down on his mask not only with his hands but with his whole upper body, screaming like he was about to throw a tantrum that might go on for hours.
"NO! NO! NO! Daddy promised to play 'zombie hunter' with me when I'm good and I was good right now, so we will play now! PLAY! We cannot play without the mask! Don't take it off!"
The security guard tried to reason with the kid but as soon as he tried to speak to him, the boy began to shriek even louder than before!
"NOOO! I WANT TO PLAY NOW! NOOO!"

He drew the attention of pretty much any bystander and the queue that had begun to built up behind Clear while he was checked for harmful objects. Theses people had been annoyed by the boy's behaviour for quite a while now and shot deathly glances towards Clear as the supposed father not being able to tame his kid and at the guard for keeping them wait for so long and attempting to even elongate their suffering further now by holding back the passenger he seemed to have just waved through a second before.

Clear tried to rock the boy on his shoulders by stepping from one feet to the other and by telling him to be a good boy until they reached the airliner, all the while hoping that it still would work and he didn't have to unmask himself after the boy had tried so hard for him already. Then the security guard finally gave in and let them go their ways with a beaten look on his face and they could move on to finally board the aircraft.

Having made it inside of the metallic bird and being led to their seats by a slightly disturbed stewardess, who didn't know why this white-haired gentleman hid his face like that, they boy dangled his feet from the seat and Clear turned towards him.

"Thank you for your help. I wouldn't have been able to make it through this alone."

The boy grinned at him like a Cheshire cat and and enjoyed Clear patting his hair in return. Then a sudden ring from the small coil on his wrist resembling a wristband caught his attention
"Oh, it's mommy. I guess she's back from shopping with daddy at the airport and is searching for me now."
When he took the phone call a very worried woman cried at him that she couldn't find him, and where he was, and what he had been thinking to just get up and leave his grandmother's side like that. Clear winced at the outburst of disbelief towards the boy when he told his mother that he had already boarded the plane because he had been so bored from waiting for them. Having to promise his mother not to leave his seat, the call ended.

"I am sorry that you are going to get in trouble for helping me.", Clear apologized but the boy grinned at him again.

"It's okay. It was my duty as a faithful citizen to help out a hero in need! It's my good deed for today!"
Clear laughed and ruffled the boy's hair while thanking him again. Then the boy blinked and looked at Clear as if an idea had just crossed his mind.
"I don't know when my parents will board the plane, but I think you should head over to your seat now. I don't want you to get in trouble, too. And didn't you say you had a friend who needed your help? You should probably look for him now."

Right.
Clear had nearly forgotten why he had to pull a stunt like getting on a plane in the first place. After remembering his original seat number, he said good-bye to his little helper and walked through the aircraft in his search for Mink. The plane was quite packed with travelers, though, and even if Mink was tall when standing, Clear couldn't see him sitting in any of the seats he passed by and then he was told by a stewardess to take his seat since their take-off was soon to come and he would have to buckle up.
Sighing, Clear walked towards his seat and told himself that he could always look for Mink after they had landed.

Taking a ten hours long flight with nothing else to do but to look out of the tiny window of the aircraft next to him, or to chat up the nice old lady sitting close by occasionally was quite the boring task for Clear. Weirdly enough, though, he couldn't remember much about the flight when the airplane landed again, even if he couldn't remember having fallen asleep either during the flight. It was just like with the realisation that there was no immediate task at hand, his half-closed eyes had locked onto the sky while staring out of the window and his mind had shut down as if he had been on some kind of standby mode. Clear couldn't really explain it to himself, so he tried to shrug it off as some weird sleeping-with-your-eyes-open-situation.

When it was time to get off the plane again, Clear thought to have spotted Mink's back of the head for a moment way ahead of himself, but lost him in the upcoming disorder as the people tried to queue up to leave the plane. Trying to catch sight of Mink again during his walk towards the foreign airport was a nearly impossible task with the surge of people all around him and filtering out Mink's steps from all the others was out of the question, too. Clear was still busy trying to find that brunette back of Mink's head he thought to have caught a glimpse of before again, when he was suddenly stopped by two security people stepping in his way.

