Hearing her name spoken from Joel's lips, the woman named Chris gave an ecstatic smile as she linked arms with Joel. Turning around, she finally noticed the rest of us and tilted her head in confusion.
Seeing her look, Joel laughed as she brushed over all the explanations by stating she was our chaperone to Bottom street. And with a knowing look in her eye, Chris understood that the real meaning was too confidential for Joel to tell her and just obediently nodded her head.
"For now, we're just waiting to be called by Lucifer."
Giving Chris a silent thank-you hug for not asking any questions, Joel smiled at her as she spoke. In response, after Chris heard the reason why the six of us were just standing around, she grinned and led us to her apartment.
"Lucifer is usually pretty efficient, so he should contact you soon. But until then, feel free to make yourself at home!"
She swung open her apartment door to show her warm and cozy house. The apartment, which seemed to only be slightly bigger than mine, was jam packed with things. Just from a quick glance, I could see countless trinkets lining the shelves hammered into the walls, many bookshelves that had turned into display cases for her things, and a whole wall dedicated to pictures of her and a small child.
The child in the pictures had a bright smile as he tightly clung onto Chris' arm. In most of the pictures I could see, his hands never let go of Chris, and his eyes would always glow a bright green as he smiled at her.
"Ryan! We have guests!"
Calling out into the house, Chris then gestured for us to sit on the large L shaped beige sofa that occupied the most space in the living room.
Nodding our heads, Joel and Jade naturally sat on the short end of the sofa, and us children lined up on the longer side. As we were sitting down, I heard footsteps coming from the left and tilted my head to look. Coming out of one of the two rooms was an older version of the child in the pictures.
"Hello."
Ryan nodded his head as he greeted us, a refreshing and cool smile on his face. Turning right, he entered the kitchen, clearly following after Chris, who had hummed as she went to prepare some refreshments for us.
"..."
Sitting on the right of Oliver, I noticed immediately when his eyes narrowed at the sight of Ryan and his eyebrows raised slightly. Even though he had quickly put on an expressionless mask, the change in his expression reminded me of when the two of us had met Cale.
...It can't be.
My eyes drifted over to the wall, seperating the mother and son pair from us, and I couldn't help but stare.
"Dan?"
Hearing Frank's voice, I turned my head left and put on a smile to reassure Frank and Linel.
"What is it?"
I turned my body towards the two, away from the pair as if turning a blind eye on them, and saw Frank gesturing for me to come closer.
Leaning towards him, I saw him point towards something on the paper in his hands. It was the paper about his brother.
"You said that you wanted to know more about my brother, right?"
I nodded my head at his words and tilted my eyes down to look at the picture he was pointing to. A young boy, most likely Will, was squating down on the dirty ground with another young boy who looked to be Raven. The two boys had their heads tilted back, leaning on the brown wall behind them as their mouths were open. Most like in the middle of a conversation. The boys' lips were cracked and slightly bloody from dehydration. Their eyes were soulless as they stared blankly at the sky. All in all, it was a pretty depressing sight to see.
On the bottom of the picture, in tiny font, was the caption of the picture.
'Cropped picture from Vincent Share's book : The State of Bottom Street'
Extending a hand, Frank caressed the Will in the picture as he whispered in a voice tinged with nostalgia.
"Before I was born, my parents say they switched between living in Middle Middle street and Top Bottom street. I don't think it was money issues, since my mother's family is from High street, so I guessed it was probably something related to the faction."
Flipping the paper, I laid eyes on a second photograph. This one had Will and Ralph standing beside many, many children. The two were facing the camera, their polite smiles frozen, in what seemed like a year end photoshoot from an orphanage.
"The paper says that they adopted my big brother from the orphanage at Top Bottom street the year before I was born. At that time, they were living in Middle Middle street so it was big news. And Raven got adopted into High street due to showing talent in the sciences at school in Bottom street."
Frank turned the page again; this time the picture was of two different families. On the right was a familiar family of three. Frank's parents were smiling at the camera, with one hand laid on Will's shoulders. Will had a half smile on his face, his eyes abyss black even through the picture, showing how much his time at Bottom street had affected him. On the left, Raven's family of three was somewhat similar. Except that his adopted parent's looked stricter and more stern than Frank's parents. However, through those thick glasses and high expectations, I could see genuine care for Raven shine in those eyes.
"As my big brother, Will did everything he could for me. If I ever felt hungry, he would dig into his pocket to fund our spontaneous trips to Middle Middel Market. If I fell down, he would whisk me up into his arms and carry me back home. He was more doting to me than my parent's were. I guess I should have seen that as a sign.
He skipped a couple of pages of the paper until he landed on one of the last pages. The picture explained the focus of that entire page. Sitting on an euthanasia center chair, Will was holding hands with a younger version of Frank as the two brothers leaned on each other. Beside them, Frank's parent's were clearly doing their best to hold in their tears.
