INTRO: A translation of my work. L is 12, B is 9. Original language is Chinese, now up to Ch 5.
WARNINGS: violence, language, blood
Chapter 1: The Incinerator
"Let the day perish on which I was to be born, And the night which said, 'A boy is conceived.'
-JOB 3:3
September 28, 1992. SKIDROW, Los Angeles, California, USA.
Please skid the road.
Detour this way. That's where the name for the slum comes from. Since the 1990s, a nest of homeless people, drug dealers and poor people has gathered, and the place excuded a decadent atmosphere.
Under the yellow-brown sky, garbage is everywhere and stinky water flows. The graystone field contains empty wine bottles, broken glass, used condoms and drug syringes.
Crack— the boy kicked the bottle. The blow hit the old homeless man lying under the street lamp, not knowing whether himself was alive or dead.
"Ah ah-ah-ah-aah!"
The old man let out a shriek and fled like a dirty mouse.
No wonder. The boy was dressed in the usual homely attire, but there was something unusual about him, that couldn't be ignored.
First of all, those scarlet eyes. Pure red, which does not exist in nature, is reminiscent of demons.
Second is his demeanor. When he walks, sometimes he looks like an old man who has difficulty walking, and sometimes he looks like a toddler, showing a kind of nervousness. The same holds true for his expression: one second he frowned, looking like he was about to cry, and the next second he raised his lips, showing a wry smirk.
The most notable thing is blood that covered his whole body. It was real blood, and had a different fishy smell than plastic dye. The blood trickled down his hair, snaked down his neck, and wet his clothes along his collarbone. He seemed to have walked out of the murder scene, smeared with sticky blood, and splashed with red rain.
With so many anomalies put together, no matter how plainly he was dressed, it was enough to scare away passers-by.
The boy sneered at the sight of drunken men running away and the screams of scantily clad women. He flicked the hair on his forehead to let more blood spill down.
Freak. Genius. Curse. Plague. Demon.
Skidrow is not under the jurisdiction of the police, and even if there are bodies lying in the sewers underfoot, no one will notice. How ironic that this place, just 50 blocks from a thriving downtown, is spreading sin, depression, apathy, and a disease called poverty, but nobody cares.
The boy hummed. He is as cursed as the place.
"Hmph ~ hum ~ ~ hum ha ha ha ~"
But in essence he is different from them. He is not poor, has a happy adopt family, and has loved ones. Well, there used to be.
The boy came here to fulfill a special mission. Or, come to end this mission.
He seems to be walking without a destination, but he is actually looking for something. Seeing an abandoned building, he began to flick the contents of his pockets. There was a toy knife, a syringe, a lighter, and a twine. A rope strong enough to lift a cow can easily strangle him and suffocate him, while the house that is about to be demolished can drag him down to the ground. If the supervisor is more careless, his body may be crushed by a shredder and dragged into the nearest landfill.
That's the best. The most fitting, most miserable and lonely and hopelessly unaesthetic ending.
But the boy—Backup—smiles. When his index finger wrapped around the thick rope, his chest was also tightened with excitement. In fact, in order to better perceive the excitement, he actually strangled his neck and let out a choked sound of "uh...cough ha".
"So, does the building with the red X symbolize hope or despair?"
Under the blood-red sunset, he looked at the the building in a state of intoxincation, and approached it. Push aside the weeds taller than him, climb over the fence, and jump down skilfully.
The first thing that came into view was a mountain of garbage more than three meters high.
They are piled up like pyramids, pointing to the sky.
At that time, the autumn leaves were falling, the wind stopped, and the setting sun was as bright as a kaleidoscope. The dim yellow light covered everything and spread faintly, giving off a hazy, almost sad color.
There is a figure on the garbage mountain.
It wasn't that he was wrong or hallucinating, the child was standing there. He is slender and not tall, standing with his back towards Backup. His black hair covered half his neck, and his white shirt hung loosely over his legs, fluttering in the wind.
A child... About my age, no, older, looks to be around twelve years old. A teenager.
It seemed that the black-haired boy was admiring the same sunset with him, attracted by the bright light, and decided to catch a glimpse of it before it disappeared. Or, he came from the same impulse as himself, not really wanting to appreciate the beauty of the natural landscape, climbing to the top of the garbage mountain, just to satisfy the desire to trample the world under his feet.
"Aha..." Backup sighed out of his long-lost throat. Amazed by it, but also confused by it. He approached the child.
"You," he asked, "what's your name?" Backup looked up, but he couldn't see all of him because of the piled trash. Naturally he couldn't see his face. "Why are you here?"
The young man turned a deaf ear and remained motionless.
"Ah that—my name is Backup." He tried to make it loud enough to reach the three-meter-high air, "It's a terrible name, but people remember it the first time they hear it. You —May I ask, what are you doing there?"
