・Serving One - Bread Pudding・
・ー・ー・
「I, 'Misha', Hate Bread Pudding.」
・ー・ー・
Born in poverty.
It was a sentence that Mikhail was far too accustomed and familiar.
Growing up home, or rather, a small box that fitted his malnourished 8 year old body at the time, with a worn out blanket he took from the orphanage he ran away from, his shivered at the harsh winter.
His back length greying hair, with still bits of black, - from stress- was matted with grime and dirt, his dark skin turning even darker with time, skin as rough as unpolished wood, his flesh was barely there, and skin clung to his ribs and spine, dark brown eyes sunken along with his cheeks.
He looked like a dead body, a living, dead body.
He originally had parents, but as time got tougher and tougher, by 4 years old, they has given him up, fed up with caring for him, and losing their jobs beforehand, they gave him to an orphanage.
It was midnight already, he had not eaten all day, or yesterday either. Snow provided water, but he hungry to the point he was dizzy. Unable to snatch a apple from a store earlier was and could be life a threatening mistake.
He was originally placed in a orphanage, Valdict was the name, but ran away from it a month or less later when all the children there were mistreated and worst, and sometime happened, assaulted.
Yet during the short time he stayed there, he became a victim to it all. He possessed an already weak body before he went to the orphanage, and in the 'caretakers' eyes, he was easy target. He was weak, he was unable to fight them, and so, he became their tortured and victim.
He wished they just beaten him to death, rather than taking advantage of him, but of course, it didn't happen, so it ended to what is happening now, he ran away, never looked back even after they chased him until he hid on a dimly lit alley way, and those were years ago, and here he was, starving to possible death if hypothermia did not get to him first.
During the years he was on the streets, he stole, and killed for survival. People usually did not care of others much, that he clearly saw with his very eyes.
Laying on the box, he reminiscence the event, and like horses without a guide, ran wild and scared.
His first kill, was fueled by his rage, and it could be debated if it was a accident by provocation, or intentional, but a kill nonetheless, and he was guilty, with punishment of entire damnation to the lowest layer of hell itself.
He cried for the first time in a year after the killing.
・ー・ー・
It was a fight for survival. The streets are never kind, and it never will be. It was to steal or to be stolen, it was to live or to die, it was to kill or be killed.
All kinds of events happen in the streets all the time, fights, territory squabbles, gambling; all sort of things, but two of the most common were theft and murder. If you are a man on the streets, empathy was rare, and no bystander will care if you die, you are after all, a man on the streets.
There are, and will still be, days where drastic, and often accidental or intentional, deaths occur, and one happened on blood moon at a starless and cloudy sky, with rain threatening to fall.
It started as an argument who stole the small bread pudding, between him and a neighbouring street dweller, Lukas, that escalated far too quickly.
"Where did the bread go, Lukas?" Misha practically hissed, glaring daggers at the other boy, who looked nervous, but was glaring back as well.
The boy had messy, and uncombed brown hair, mismatched green and purple eyes, his clothes also barely clung to him, pale skin discoloured with bruises.
"I don't know where it went Mikhail!" He barked back to Misha, avoiding his angry eyes, who scowling deeply to the point his brows furrowed and showed his small k-9 teeth.
"Answer me properly, Lukas, don't shift your gaze away from me or I will gouge them up with my fingers." He stated firmly, staring at the face of the boy, and saw a small piece of bread crumb on the back of his hand.
The air kept getting thinner, and colder, and the place was a tense as steel.
"I don't believe that wherever it went will leave evidence behind, especially, right at the back of their hand.." He said in a low voice, glaring right into the hand of Lukas, who noticed, and frantically wiped his hands on his shirt, then looked at him with a frantic apology.
"Mikhail, look, I'm really sorry! But I was starving." Lukas said in honesty, but Misha's glare was unrelenting and unforgiving.
"Is that the truth? Then do explain why I was hearing a feminine voice earlier?" Lukas flinched, realising that there was no escape from Misha's wrath.
Lukas knew what he was capable of, and while Mikhail was skinny as he was, he was crafty and brainy, he made what he have, and he survived on it well. He caused poisoning to a nearby street man as well for taking his blanket away, Lukas has no doubt in mind that Misha could do it to him.
"Get out of my territory, before I fulfill my promise earlier." He hissed again, pointing to the exit of the alleyway, where it showed the rain pouring, explaining the coldness.
