Now look at him.
In a stranger's shabby room that smells rusty from old time, his shirt and pants are still on but there are dirty bandages all over his body that are so tight that they're restricting his movements, and he's hallucinating that there's a ghost with a deer skull in the corner of his eyes.
A familiar masculine voice urges his nerves to wake up. "So you’re awake?" ah, the stranger. Leo turns his head to the direction and…oh, he sees a wound that’s covered with cottons and bandages, it’s all too familiar to a detective that gets shot in almost every investigation, a bullet wound.
“Unfortunately.” Leo utters as he feels his own blood drains from his face, he fucked up big time.
The man sitting next to the bed is scaring Leo. Listen, Leo understands why he's staring at him that intensely, but it doesn't make it any better.
"Got anything to say?" The stranger hisses.
Leo cranks the gears in his brain, trying to remember what case or who he was chasing before he passed out. Leo turns his head to the man in order to get a look on him, he blinks, and he blinks again, frozen for a second as he inspects the stranger's handsome form. Long luscious silky red hair complimented with peachy skin color. His eyes—eye is a bright warm gold color, Leo didn't notice his eyepatch until the stranger turned his head fully to stare at the detective. "Something got to your throat? I expected more from the guy that shot me."
"I'm sorry." Leo gruffs, turning his head away out of shame.
The man's face immediately goes soft, before he raises an eyebrow, his face turning stern again. He leans forward to Leo, getting closer, and Leo instinctively tries to get up before the man grabs the corner of his collar gently, looking inside.
"Were the bandages too tight?" He asks.
Leo stares at his face, littered with many small scars but his face remains intact. The most noticeable is the scar over his nose and the vertical line under his black eyepatch that is decorated with small golden embroideries in the corners. Oh, this is a dangerous one. Leo's smile falters.
"...It's..not too tight." Leo's eyebrow twitches. Leo tries to remember again, his head being gnawed by a painful ache with every heartbeat. "Urgh—"
"My friend hit the back of your head, I think that's a fair exchange for the bullet wound." The red haired man taps his own covered wound, groaning.
"I don't think that's a fair exchange." Leo replies.
The stranger stays silent for a minute, his golden eye's pupil slitting for a brief second, hm, maybe Leo should call him 'Snake' from now on. "Then how about you answer my questions then to make up for me after I saved you from death and for shooting me?"
Leo stays silent on the bed for a second, Leo has no other words to describe it. 'Saving him from death'—no, he died already, this stranger didn't save him. He still remembered the sound of his skull breaking, the wretched smell of blood that tainted his clothes just before he lost consciousness, and the utterly horrible realization that right now he's laying alive in a bed. Leo doesn't know what to be horrified of, his shock at being alive and feeling disgusted by it or the fact that he's supposed to be dead.
The sound of fingers flicking caught Leo off guard. "Don't disappear into whatever is haunting you, I repeat, will you answer my questions?" The Snake says.
"...depends on what the questions are." Leo rolls his eyes.
"First, who are you?" The snake leans back.
"You guys didn't check my coat for my wallet?"
The man stares at Leo, his face showing how offended he is. "Leo Thrite, 30 years old, October 20th, a detective, probably rich."
"Was that a test or something?"
"I'm checking if you're already clear in the head." The snake shivers, as if remembering what happened last time. "Next question, what were you doing in that alley all bloodied up? We didn't see any injuries on you, even internally, except for the bruise on the back of your head that my friend gave you."
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
"There's a bruise on the back of my head?" Leo raises his head, feeling the ache behind it.
"You were trying to shoot me and my friend had to knock you out before you could." The snake crossed his arms.
Leo scoffs, and Leo still managed to shoot him last time. "Fair." He sucks a breath, sitting up, tugging his own buttoned-up shirt's collar and noticing how it smells nice and looks...clean? And whiter than yesterday, wow, what very clean and polite crimi—saviors. The sound of this ground city¹ is filled with the sounds of machines. It's no better than Neobus² but at least the feeling of fondness in this city is more than welcoming, despite the percentage of crime in it…
Min-Ji, that kid must be worried about him back at the mansion.
Leo should finish the questions quicker. "I was investigating a case, and then I chased a culprit but I fell from one of the building's roofs and onto the alley. There, does that satisfy your curiosity, snake?" Leo grunts.
"You fell from one of the 6 floors building's roof?" The Snake huffs, "Any person as frail as you would die immediately once you hit the ground—" he stops himself for a second, staring at Leo for a minute before muttering something.
Leo's eyes gazed towards the window, the bustling city covering the view, full with many machines that emit smoke. Of course if you see it just from the outside you won't go ahead and think: 'oh! It's not dangerous' and instead dawdle in some famous store, but when you go into an alley or some quiet neighborhood or apartment in this city, you'll encounter a whole mafia group. The point is that this city is unsafe, people come here and there because ground cities are the perfect place to do illegal things and Leo keeps being bombarded with cases from the ground cities.
Well not all of them are bad, Leo understands, in the past few visits to investigate cases in this city he met some really nice people and even made some friends here. But he's always so unfamiliar with this place because of how it keeps changing from the destruction of these crowds of law-breakers, and it keeps getting worse. Even his mechanic friend kept moving shops because of these bastards ruining the places she moved to.
