"Give us the money, idiot... I know you've got a filled wallet."

"And while we're at it, that ring there looks pretty valuable... how about you just give us that too?"

The shady scene playing off in the alley was nothing new to this town. It happened pretty much every day. Two boys had already pushed another one against the wall. They were about eighteen or nineteen. One of the boys had relatively long and open black hair and wore a bright red jacket. The other one had a buzz cut and wore nothing but a white tank top. Their victim wouldn't be older than first... or maybe the second year in high school. After all, it's easier to take out the weaker ones than to threaten adults. The young boy had short brown hair and wore what looked like a school uniform.

"I... I can give you my money, b-but please let me keep the ring! It's more valuable than you could imagine, but only emotionally!"

The young boy didn't hesitate a second to pull his wallet out of his pocket, though his arm did shake the whole time he did it. With a shuddering lip and equally shuddering eyes, he looked up to them, holding out his wallet. He looked up at them, shivering and with tears slowly forming in his eyes as he tried to hide his other hand in his pocket.

"Didn't you hear us?! Wallet and ring! The protection fee is whatever is in your wallet... and your little accessory! We can make money with that too! Emotional value this, no real value that, fuck that shit! It's a ring it has value no matter what!"

As the boy with the tank top yelled at him and grabbed the hand that the brown-haired boy was trying to hide, the other one already ripped the wallet out of the young boy's hand with a satisfied smile.

"P...please not! Just let me keep it!"

He struggled and shook his hand to free himself from the thief's grasps, yet the buzz cut didn't let loose a bit. He only grabbed his hand stronger while pulling the ring off his ring finger. The long-haired boy with the wallet already went his way out of the alley, looking through it with a smirk, closely followed by the accessory thief who was inspecting his new jewelry with a bright smile.

"This is nearly too good to sell! Maybe I'll just keep it..."

"Yeah, this wallet is filled to the rim, I told ya, I got the right little victims, I tell ya this kid prolly worked his ass off to get this much... talk about stupid!"

The two laughed as they walked away from the boy, who only looked after them for a few seconds before he broke down on the ground crying. Curling up on the side of the wall since he knew, if he'd come out of the alley too, then they wouldn't have any mercy in silencing him.

"Who- Wait, what are you-"

The young boy heard a voice scream from outside the alley, the voice from one of his robbers, the black-haired one that stole his wallet. At the point the boy was, he was too scared to stand up and look, so he didn't move an inch from where he was, back against the wall with his legs pulled to his body. As he hid his face between his legs, the only thing he could do was listen, yet there was nothing to listen to. After the scream he heard, there was nothing but his own sobbing that was making any noises. Until he picked up a sound of something heavy being dragged across the floor, and it was coming directly towards him.

"Now... YOU APOLOGIZE, YOU ASSHOLES!"

A familiar voice screamed on top of his lungs. Though, not familiar to the boy that was sitting against the wall. As he looked up, preparing to apologize for a reason he didn't even know himself, he saw a person that he never saw before. It was a young boy with black hair bound into a short ponytail and nearly glowing red eyes. He was wearing a thick white jacket with a black t-shirt underneath, on the shirt was a cat face wearing sunglasses and the text; "let's have a purr-fect day!" Though, what grabbed the boy's attention was the bloodstain on the right knee on his heavily ripped jeans and the few drops of blood dripping from his knuckles... and the two boys that he dragged along who both had a bleeding nose.

"I said, APOLOGIZE!"

"WE'RE TERRIBLY SORRY! H-HERE! YOU CAN HAVE YOUR STUFF BACK! NOW PLEASE LET US GO, SIR!"

Both of the boys yelled before they threw out the wallet and ring that they took from him back. Starting to tear up as well.

"Oh god, you're just...pathetic."

The boy with the jacket suddenly let loose of the two thieves, which didn't hesitate a second, and jumped up, running out of the alley as quick as they could. The younger boy slowly started to cry again as he saw his belongings in front of him. Yet they weren't tears of sadness or tears of fear, they were tears of happiness. Though he didn't seem to care the slightest bit for the wallet, as he ignored it completely and quite literally hugged the ring that he thought he had no way of getting back.

"Thank you, thank you so much! I don't know what I would have done if I would have actually lost it. This ring is far more important to me than anything else..."

"Oh, that's not something you need to thank me for. That is pretty much my job-"

"Then how do I pay you back?! I'll give you everything! D-do you want my wallet?! You can have it!"

Without really letting the boy in the white coat finish his sentence, the small boy looked at him with big eyes, trying to find a way of paying his savior back, with something he himself saw equal to what the boy has done for him.

"Calm down, bucko... I don't do this shit for money, and It's not my actual job. I do this to help! Some people say that I might've read too many hero comics, but I just want to have a good day, and that's achieved by having the people around me have a good day too! Tell me why that ring is so important to you, and that'll be payment enough, it seems to have a good story following it! My name is Enatsu Fudo, by the way! You can call me by my first name if you want."

Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

"O-oh really...? Then, you can call me by my first name too! I'm Isamu, Chiba Isamu. Thanks again for saving me, or better to say saving my ring. This is my grandmother's wedding ring, she wanted me to have it before she died. She told me to wear this, until I find my special someone, so I'm treasuring this until I find that special person!"

Fudo looked down at Isamu with a smile before sitting down next to him, also leaning against the wall.

"You must've been pretty close with your grandma then... usually the wedding ring would be given to their children, right? If your parents were ok with that, then that's one, but didn't your aunt or uncles complain? Also, might I say you've got quite the fitting name."

"I'm an orphan. My grandma was the last I had and vice versa... so obviously, I get the stuff she owned. Wanna hear that story too before you continue to make the same joke about my name that I heard literally every time I met a new person?"

Wiping the tears from his eyes, Isamu looked over to the boy sitting next to him and starting to answer his smile with a smile on his own. Though Fudo just looked at him back with what seemed to be more of an excited smirk.

"Oh, you're an orphan too? I'd be happy to hear your backstory! But then, you'll hear my story too! Oh, and I'll see if I'll stop, maybe I'll find better jokes about your name meaning courage, while I found ya crying of fear."

" W-what do you mean 'too'? You also have no family?"

"Well, I do have my mother, but I just visit her some days. I still live in the orphanage here since she dropped me off when I was... four, I think... but I don't know anymore. My father was a mere one-nighter for my mom... well the opposite rather, but my mom told me to say it the other way around, so she doesn't stand there, as the young idiot that got seduced."

"But... you just told me the truth...?"

"I didn't promise to lie twice, so here we are!"

The boy slowly stood up again and wiped the dust off his Coat, holding his hand down for Isamu to grab.

"I'll tell you the rest after you told me yours. For example, why didn't I ever see you in the orphanage? You did know there is one, right?"

With a chuckle, the young boy grabbed the hand in front of him and was pulled up, standing on his feet quicker than he could realize. Wiping even the last tears out of his face, he looked up to Fudo and smiled brightly.

"Well, prepare to hear the most cliched orphan story ever. In short, my mother was a prostitute... my grandma always said that she tended to go for these kinds of things while still being in school, she wouldn't get it out of her head, even after my grandma explicitly told her to wait."

"Oh, so it's basically like with my parents?"

Fudo asked, with a curious smile, as he grabbed Isamu by the shoulder and pulled him closer. Making sure that Isamu was following, he walked out the alley with slight glances over to him. Isamu only looked up at Fudo with a smile that this time was accompanied by a light blush.

"Well, you probably think that my father was one of her customers... that is true, but only partly. My father was a customer, and that's how they met, yet they actually married, and my mom quit her job because of that... or she wanted to at least. My father was ok with my mom staying in the job, as long as she promised not to catch feelings for someone else, which she held onto until her death. She and my father died because one of mom's regular customers found out she wanted to quit because she found a husband. So not only did he break into our home and killed my father, but he also took his own life together with my mom on one of her last days."

"Damn... how the hell can you talk about this and keep a straight face?... if I was in your shoes, then that would traumatize me for life..."

"I mean, it is sixteen years since that happened... I was at my grandma's house for babysitting and was too young to even really do anything. I heard this only through what my grandma told me, and she only knew this from mom's co-workers... I love my parents still, but for me, my grandma always was my real mother."

Upon hearing the end of his story, Fudo glanced down at Isamu with surprised eyes.

"You're sixteen?! I thought you were thirteen or fourteen or something like that! You're only a year younger than me!"

"Nope, I'm 16! I go to high school already. Oh, and to answer your question from before, I never went to the orphanage. After school, I always went to work so I could support my grandma. I moved into the school dorms after my grandma died. The only thing I got was the ring, and that's all I needed and wanted anyway. Money and other belongings were given to my aunts and uncles."

"So wait... your grandma gave you one ring and told you to give it to your future girlfriend?"

"No, she told me to give it to a special perso-"

"PLEASE STOP!"

A loud and young-sounding voice was able to be heard from the alley they just walked past. Both of them stopped at the same time. Isamu looked back at the alley and then over to Fudo, who already had a serious look in his eyes. Without hesitating a single second, he turned around and walked over to where the sound came from.

"That was Aishi's voice. She's just 11 years old but way more mature than most 15 to 16-year-olds at our orphanage. She claims to be able to see ghosts and tends to get into danger a lot of times because of that, so I swore to protect her... but I didn't think she would be targeted by the rats here... or even go further than the store!"

"You know her that well? Is she that important to you?"

Isamu asked with a nervous look on his face, as both of them walked through the alley, just to see a man in a suit hold a little girl with bright blue hair on her clothes while pressing her against the wall and threatening her with... a ball of fire in his hand?