At this time, Backup discovered the details that he ignored just now, or could not be observed due to the distance. The boy's clothes were unexpectedly clean, not even a single stain could be found. No dust, dirt, patches.
That's not something he can pick up in the ghetto... that guy, and it doesn't look like a kid from the ghetto. The messy hair, the slightly bent back, the big dull eyes and the serious dark circles under them made him exude a cold and abnormal aura.
"Hey, you-"
He had turned around and was looking at Backup, but Backup couldn't get any information from his expression and demeanor. This is a deliberate cover-up, or he is as empty, cold, and joyless as he appears.
Before Backup could finish his sentence, the boy jumped off the rubbish dump. His vigorous movements showed a kind of fearlessness, even if he fell to his leg or injured his bones, he didn't care about the fearlessness. Its dexterity dictates frequent practice. Precise calculations—because the boy landed right in front of him, immediately balanced himself, raised his arms, and threw a punch.
Punch.
Precise, powerful and merciless. Backup fell backwards, pain exploding in his right cheek.
Before he could react, he kicked again, right in the center of his body, and kicked into his fragile lower abdomen.
The boy put his foot down. Backup sat down on his knees, clutching his stomach, biting his lips to suppress a moan.
"You bastard...!"
"You," the boy pointed his finger at his nose, "are too dirty."
"What?"
"I hate blood. And you're bleeding."
Backup's eyes widened.
"What does this have to do with you kicking me...?!"
"It does."
The boy glanced at the blood-stained fist with a disgusted expression on his face, as if he saw something extremely dirty. Then his indifferent gaze returned to Backup.
"Because you bothered me."
disturb? Are you talking about a sudden greeting? Backup's mind was buzzing because it was difficult to distract himself from the excruciating pain. But this person, taking it for granted, what an unusual bastard he is. Abnormal...
The boy didn't wear shoes and stood barefoot on the grass. His dark circles and dull black eyes were reflected more vividly in Backup's pupils. His disheveled black hair, his neat white shirt and white trousers, his staring so bluntly, the way he bites his right thumb... Ah, yes. He was full of abnormalities.
Just like Backup.
"Haha," the flaxen-haired boy chuckled. The smile widened and twisted into a strange arc. For the first time in his life he laughed so freely. At the end, he stroked his sore cheek and said softly, "You're so funny!"
"Go away," was the boy's reply. Although his voice was not ferocious, and his tone had no ups and downs, it fully revealed the meaning of the threat. "This is my home."
"Oh, is it so?"
Backup looked back. 'Are you talking about that poor crumbling house? Or these weeds, these black, disgusting garbage heaps? ''do'y know? Your hair is like a bird's nest. ' 'Sooner or later you die from sleep-apnea. ' When the ridicule flashed across his mind, he didn't speak. Because the boy was so abnormal, so mysterious and at the same time exuding a wild aura, he looked him up and down intoxicated.
His back arched, making him look shorter than he is; his nose is high, his lips are thin, his cheekbones are protruding, but his hair is pure black, which is the characteristic of mixed race; his neck is slender and fair, lightless and dark. His eyes are unblinking, round like an owl, and at the same time, because of their staring eyes, they show a determination close to stubbornness.
He... seems to hide some kind of strength in that thin body, some kind of untrained but excellent fighting power. Backup could sense it in his subconscious defensive posture. Brutal and restrained, sluggish and sharp, why can all kinds of contradictory qualities coexist harmoniously in him?
"You..." Backup started. He began to feel that the pain was no longer important, what he had done and what he was going to do was no longer important, because this person in front of him- a wild animal- was the most interesting existence, the one that made the ending to the dull, boring life. "You don't belong here," he asserted.
"Why?"
"Because that's how you look like."
"You don't belong either."
"Oh?" Backup raised his eyebrows.
"You are different from me," the boy bent down and squatted down. He said, "You still have a home."
He grabbed Backup by the collar. For a moment, Backup thought he was about to be beaten again. But the boy just picked it up and took a deep sniff.
Backup's body froze. Because the boy grabbed a handful of his hair again, held it in the palm of his hand, put it under his nose and sniffed. His expression didn't change, and his movements seemed natural as if he was sniffing the fresh night air, or some kind of wildflower—though Backup confirmed that his hair didn't smell like flowers.
"Your hair smells of shampoo, recently washed," he said flatly.
"Your clothes tag is new, and that brand is worth a fortune. Not something you can pick up easily, so someone bought it for you."
Then he let go of him and said, "You still have family. Chances are over 90%. So, this is not the right place for you."
"...go home."
Backup's expression changed unpredictablely.
