The two boys walking in front of Joao were both in their school v-necks and had their ties neatly made. Their grey school pants barely touched their shiny black shoes and exposed just slightly their matching white socks.
Joao who was walking from behind them felt disturbed by the socks because the required shade or school was either grey or an even darker grey. What all three of them had in common was that their hair was dyed red.
Joao had on his school jacket comprising of three different shades of blue and a logo on its left side. The position of the logo was used to vary who can wear what, the left side was for males and the right side was for the girls.
His jacket was modified to have a hoodie and an elevated collar reaching over his nose when zipped completely. It was equally large at the bottom too, almost reaching Joao's knees. Still, it was a comfortable experience to him and would almost float away into a world of dreams whenever he got the chance to enjoy its warmth.
They had been walking for a while now when they finally left the school block, from then it looked like a different world. As the three students passed by several people would run to their faces with paper bags and take out various things to try and sell to them.
One, in particular, ran to the guys in front with a bag full of pens, he begged, got rejected, and begged again. This earned him a punch to the guts and the two boys snatched away some of his pens just to spite him.
This was one of the moments that angered Joao, not the cruelty in particular, but the fact that he never got the urge to step in and help. The fact that he barely ever felt sympathy for anyone. For a while now he has been operating with his mind to judge who to help and at this moment that poor old man didn't reach the requirements.
As he passed by him the old man and Joao made contact for a few seconds. His looked as if it was falling off and his white beard was scattered across his face like shrubs in the desert the same thing applied to the hair on his head.
After getting a glimpse of him, Joao could only feel disgusted because of how dirty and raggedy he was. But his face remained unchanged and he proceeded down the street of these almost completely abandoned buildings.
Joao also noticed the presence of a few government employees, the police, and the army ants. They were probably here to either bug people into cleaning up the streets of spread the worship of the president.
Their two electric cars were the brightest thing on these streets despite the glaze of the beautiful sun in the sky. Their bodies were blue and white while the body line glowed red now and then. Joao was unable to clearly see the tires because on his side of the streets there were some cars parked by the sidewalk and he was too short to see over.
Joao ran into someone's back and hurt his nose, he cursed in a low voice and covered it. The guy he bumped into was one of the two boys he had come here with and he was standing still because another one of them was talking to the police in front.
"Sorry," he apologized to Joao and moved a bit to the side. This boy's Phenyo and he was almost as tall as Monke. He was bulky and his face looked the left side of his lip had a scar that looked like he tried slicing it in half. It reminded Joao of Copper, they also had the same skin tone.
Unconsciously Joao put his hand on Phenyo's cheek and compared their complexions. Phenyo grabbed it and flung it away, "don't try and make fun of me." He looked away.
But Joao couldn't care less and just examined his hand, 'it was off by a shade. Copper was much darker.' He thought.
Before he noticed it, Joao drowned himself deep into his thoughts comparing Phenyo and Copper making theories about their non-existent relationship.
"Joao," Phenyo called. "We're leaving. Joao, Joao." Phenyo sighed and extended his hand to try and tap him. Before he was able to touch Joao, his hand was grabbed and his body was flicked over.
"Oh no, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to do that!" Joao exclaimed, but as he took in the scene he noticed that Phenyo was able to successfully land on his feet on the other side. "Wow, how did you do that?"
"It was nothing," Phenyo grunted.
"Are you two done playing? We have to get this done and head home quickly. That again reminded Joao that no one is supposed to be seen in school uniform past 6 pm. But it was still 25 minutes past 4 so they had enough time to circle a few other blocks and still have time to walk home. And if the walls bury the sun before they get the chance he can always call a cab.
The last boy in this group was named Kofi and he was also light-skinned like Joao, he was lean and broad-shouldered. His hands were covered with bandages, he had a beanie on his head which still exposed his hair.
Phenyo followed up quickly and Joao took his time behind them, the following block of buildings had much more human life on it. And with human life came human life troubles, gambling, smoking, and street workers were all over the place. It looked like a downgraded copy of the Oasis casino at the Merry blocks.
Again as was with the previous street, people offering different services would occasionally spring on them obstructing their process. It also made it harder for the boys to find informants. These are people place randomly around the territory to watch everything closely without interrupting. And yes, like that police officer.