The side profile of the two children was heartbreaking. Frank had a pained smile on his face, while Will's eyes were furrowed as he reached his free hand over to smoothen the lines on his forehead. Although Frank's face held no tears, Iit was clear that he was deeply affected by the news of Will's MDVA. But on Will's face, there was no fear at his upcoming deadline. Only worry about whether Frank would feel too sad at his passing, and whether tears would stream down his face.
"Sometimes I wish I could have realised all that doting of his was due to his MDVA. There were so many signs, and I was just too stupid to not recognize them."
Frank stretched out a hand to caress the Will in the photo. Seeing that self-deprecating look on his face, I reached out my own hand to cover his as I looked him in the eye. For the several years we had been friends, Frank never really talked about Will much. However, based on the small snippets of stories I had heard about him over the years, my impression was that Will was a kind and gentle soul. As kind and gentle as you could get from being adopted from Bottom street. Frank's most common stories were of Will listening to his whims, but only if they were reasonable. But even when they were unreasonable, he would still try his best to give Frnak what he wanted while explaining to him why his request was so impossible to do.
If Frank wanted the moon, Will would lecture him as he tried to at least take down the stars.
"I don't think his doting was because of his MDVA. It was probably because he loved you, his brother."
Whispering what I thought, I saw Frank's eyes tear up as he gave me a smile.
"Thanks for saying that."
Wiping his tears with one hand, I was about to reach over to give him a well-needed hug when Chris' voice rang out from behind us.
"Sorry we took so long!"
Turning around, I saw her bright smile as she brought a tray of goodies and set them down on the table in front of us. Beside her, Ryan was holding a similar sized tray filled with drinks. As the two hosts placed the food and drinks in front of us, Joel thanked Chris happily before picking up the drink first.
"I should introduce you to the children here."
Taking a sip, Joel then pointed at us, starting from Linel on the left, and introduced us all.
"From the left is Linel Hank, followed by Frank, Dan Evans, and Oliver Evans."
Looking at us, recognition flashed in Chris' eyes as she smiled at us.
"Nice to meet you boys! I'm Chris, and this is my little brother, Ryan."
She gestured to Ryan, who gave a short nod at his name.
Nodding back to him, I leaned forward to pick up the plastic cup and sipped the blue sparkling drink inside of it. The drink was something I had never seen before, but based on Joel's smile as she drank it, it was probably tasty. Sucking the liquid into my mouth, I immediately closed my eyes.
The drink felt as sparkly as it looked, with bubbles popping inside my mouth in my cheeks as the liquid hit there. It was also cold, which was a rare thing in Middle street, but the coldness seemed to cause the bubbles to pop like crazy in my mouth to give a nice but stinging flavor. Gulping down the thing, I opened my eyes and gave a sigh of satisfaction. Even though the bubbles were too intense in my mouth, as it traveled down my throat, it gave me a pleasant tickling feeling.
Looking down at the bubbly drink, I took a smaller sip as I moved my gaze over to the snack. On the table, a plate of some peach-colored pastry was pilled like a small and unstable tower. Shifting the cup to one hand, I took the snack with the other and observed it as I turned it around. The outside of the snack looked soft; it's shape seemed to resemble a droplet, where it was round at the bottom and converged at the top.
Taking a large bite of the snack, I couldn't help but close my eyes again as the sweetness assaulted my tongue. It was sweet. Increadibly sweet. It was so sweet, in fact, that it overpowered the sparkly taste that remained from the drink.
Quickly, I took a swig of the drink and washed the snack down. Then, once the sweetness had died down to a bearable level, I took a smaller bite of the snack and enjoyed the taste.
"Seeing you enjoy my food so much makes me happy."
I snapped open my eyes and turned my head to meet Chris' smiling face. She was sitting beside Joel, squeezing into the space where the shorter and longer sides of the sofa met. On her left was her brother, Ryan.
Giving me a grin, she took one of the little snacks on her plate and placed it in the empty space where my own snack used to be.
"Since you seem to like it so much, here. Have another one."
Thanking her with a small voice, I watched as she leaned back into her seat and took one of the snacks. However, she didn't place the snack in her mouth. Instead, she turned her wrist and deposited the little droplet of sweetness onto Ryan's plate.
Looking with wide eyes as his sister gave him one of her sweets, Ryan furrowed his brows and reached for it, clearly intending to give it back. To stop him, Chris casually blocked his hand with her own and then smoothly cupped his cheek. Giving him a peck on his check, she then stole a bite of the snack that was currently in his hands before leaned back to her seat.
"Small children are always so cute."
Ruffling her brother's hair, Chris said with a sigh as she turned her body to face Joel.
"So anyway, got any juicy updates about your life above Bottom street? It's been a while since you came down after all."
A mischievous grin appeared on Chris face as she asked Joel, and the two friends started talking and teasing each other. Then, almost as if planned, the three adults stood up at the same time and chatted as they retreated to the kitchen. Leaving the four of us plus Ryan in the living room.
Ryan, who had shifted onto the corner of the longer side of the sofa, was quietly eating and drinking. Seeing this, I returned my attention to my own food and drink, preparing to eat in silence, when I heard Oliver's not so loud but not so quiet voice ring out from beside me.
"Nice to meet you, Ryan. I'm Oliver."