"I'm sorry, Sir, but we have to pat you down before you can enter the airport.", a female guard told him with a smile, while a male person stepped in front of Clear immediately and was starting to feel his pants and coat pockets up for anything suspicious the next moment. He looked quite questioning at items like Clear's glass marbles or a not so neatly folded frilly apron, but put every item he had extracted from Clear's pockets back when he had found them to be harmless, including his prepaid credit card which seemed the only item of value on the man.

Clear became anxious to loose sight of Mink for good this time and had trouble paying attention to the two people around him, so he barely heard what the woman was saying to him next.

"You will have to allow us to take a look at your face, too, Sir, since we have to compare your facial features to a list of people not allowed to enter our country."
With that explanation given, she put a video screen hanging from a leverage on the wall right in front of Clear's face and the male guard positioned himself behind him to take off his gas mask in Clear's stead.

Clear barely had any time to realize what was going on and as his eyes darted around in search for Mink, but then he suddenly spotted the small boy who had helped him board the plane earlier waving at him instead, while he and his family checked through security on a neighbouring queue. The moment Clear instinctively was about to reply to the boy waving at him, there was the sudden feeling of something slipping off his head and his view turned dark for a moment, only for his surroundings to come back even brighter lit than before, and the formerly slightly shielded sounds all around him came crushing towards his ears full force now.
"Huh?"
All at once he felt like awakening from something kind of a trance as he realized that his field of vision had widened and that his skin could feel the air softly brushing over his face.

Clear exhaled, inhaled, swallowed hard and then gave a yell before he covered his face with his hands immediately and sounded absolutely desperate.

"Don't look at me, please! Don't look at my face!"
He instantly sank down on his knees, cowering between the security staff, who looked at him in confusion now.

The video screen right in front of his face lit up in a green light and beeped as a sign that his face was not known to be one of a person with refusal of entry and the woman put it out of Clear's way before crouching down beside him and patting his shoulder.
"Are you feeling alright, Sir? Please excuse our intrusion on your privacy, but we have to do our job."

Clear quivered behind the hands he had slapped in front of his face and only moved his index finger away a bit to allow his eye to make contact with the woman right in front of him, who smiled back at him.
"Weren't you scared by the look of my face just now?"

The woman blinked in disbelief at Clear's words, but then made the corners of her mouth lift up again.
"I wouldn't know what I would have to be scared of, I'm afraid, Sir. I only caught a short glance of your face, but I must say you are quite handsome. Did you hide your face because you are famous somehow and didn't want to be recognised by your fans?"

"Eh?"
Clear couldn't believe what he was asked by this woman.
Him being mistaken to be famous?
His face being handsome?
That couldn't be true. It was impossible.

Yet, Clear found himself rightening himself back up together with the woman and the male security guard held his gas mask out to him to put it back on if he so wanted to now.
Clear hesitated to take his hands off his face to grab his mask, though, and shot an insecure glance back at the woman still in front of him.
"There is nothing wrong with my face, are you sure about that?"

The lady looked confused as ever as she lifted one brow in return. Maybe he was one of those odd people who didn't believe themselves to be beautiful or something.
"Do you want some proof, Sir? I can show you, if you want me to."
That said, she rummaged in her pocket to produce a small hand mirror and held it in front of Clear's face.
"Just take a look at yourself, Sir, then you will see."

Clear still didn't dare to take his hands away from his face, but the male guard behind him with his mask still in hand gave a very hearable cough signalizing that he had something else to do today then to wait for some random, odd traveler to take back his stuff and leave the line. Therefore Clear first took one of his hands away to grab for his mask offered to him and then turned back towards the female guard and shyly let his other hand sink down next to his body. Having trouble opening his squeezed shut eyes he finally dared to risk a look at the small mirror held out in front of him.

His eyes widened.
So this was, how he looked like?
He saw pink eyes, a nose, a mouth with two small moles under his lips and pale skin overshadowed by white, short curls of hair.
His face showed all of the parts a normal human face would have to offer and there was no scar or ugly deformation whatsoever.
He just looked like a normal-

He gasped as a realization washed over him like a wave attempting to crush him.

No, this had to be all wrong.

This was impossible!
It had to...
It just...

His lips shivered, then he pressed them together tightly and answered with a strain in his voice lacking all emotions.
"Thank you very much."
Then he quietly left the queue for the security check and allowed himself to be pulled along by the crowd heading for the airport's exit.

What was he even doing here?

Where was the use in being where he was now, surrounded by these many people?

He faintly remembered to have come here for an important task.

What was it again?