The probability is more than 90%... Although this is not difficult to deduce, but the person in front of him is too confident. He giggled.
"What do you think of yourself, a detective?!"
The other party remained silent.
"Then I'm also 90% sure that you're an orphan. Because you're so annoying—" Backup made a strange face, "Out of place, arrogant and rude. Surely no parent can bear the existence of such a child!"
"Um~um, um, huh, hahaha!" It was that extremely carefree laughter again. Backup was out of breath laughing, the first time he could do this without controlling his facial muscles, and his smile was completely out of control, eventually turning into a series of choked gasps. "Hey...hehehe! You...ha! You are really interesting...!"
Detective, he thought mockingly, as it should, as it should. It should have occurred to him the moment he wandered aimlessly through the slums and caught sight of this dilapidated house with a red brick peaked roof. This person was so weird that when he saw that Backup was covered in blood, he didn't react too much, but kicked him instinctively. This person is...
Backup's wild laughter confused the teenager. He thought about it, looked at him with big blank eyes, then stuffed his index finger into his mouth and bit down.
"...how do you look like a baby?" Backup sneered. "Is there something wrong with your brain? Are you still in the period of oral desire to gain a sense of security by biting?"
The boy just bit it silently for a while, maybe he felt bored, so he turned and left.
"Hello," he was walking away. "Hey, stop!"
The boy walked towards the place marked with a red cross, which he called his "home", and did not hear it.
"Hey-"
L closes the door. Just then, a hand came in and stuck on the door frame.
Following the bloody hand, he saw a flaxen-haired boy with blood all over his body and two red handprints on his neck. The corners of the mouth are split, the smile is gloomy, revealing a row of white teeth:
"From now on," He said, "this is my home too."
"I didn't allow you to go, but you left without authorization..." He pushed open the door little by little, forcefully, and let the hairy head stuff in, "You hit me, but I didn't fight back. It's very unfair."
He slammed the door open. That's because L didn't block it hard, and also because the blow was so sudden.
"fair?"
"That's right, it's not fair." Now he was standing in front of L. The blood-red eyes stared at L as if they had found prey. "so..."
The boy didn't do anything, just grabbed the corner of L's clothes with five fingers. Print a bloody handprint.
The other hand gripped the center of the white shirt. The second bloody fingerprint.
While laughing, he kept kneading on the spotless shirt, his fingers kept dancing, plucking, and kneading up and down like playing a musical instrument, until countless bloodstains were imprinted on the cloth layer by layer. He enjoyed the process of destruction and pollution so much that he let out a broken laugh. He seemed to be waiting for the attack that was about to fall, but he didn't make any moves to avoid it. Waiting - looking forward to? L looked down at his clothes with indifferent and slightly disgusted eyes.
"You should go."
"I won't!"
"..."
"I've heard," Backup gritted his teeth, "that there's an abandoned house in the slums occupied by children."
"As long as they are homeless children, they can stay. And now I happen to have nowhere to go. I need to sleep. I am not useless. To be honest, I know much more than the children of my age."
"..."
L was counting the handprints on his body and calculating the time to clean them up. No, that's not possible. Fortunately, there is never a shortage of replacement clothes.
"Let me stay." The boy's hair shook. L watched helplessly as blood dripped to the ground. So he kicked him again.
"... Gaha!"
If he refuse him, there is a good chance that this red-eye koala will fasten himself to him. Seeing Backup crawling in again, hugging his leg as if glued, L seemed to hear the sound of a string of reason cracking somewhere in this bairn.
A deadlocked silence spread between them, the strings stretched to the limit, his gloomy expression contrasted with Backup's sly smile.
"How long are you going to stay?"
"The longer the better."
"Seven days."
"...What?"
"You can stay, but I will only give you a week. If you agree, you must listen to me. I mean," L stared at him condescendingly, "absolutely obey."
"Hmm." The boy squinted his eyes and smiled happily, as if this unexpected invitation was still in his expectation. He got up slowly, enduring the pain. This time, he did not touch L with his polluted hands. "You can't go back on your word."
"I'm serious," L opened his eyes wide, "but during this time, don't even think about leaving."
"Is this a threat?"
Backup's body shook slightly. He wasn't afraid at all, and even inadvertently revealed a look of pride. The trauma L left on him was insignificant, even joyful. As soon as he got the owner's permission, he walked eagerly towards the house.
L grabbed him. His eyes flickered and his expression was calm. He said monotonously, as if predicting something:
"You will regret it, Backup. For the challenge you made to me, and for the persistence you want to stay."
The boy turned around and smiled at him.
"That's also my wish."
To Be Continued...
A/N: I think a lot about this story but it's kind of difficult to continue. If you want to follow, please note that B will be beaten for a lot... No romance, no relationship... 8 chapters in total.