The door to the orphanage slowly began to open, as a single mahogany brown eye peered out of it. Seeing all the bodies of all the unconscious black bone members on the floor, the door fully swung open as the body of its sole owner carefully stepped out. She was clearly still cautious as she had armed herself with a rolling pin.
"You... actually beat them all?"
Min-Su and Akira looked at each other, before slowly turning back to her.
"I guess we did, didn't we?"
The woman looked at them quietly for a couple seconds, before retreating back into the house. However, she left the door open. She then said with a voice of slight reluctance.
"It's getting late.. the three of you should.. come in."
The group silently looked at each other for a couple seconds before letting themselves inside. Melon was the first to enter the home, with Min-Su and then Akira following him from behind.
The inside of the house wasn't as bad as the outside, with nicely painted purple walls decorated with several fake but nice looking paintings. Immediately on the left, a set of stairs climbed up into darkness as several pairs of prying eyes belonging to kids, watched them enter.
Akira followed the two through the house as they were brought through several rooms. The hallway had a nice red carpet, but you could feel the missing floorboards in the floor as you walked over them. The living room was moderately sized, with two velvet couches and a table in the middle, but even then it was eerily empty. And finally, the kitchen which they entered was similar in size to the living room, with a long mahogany table with 10 chairs tightly surrounding it. The cabinets and the counter was at the far left of the room, all made out of the same wood.
The three boys sat next to each other at the temple, while the woman sat opposite of them. Hiding near the door was Leroe who was watching them all.
The 4 just looked at each other awkwardly as a wave of silence permeated throughout the orphanage. To break it, the women finally introduced herself as Thea.
"You guys are from the outside right? People who stand out as much as you wouldn't have popped out of nowhere.
Akira jumped a little before panicking and looking at Min-Su. The boy was also just as worried as he was. Thea then slammed one of her fists into the table before locking eyes with Akira. In just a few moments, whatever confidence Akira had quickly disappeared as he felt something cold run down his spine.
Although this girl looked caring, the streets of Gehenna had turned her into a rather intimidating women.
"Oh please! Don't even try to pretend now, I won't rat you out so you have nothing to worry about."
The two boys quickly calmed down as they wiped the sweat from their foreheads, but what she said next quickly made them panic once again.
"Well... I won't snitch if you do me a favour."
'A favour??? Do we even have the time to do that?? I have to refuse!'
"It's nothing big if your worried... I just need you to talk to someone. They'll be here in an hour or 2. Just a small conversation. It could be about anything really! What books they like, what songs they listen too, their favourite sport... stuff like that. Simple, right?"
A simple task, yet awfully suspicious. Despite how it looked on the surface, it required from her perspective, quite strong people to complete. Akira deduced that this talk was going to be incredibly difficult, and that the person they may be talking too would be dangerous in some way.
'I'd refuse.. but if she tells the union, finding a place to hide would be very difficult. We'd get caught before we could even do anything.'
He looked at Min-Su who just quietly nodded at him. Then Checking the time on his watch, he saw he had 2 more hours left until it was time to meet back up with Hoshimiya. If it's just a small conversation, then they should be able to get back on time.
"Yeah, we'll accept."
"Great."
And once again, an awkward silence hung in the air. Some time passed, and yet the silence was never broken. Leroe was still looking at the group from the door, but countless other kids from upstairs, slowly stared to sneak down and watch them all. Melon then asked,
"So... what kind of a guy is he?"
"You'll know when you see him."
This might have been a worse idea than Akira initially thought. Just knowing who it was would be enough to make them change their minds about staying in this place, but alas they had no choice. They had already fallen into the maw, and now all they could do was listen obediently.
"Where's the toilet?"
Thea directed Akira where the toilet was, and so he quickly got up and left to use it. As he walked through the house by himself, Leroe was trailing him from behind at a distance. Even after entering the toilet, he could feel the kid, as well as the other children, preying for him out the toilet.
As he washed his hands, he took this opportunity, he tried to deduce the identity of this mysterious attendee.
'Someone that would change our minds if we knew who they were.. They have to be affiliated with Unison. Otherwise there would be no reason for her to keep them a secret.'
If someone related to unison happened to visit here often, it would explain why everything here was much different compared to the rest of Gehenna, apart from the pristine white tower and the living quarters of the guards.
The luxury of clean clothes, carpets and paintings would make more sense if this orphanage had special help from them. But why is this the case? Was it simply because it was an orphanage? That would make sense, but their disregard for the rest of Gehenna made it very inconsistent.
There was something in this Orphanage, or rather, the children that lived here must've been special somehow. This was the conclusion Akira had reached.
'I need to talk to them. If I interrogate them for a bit, then maybe I could learn something before they show up.'
After finishing, he was surprised to see Leroe waiting in front of the door for him. Just his luck! He could ask him first.
'I gotta act casual and not make him nervous or anything. If I pressure him too much, then Thea will intervene.'
"Hey? You want something?"
First he would quickly solve whatever this kids problem was with him. It's clear he was cautious of Akira ever since he entered this place. It was only proper to deal with this, before asking questions of his own.
Leroe then said in a meek voice,
".. You better not try anything with big sis... or big bro will crush you..."
'Huh?'
He was obviously trying to sound tough, but his voice quickly succumbed to his nervousness half way through.
"Big bro?? Whose that?"
Suddenly, the boys voice was filled with confidence as he said,
"Big bro is the strongest guy here! He defeats everyone who annoys us in one punch! Even those annoying black bone gang members become weaklings in front of him, so you better not anger us!!"
The brat was all of a sudden speaking very arrogantly. It seemed his emotions changed drastically if he was talking about his Big brother. Anyway, from what Akira could tell, this 'Big bro' was certainly a borrower, and a strong one at that. No human should've been able to beat that number of gang members apart from him.
"Your big bro would be the one that Thea wants me to talk to? I don't see him anywhere?"
"Well.. he's the only one whoever visits us, so yes I think?"
Great, so if this Unison member did want to cause issues, then fighting back against them would be difficult. Even if they were to somehow win, they would need to shut up Thea and all these kids somehow.
"Say.. does this big bro of yours have a white armband?"
"Of course! In fact, he's so strong, he doesn't even have to wear his all the time! This one time, he tried to get us ones too-"
Before he could finish what he was saying, a loud voice of an angry women echoed through the orphanage,
"Your taking an awful lot of time taking a piss! If your done, stop stalking the corridors and get back here!"
Even though she avoided it, Akira could guess that she had heard the conversation. It was too much of a coincidence that she had interupted him right at the crucial part. None of the children from what he could see had a white armband, so he must've failed in that regard. But it was clear this Borrower had a very deep connection with this place.
The two ended up walking back to the kitchen together, and on the table was something Akira had never expected to see in this place.
"Is that... Uno???"