"Mikhail, please-" He pleaded, but got cut off, before Mikhail roared in anger.
"GET OUT OF HERE, OR SO HELP SAINT NICHOLAS RESTRAIN ME FROM KILLING YOU RIGHT NOW."
"SHE WAS THREATENING TO BRING ME BACK TO AN ORPHANAGE-"
Having restrains snapped, and the word orphanage triggering something in him, Mikhail lunged at him, eyes seeing only red.
It went a blur to Misha, but when the red was gone, and that his inner boil was cooled off, there he saw Lukas, laying underneath him, as he was pining him down, with blood under his head, eyes bloodshot with blood tears from the pressure, and forming bruise on his neck with hand prints.
It took Misha no longer than a second to process what he saw, before he scrambled off the now lifeless body of Lukas.
Misha almost immediately, and definitely, cried. He stuttered on his noise, unable to release even a single word, as he the realization came to him.
He had killed somebody, and it was somebody he had started to grow close to.
He cupped his dirty hands over his mouth, and prevented himself from screaming in fear of being prosecuted by the police.
With quick thinking, he grabbed the body by the leg, and with great difficulty, started dragging the body behind the behind the dumpster where Lukas slept at, and his the body.
He cried as silently as he could that night, and did not get a wink of sleep that day, nor week.
・ー・ー・
Mikhail shifted his gaze to the dumpster, where it laid unmoving for the past year.
With a weakened body, he rose up from the box, with the blanket wrapped tightly on his body, and looked behind the dumpster.
He was greeted by the sight of a skeleton, with the very same clothes Lukas wore, the skull lulled to the side as if he was sleeping.
Mikhail, unable to resist any longer, grabbed the skull, cradled it to his chest, and cried.
His tears dropped one after another, as it was endless, like the stars. He let out short gasp to breath in, but due to it, he was unable to hear the small taps on the ground.
He continued, before a thick layered accent voice spoke, drawing his attention towards where the voice came.
"Dear child, why do you cry?"
There stood another person, clearly older than him. It was a woman, her red hair was cut up to her chin, her eyes were steely metallic grey, Her face was aged with wrinkles, she was around her late 30s. She wore a cream coloured turtle-neck, a grey scarf wrapped around her, the coat jacket she wore had a hood on it, was black in colour.
"P-pardon?" Mikhail stuttered. He suddenly feared her, he did not know, but he felt a horrifying aura that surrounded her, like snake ready to strike.
"Let me ask you again, and to be honest, dear child, why do you cry?" She asked again, ever so sharp eyes looked at him and the skull he cradled as she crouched down to his level.
Mikhail looked at the skull, his hair hiding his sunken and tear stricken face, before he spoke, avoiding looking at her.
"I- I am holding my friend.." He stuttered, voice small and cracking.
"And is this friend of yours that you are holding also part of that skeletal body?" She asked again, and instead of speaking, Mikhail just nodded.
"I'll take assumption that you did this?" She said, and Mikhail stiffened, unresponsive, and that gave her answer.
She stood up from her crouched position, and offered her hand, to which he just noticed that she wore gloves also.
"Stand up child, you are coming with me." She said, and Mikhail looked at her hand before her expression, which was blank, her eyes however held some form of empathy and oddly enough, understanding. However, Mikhail couldn't let go of Lukas, and the woman noticed.
"You are free to take your friend along the way. Here, give it to me, and I'll hide it in my jacket." She offered to him, and with great hesitation, and uncertainty, Mikhail handed it to her, and just like she said, she hid it in her jacket, and Mikhail stood soon after.
Hand still reached to him, he grasp it delicately, and clasp on it, and felt warmth other than his own hand for the first time in a year, in which he used to do with Lukas, and slow tears came out once again as he remembered.
They started walking at the cold night, and in which for the first time since, the street was empty for once, as the two left with the winter snow halted on it's tracks.
・ー・ー・
The woman took him to some form of building, it looked very basic on the inside and outside, with a heater, there were a couple plants, the wallpaper was simply floral, however, as soon as the door shuts, a flicker of sorts occur, and the lights flickered off, before it flickered on again, and Mikhail was in a entirely different place.
"What?" Mikhail muttered in confusion and disbelief as he absorbed what he was seeing.
There were more people inside, where previously, there was the receptionist only and them. This people however, openly carried weapon, some had knives strapped on their scabbard attached to their calf, others had guns in their casing, and others played with their respective weapon they were holding.
