You shouldn't panic, shouldn't run away either. 

Weren't you satisfied just by having people to talk with?

Then...

After getting them…

Why are you still sad?

Something was wrong, right? Something wasn't calculated, as if what you had chosen or anticipated, wasn't really what you have desired...

I think that you shouldn't run away. But shouldn't hurry as well.

If you didn't feel like facing it now, never mind. One day you will face it for sure… The reason behind your loneliness and sadness… After all, you have a good instinct, and you should make use of it.

I'm leaving now.

But before that, I wanted to tell you something. I have a good instinct as well. And because this instinct have led me to you, I know…

I feel like I know part of your future…

And thus I need to tell you this.

Whatever may happen, never get sad...

I'm always by your side.

############

When Ray opened his eyes, his heart pounded deep and hard. He bolted out of bed, there was nothing around him. He got downstairs, nothing was there either. He looked at the mirror, his eyes red and his eyelids swollen…

Why was he this tired?

What was that saddening voice? why life suddenly felt so depressing? Why he felt so hopeless?

"Who are you!" he shouted.

"you keep haunting my house?", took a deep breath, "Who asked you to make meals for me!"

His voice quietened, "Don't you see that your presence is leaving me in depression?"

He washed his face and stood for a few minutes before going back to sleep.

It was like this since the old man had left, two weeks ago.

When Ray woke the alarm stopped ringing. If he had slept a few seconds more for sure he would have skipped school.

When Ray stood he looked around, wore the clothes he had been using for a week, slid the bag over his shoulder, and got out. Before he had left the house took another glance at his home and decided to clean it tonight.

The rain was still falling, light but copious. He opened his umbrella and stepped out. Emily waved at him smiling, but when he became close to her she touched his face, her smile no longer there.

"Your eyes are swollen again. Even though these types of eyes are cool, they are becoming more severe every time I see you." 

she wiped his eyelids with her thumbs, "Is there anything wrong?" she then spat on the ground, pulled her hands, and wore a disgusted face.

"Forget, that was disgusting."

Ray forgot his night for a second as he widened his eyes in awe. He pointed at her with a trembling index.

"Who are you?"

As soon as he asked, Emily wore her normal expressions again.

"I tried to pull a joke on you, how was it, my first joke?" 

"Please don't do it again, you felt like another person, not even a female."

She giggled, lowered her umbrella, and dashed under his.

"I hate my pink umbrella."

"Why don't you buy a new one."

"Yours is big enough you know. It's inviting me in."

They walked and in no time reached school. In his class, the blond Marie was glaring at them as usual. 

Ray stared blankly uninterested in his surrounding but his trance cracked as the teacher said her concluding words.

"The exams are next week be sure to study hard, and in three days you will need to come with your parents. Don't forget about this." And the bell rang. A guy pulled the seat next to him, wore a smile as he hammered his lunch box on Ray's desk.

Saimar’s brown eyes sparkled as he said: "eat, I'm bribing you to tutor me," his smile grew wider as one of his canines appeared, "You'll help me right?"

Ray still didn’t reply, he was engaged by his trance. Saimer waved twice in front of his eyes and Ray shook his head coming back to reality.

The colorful lunch box allured him in, he dug as he said, "You want me to teach you right?"

Saimer nodded "YES YES!" his eyes sobbing in happiness.

"no problem," Ray answered. 

Marie jumped from her seat and hammered her lunch box beside Ray's "Teach me too," said rubbing both hands together.

The second Marie sat beside Ray, he noticed the glare of Emily Penetrating Marie and planting him like knives. He looked at Emily and found her smiling at him, the old sneer he hadn't seen for weeks.

At least I know she's Emily now.

……..

Amidst the meal Saimer said: "Did you hear?" his eyes grew big, "about the children sucker?"

"Yea, I heard," said Marie, her fork pointing at Saimer's eye, "If you wander past 9 alone you will be sucked dry," 

"I don't believe in this," Saimer looked at Ray, "What do you think?"

"There are dead children you know," Marie answered instead.

"I don't know any of them, I believe it's a lie the adults had made to keep us at home." 

Swallowing his bite Ray asked, "where do you get this information from?"

"Of course from Typebook," said Saimer showing how stupid Ray's question was.

"My mom is usually interested in this kind of cases," and Marie spat a better-understood answer.

Ray didn't quite know or understand, he didn't really care much about this case, he would ask Crake later to look more into it. Now he would focus more on the ghost that kept haunting him recently, or in creating a suitable excuse for the teachers as the old man had yet to come back.

Time flew, the lectures hammered as he spaced out in thought. Maybe it was some kind of memory he had forgotten, or it might have been some kind of possession. It might be as far as a prank from his old man…

But really, where did the old man go? He looked so rushed and his messages were vague and mysterious as if the old man had something to hide from him…

A little sister? That would be good, he would love to pat a head just like when the old man patted him.

"You had an old man smile just now," Emilly muttered into his ear flooding some awareness into him.

Really, what was he thinking about… But a sister...

He had never thought of that, he might really ask the old man to get him one, after all, homeless kids like him became like cats on streets. He heard that the percentage of adultery was high in Sheria and the orphanages became some sort of brand. The old man had told him that the loose laws about prostitution in Sheria were the reason and when he asked him why they hadn't changed them the old man smiled and said: "There are things better kept unknown."

