"I am capable to help you. All you have to do is to ask me once, and I can get you out of this hell," offered Bruce.
"I have absolutely no need for your help." Collin's voice was faint and barely audible to him.
Bruce shoved the mop back inside the water filled bucket and approached him closer. "You will die if you keep that arrogance on, just go on and ask for my help." He persisted.
Collin was on the verge of falling unconscious but a displeasing smirk formed on his lips. "How is a cleaner going to help me?"
"A cleaner?" emphasized Mr. Bruce. He looked downwards at his clothes and exclaimed, "God Damn! you are right. One can easily comprehend that. But to tell you the truth, I'm someone really special, having a lot of influence on this world. Today is just one of those days when I volunteer in detention centers."
Collin's faint smirk turned into loud chuckles. "Volunteering in a jail?" he asked. "Not even an orphanage but a jail?"
Bruce smiled looking at him. "According to me, both orphanage and jail is quite similar."
Collin had no idea what he was saying and his fevered brain was making it harder for him to hold on to his sanity. Then all of a sudden, the four walls around Collin became to spin around him. The voice of Bruce started to sound muffled and he fell unconscious on the spot. The last thing he saw that day was Bruce rushing towards him.
As his eyelids slowly opened after days of darkness passed, light touched his iris and showed him changed surroundings. He last remembered himself being in the dark and dusty rooms of the detention center, but now it had changed into a glorious bedroom with plenty of sunlight coming from the huge window beside a grand-sized bed that he slept on. For one moment, he mistook it to be another dream. But soon he realized that he was in the house of a mafia.
A nurse that chaperoned him asleep, saw him slowly opening his eyes and rose to inform the master of the house by a telephone that lay beside.
"The patient is conscious and the vitals are also in normal range."
Collin still racked his blurry brain to chase his memories back, to look for the answers. Then came the the noise of footsteps approaching him closer. He got up sitting straight in fright and perplexed seeing around him. The footsteps grew louder and came face that was familiar to him.
"Did you sleep well... too well if you ask me. It has been six days since you are lying on that bed."
He could recognized his face at first its first glance. To his surprise, the cleaner that he saw earlier was suddenly standing in front of him with a classy tuxedo on. He couldn't believe his eyes seeing that dashing man who was earlier found mopping the floor of the prison toilets. He had many question to ask but since he had just woken from his sleep, he needed a few minutes to get himself together. "How did I end up here?" he asked.
Bruce slightly scratched his head. "That's a long story if I'm to tell it with details. You just have to know that you are safe with me and not even the law of this country can do anything about that."
"Did you get me out of the jail?" he asked, surprised. "How?"
Mr. Bruce chuckled at the adorable reactions of teenager Collin. "I told you that I am a man with a lot of influence."
-----
"Wait wait wait!" shouted Ursula, interrupting Collin from telling his story. "So he got you out of the jail after barely meeting once?"
"I asked the same thing."
"Then what did he did that for?"
"He has always been vague about it. I don't know if it's truth or not. But he said that he could see himself in me, that he could relate to the experiences that I had."
Ursula shook her head slowly from side to side. "I don't if I should be jealous of that girl or you? or maybe both."
"You needn't envy anyone. You are perfect the way you are, so don't let his indifferent attitude bother you. You deserve things much better than this."
Ursula looked desperately in the eyes of Collin. Her stare fell on every feature on his face. "Sometimes I feel like forgetting about that jerk and running far away taking you with me. But then I remember that you will always be here and that I can have you whenever I want to. It's your despicable master that I need to keep a hold on, or else I will be in a loss."
Collin removed her from his sight and looked away from her provocative gaze. "You're sure really selfish to wish for something like that."
"I think I deserve to be a little selfish; my life has been so hostile toward me that I can allow myself to disregard the trifles such as 'feelings of others'." Ursula gathered her hair into high bun on the top of her head, leaving a few strands of hair to fall on her face. "By the way, what else information do you have about this girl?" she inquired.
"She is just a teacher in Sunflower Kindergarten, with no family or blood relation of her own, she lives with her adoptive mother. She has to support her trouble maker adoptive mother and has a lot of debt on her shoulders. I don't understand why you are so worried about a girl like that?"
Ursula smiled wryly at his words, "I never asked you to dig any information about her but you already have so much that it puts me in a bad mood."
-----
Oriel stood in front of the broken mirror, brushing her long-velvety hair thoroughly. Her reflection was distorted from the middle and she was lost in some thoughts while her eyes inattentively looked at herself.
"How can someone change into a completely different person?" her lips murmured to her own ears. "Oh! dear god, why did he have to see me like this?"
She tossed the hair brush aside and tied her hair in a high pony-tail. She wiped her face with a wet cloth and headed outside to her job.
Stepping outside of a bus teeming with passengers, she reached Sunflower Kindergarten. A two-storey infrastructure made the building of small kindergarten in a valley. It was the place where Oriel worked as a teacher and earned a salary to maintain a sweet and sour living with Bella.
When she entered into a classroom, toddlers younger that five rose from their little chairs and wished their teacher with etiquette. "Good morning, miss!"
Oriel smiled brightly at the petite faces of the children. "Good morning, everyone. Shall we start another fun day with a quick singing session?"
'Yes!" echoed in the classroom.
"Alright, so who is going to sing first?" asked Oriel.
She was the youngest and prettiest teacher in the whole school. That was the reason why all the children loved her and addressed to her as their favorite.