The walls were prestige white and had a beautiful painting of woman in the area where reception was. Speaking of where the reception used to be, in it's place was instead a dark brown couch, with multiple sitting on it chatting, working, or simply resting.
"Miss. Tatiana! Welcome back." One of the person present said, and soon the others did the same.
"Eh? Who's that Miss. Tatiana?" One of them asked, who Mikhail recognize as the receptionist earlier, turned out they, were a female.
Others soon noticed but paid not much mind other than tune their ears in.
"He will be a new Cassowary." The woman, who was named Tatiana, - who knows really - , said simply. The woman gasped in surprise, and a deep look of shock possessed her expression as she looked down to him, to which he started to fidget around.
"Miss. Tatiana, are you sure? He does not look like it even." One spoke out, it was a tall man with brown hair and blue eyes who spoke, he was leaning on a wall, previously conversing with his friend.
'Tatiana' reached on her jacket, and pulled out the skull, Lukas. Mikhail instinctively reached to it, as she gave it him, she spoke again.
"That's his friend. He was the one who killed him. Fyodor, look at his eyes, and tell me if you see an eye of a killer." She finished as she grabbed hold of Mikhail's shoulders and spun him towards where 'Fyodor' stood, who leaned out of the wall, and approached him.
The man looked at his eyes, and Mikhail has never seen such intimidating eyes before his life, he instinctively held his breath in.
The man stared for 10 seconds at best, before he took his gaze away and nodded to 'Tatiana'.
"You're right. It's on his eyes, but I can clearly see regret in there." He said.
"Call a Corvus and a another Cassowary, we will take it out off him." She commanded to the woman earlier, who nodded and started calling.
"Hey kid, what's your real name?" The man, 'Fyodor', asked.
Mikhail looked at him before hugging the skull tighter. "M- Mikhail. I'm Mikhail.." He said.
'Fyodor' paused for a moment, thinking of a name, before he spoke again. "Okay, I got one, from now on, whenever you are in the establishment or near our comrades, your name will be 'Misha'. To normal people, you will use your birth name."
"Misha?" Mikhail queered in curiosity with caution.
"All here, are using nicknames. Even Miss. Tatiana." 'Fyodor' explained.
"Passing on this topic now, where are they?" 'Tatiana asked.
Just as she said that, two people came in, a man and a woman.
The man had dyed blue hair, and even striking blue eyes, he stood taller than all the people present in the room. In comparison, the woman beside him was the shortest among all of them, even Mikhail, as Mikhail stood at 5'4 at 8 year, she was roughly 5'2, with dyed pink hair and green eyes. One thing they both had in common was they wore a white long sleeve buttoned up shirt, a pale teal tie, a dark teal waistcoat, indigo-black pants, and brown combat boots, - laced - that reached mid way their legs.
"These two will be your mentor. Vanya and Katya, this will be the new Cassowary." 'Tatiana' briefly said before she left.
Mikhail did not had enough time to react, as the came close to him, the man grabbing like a sack of potatoes, and the woman grabbing the skull away from, holding it delicately, to which he started trashing and moving about as the man carried.
"Hey, calm down. We're just gonna bathe you first." The man explained, which Mikhail made a wild guess his nickname might be 'Vanya'.
"L-Lukas-!"
"Like he said, calm down, we'll just polish it before giving it back to you." The woman this time said, guessing her nickname might be 'Katya' this time.
"Fine, but why are you taking me wherever I'm going? What is this place, really?" Mikhail asked.
The two looked at him, before looking at each other with raised brows.
"You don't know?" The woman questioned.
"What, don't know?" Mikhail repeated in question.
"It's seems he doesn't, alright then. 'Misha', you have been taking in by the current vice leader here, Miss. 'Tatiana'. This place is supposed to be not for kids at all, but she chose you, she clearly sees something to place you under the guidance of a Cassowary and Corvus." The man explained, but Mikhail did not understand it, as the woman noticed his confused expression, she sighed and explained instead.
As soon as she finished her words, his eyes widened.
"What it basically means is that from this day on, you are under us for training and guidance to become a new Cassowary, a killer. Under my training, you'll learn how to hack important files and steal, under 'Vanya', you will learn how to kill and not regret. Miss 'Tatiana' chose you for this, she sees some potential in you."
「Because It Was The Reason That Started All This Mess.」