"...thanks for helping me by the way, I'm sorry for the bullet in your shoulder too." He covers his face, his cheeks clearly reddening from embarrasment.
The man tilts his head, red hair draping over the background and his shoulders like fancy curtains despite his rough appearance. “Don't thank me, thank my friend, she's the one that fixed both of us up.” he rolls his eyes.
"Yeah, hahahhahahah…hah." This is awkward, Leo grits his teeth before he feels a warm bowl on his lap. He looks at the hand that gave him the bowl, it's scarred just like the man's face but the scars are more prominent, then his sight travels to the man's face. The warm light made him look soft, even with his furrowed eyebrows.
He stands up from the chair that's next to the bed, walking towards the door. Leo's eyes narrow as he opens the door. "One last question but…have we met before?"
"No, but I have seen your picture in a wanted poster I think. Don't worry, I don't plan on reporting you in after what you've done for me."
"...my name's Illien by the way, in case that sounds familiar to you."
The Snake stays quiet again. "I'll leave now, get down when you're ready."
"Alright alright, Snake." Leo calls him that again, he doesn't budge. And once Illien leaves the room Leo's face twists into a deep frown, tch, this one's smart. Leo looks back down to the wooden bowl on his lap, not moving it, it smells nice. The door shuts.
As if Leo would eat it.
***
Nonetheless, Leo walked outside of the room. Apparently the room he was in was upstairs so he had to go downstairs. One might not believe him but he always has bad luck with stairs. Luckily it seems like this stair doesn’t hate him, for now. He walks over to the only hall and sees an open room at the end of the wide hallway, covered with a single thin cyan fabric, and a gaping door.
The wallpapers surrounding this place are torn and rotten, eaten by time bit by bit revealing the sturdiness of the bricks behind the flowery cover. Huh, he’s getting poetic. Leo thought to himself before tearing his gaze away from the walls and interiors. Seeing the silhouette perk up at his steps on the creaking wooden boards, the friend’s form is as muscly as that red-haired man, short spiky hair that has the end of the length behind their ear and two very stylish decorative wings on the head. They yank the curtains to the side, revealing that the wings were in fact, not some decorations but actual white wings that belong to a bird-type of person; an Avian³?
“Ah, you’re awake.” A feminine sturdy voice stops his thoughts. “Feeling anything strange?”
“...no, I want to thank you for your help.”
“You didn’t need any help actually, but that guy whined to me about you looking like you're on death's doorstep, so I pretended to put tight bandages on you.” she scoffs, the wings on her head droops low.
Oh wow that guy could actually be nice even after Leo tried to shoot him. "Is there anything I can do or give to repay it?"
Kana holds up her claw-like right hand. "50 golden pearls."
What an expensive group. Leo thought as he pulled out a pouch, luckily he still had the ground cities' currency.
"...50 capital⁴ golden pearls."
She's insane. That's basically the equivalent of 100 golden pearls in the ground city, and who even is sane enough to ask an injured person for 100 golden pearls!? Leo stares at her and sees a faint flicker of bitterness in her face, that's…Leo sighs, okay, he understands, he shot her friend, that's to be expected. "I hope you make good use of it." Leo shoves the ground cities' currency back in his pockets and pulls out the Neobus' capital currency.
The Avian's eyes widen for a second and let Leo stare around the room, it's a surprisingly decent clinic despite the shabby appearance of the building's insides. He steps forward and bumps onto a small table. He immediately grabs it on the sides so the object on top of it doesn't fall—said object is a picture frame with a single burnt picture, a picture that holds too much memory huh?
Leo stares at it, there's obviously the Avian in the middle, in the right corner there seems to be a younger snake, and on the other corner it's a man with a black beard and hair, he looks like he's five years older than Leo, he looks like the detective and-
Oh.
"When are you going to leave, detective?" The dark blue-haired Avian calls him. "You look like you can walk back just fine."
"Do I look familiar to you?" Leo asks, his back still facing her.
"I can't tell." She stares at Leo who still stood there, staring at the picture. "I've met too many people in my life, I don't care about remembering their faces that much."
"Then does the name Hades ring a bell?"
Leo hears something crash, was she carrying something? Not that he cared, he got a clue after 20 years. His ears focused on his own chest—heart, hearing it beat frantically. In the next moment he feels the way his shoulders get grabbed by the Avian, yanking him away from the small table and to the front of the menacing Avian. Her bright blue eyes contrast the shadow she's casting over Leo.
"How do you know that name?" She asks, her grip on his shoulders so tight that they could leave more bruises in his body.
Leo could only smile at her face, showing off his fangs that doesn't compare to Illien's or hers.
"How do you know him?" He asks back, tip-toeing to get closer.
The Avian only glares at Leo, her eyebrows furrowing deep. Leo clicks his tongue, pointing at himself.
"I see that he never told you that he has a brother."
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1: Ground Cities : Cities that are on the ground, despite most of them having walls that protects them from the outside they're still deemed unsafe despite everything because it was made for the people who are low middle-class or lower.
2: Neobus : The safest city in this region, hence why it's called the capital. Where middle-class and upper classes reside.
3: Avian : a sub-race of humans that are related to birds, as you can tell, they have bird features such as feathers and wings, and come in a lot of colors too depending on what bird they’re similar to.