"You spaced out again?" Emily called him out.

"No… I mean yea, but it wasn't an important thing."

"What was it."

"Nothing."

Emily’s facial expressions didn't change much, but her clenched fist explained her mode, "It's hard to talk to you recently," she sighed, "from now on I'll ask you only once."

Ray stared at her, then said, "I've been getting bad dreams, about a woman telling me depressing things that a small part of me felt true."

"That's because you have lots of girls in mind, you should look at one girl, many girls will just stress you out."

Sometimes Emily would say mature things. Ray thought that he was the only mature person in this class, but Emily would spit out some good words from time to time. For example, stress.

Emily was the first child to bring up such a topic, "Don’t think of lots of people at once and you will have some sound sleep. Oh, Don't forget that I'm getting private tutoring from you. Just you and me."

"Just tutoring? You deserve more though," Ray smiled, "You always think of me, I love this part of you, really."

Emily stared blankly at him, "That's disgusting," turned at the window and added, "But I'm enjoying it as well, I guess?"

Ray giggled and looked back at the board spacing out… He blinked twice and found that the day had already come to end. He walked home with Emily, both of them under one umbrella, the rain never getting heavy but copious as always.

Emily talked to him about specific things, most of which were personal and kept telling him not to worry, after all, "I'll be there to protect you" she told him, her smile warm and genuine.

He waved at her as she entered her house, and headed home, or that what he had intended.

At his home doorstep a girl sat, she had black long hair, tender-looking like silk, wide eyes with big elusive dark pupils. Her dress looked like a black noble's dress from a few centuries ago, and her velvet black hat looked fine on her pale skin.

The girl stood and never minding the rain she walked up to him. Under the edge of his umbrella, she bowed.

"Nice to meet you," her voice soft and feminine, her scent reminded him of humidity and rain.

"Who are you?" he asked, his head tilting to the side.

"I'm lost and I felt like you would take me back to where I was."

Ray scraped the edge of his eye, what to do? what to say? under such circumstances, under such weather going out wasn't very favorable.

Should he reject her? still, he was never such a person, and she didn't look bad.

"Where is your mom?"

"I don't need her."

"And your dad?"

"I don't need one either."

He scraped his eye again, this time it turned red. What to do? what to do?

"How about any family member?"

"I don't really need any either," her face frozen, but have a light pinkish cheek.

"Then how come you are lost?" Ray was still cool.

"I've lost the cake shop I had attended last time."

"Where is it?"

"I believe the street was called Zumrat park."

It wasn't very weird. Coming here wasn’t the wrong approach either. After all, Zumrat park was 10 minutes walk from here.

Ray smiled and took her hand and walked her to Zumrat park, where all the people rushed under umbrellas, all of them holding mobiles and calling.

"I've been waiting for 10 minutes now," a girl whose man had yet to come yelled through the phone.

"Dude let's cancel it, the park is soaked," a youth shouted at his friends on the other side of the street.

"Mom, I'm getting divorced, I will never return to him again," A walking woman cried over the phone, one of her eyes swollen blue.

The noise of the city never got quiet even under the most unpleasant weather. But Ray never really minded, he looked at the girl and asked her where did she want to go.

"sweetie bakery," 

Ray tilted his head in puzzlement, he had never heard of such a shop. He asked the waiting girlfriend.

"I've never heard of such a shop," she smiled, "You are more caring than my lover, I will compare him to you when he comes."

Ray bowed to her and walked, the girl touched his hand, when he looked at her face found a faint blush covering her cheeks, "Your steps are wide, I don't want to fall behind."

He nodded.

He walked and asked a few more people, but none of them knew of the existence of such a shop.

After half an hour of touring the boy asked an old man selling hot lentil soup out of his carriage.

"Sweetie Bakery?"

The old man hmmed for a few seconds then hammered one of his hands over the other, "I remember!"

"Really!" Ray smiled, as he looked at the girl.

"It was closed fifty years ago..."

Ray was still looking at the girl, the girl looking at him as well. However, his smile fainted slowly as the girl looked down, both of her cheeks getting redder, and the rain got heavier.

"I-It's," she hesitated to talk or maybe used the time to think of a lie. She suddenly turned at Ray, her red face not getting lighter, "It's my mom! she told me about this shop so I wished to try it."

Ray stared at her, his eyes half-opened "really?"

"Really really?"

"Then, I think my job is finished here."

Her hand trembled as a "No" escaped her mouth. She pulled his hand for him to look at her, "Merry donuts, I need to go there."

Ray sighed, then looked around…

He spotted a huge company called happy donuts, something similar to her destination. Thinking those people would be the best to ask Ray approached them, he asked the one on guard, but he didn't know.

"I'm calling someone for you," said the guard as he entered, but not long after he came with a man wearing an apron, with the company logo on it.

The man smiled at the kid, "I could never think that someone would know this name, and to think it was a kid."

"Why?" Ray asked.

"What do you mean why. My ancestors changed this name..."

Ray felt the girl's hand tremble inside his grip.

"when had they changed it?"

"two centuries ago."

Yo!

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