Encounters || 03

Crushing the piece of paper up. Riku threw it away, not even bothering to see where it landed.

His hand then searched his pockets in his school jeans, pulling out the pack of cigarettes from one and his lighter from the other. he smiled in satisfaction as he held his hand over his cigarette. Running his thumb over the lighters top effectively burning the tip and taking a big drag of it.

'Yes I knew what smoking did to a person. I said I was smart, but that didn't mean I had to act upon it all the time. Bad habits after all don't go away that easy'

Breathing out the smoke he put the box and lighter once more in his jeans. Then looking up his eyes stared up at the buildings before looking at the sky. 'Seems like it's going to pour before I get home'.

Sitting down at the bus stop he continued to enjoy his little piece of heaven between his lips.

"Smoking is bad for you Mister" turning in the direction of the childish voice. A kid somehow sat next to him? She wore a knitted scarf and hat, paired with a small frilled dress and yellow boots. She peered at Riku in interest.

Blowing out his last intake, Riku dropped the smoke and stepped on it. Putting the bud out on the ground.

"Where'd you come from?" 'I hadn't even heared her nor seen her sit there.' Usually that can sometimes happen but he was always alert. His senses were more sharp then he let on, so the fact that this kid had sat here without a single noise. That just wasn't normal.

"I've been here for awhile" 'awhile she says…' She didn't even seem to be lying either, 'another thing I was good at. Reading people.'

"Where's your parents?" He enquired, only for her to shrug in response. 'Was she serious? It was nearly six in the evening.' "You aren't serious right?" Her eyes told him she was and he slumped on his end of the seat.

"Hey mister?" Turning his head to her she had gotten closer. 'Whoa too close! Who's kid was this anyway?'

Looking around there was absolutely no one there, just a few cars passing by.

"Yeah?" He answered in a confused tone. Riku's eyes only continued to look around for her potential guardians.

"Why do you smell different to the other humans?" 'Usually a person would say this kid was insane right?'

His head snapped to her in a subtle way as he read her body language for a potential joke. But her eyes were clear and curiosity present. 'She wasn't joking, but why had she said 'humans' as if she categorized herself differently?' That was behold him.

Looking away and at the sky as the first drops of rain, landed before his feet. He finally replied, "I wish I smelt what you did. Because honestly, I don't know. I guess I just see the world for how it is? I don't really care for others and their problems, I rather keep to myself" 'and that was the truth. After the only person I considered my family met a gruesome end, I stopped caring. Stopped trying to fit into societies order of things in these tedious districts.'

"You are a very intriguing human then" said a more cold and sleek voice. Riku's skin crawled as he turned to his side once more, only this time, to nothing.

His heartbeat rose as he stood up in alarm. Searching around him, nothing, no one, not even a trace that someone had just been here.

Had he lost his mind? After all this time? 'Was my medication making me hallucinate?'

Ranking his right hand through his longish red hair, he decided to walk in the rain. His glasses becoming a nuisance as raindrops robbed his sight further. 'Even if it had just been a mental slip in play earlier, I'm not staying there' there was just a presence that he couldn't shake off.

So in the pouring rain he walked. 'Out of all days not to have an umbrella?' It was a weird and slightly funny sight though, for those who did have one that is.

Their umbrellas were black, as if attending someone's unknown funeral. Pulling off his glasses, his wet hair slightly pulled as the rest just stuck to his face. Putting them carefully into their case into his bag's front pocket. 'There's no way I could afford another pair if I did break them. 'They were hers after all, the only thing I have left of her.' A gift from the old man who was the main officer that took on his case. 

'A sea of black umbrellas, how fitting'. 'She would have loved this scene of the city. Especially considering I was the only one who came to her empty casket that day.'

Reaching home, Riku pulled off his wet uniform from his body, it seemed attached like a second skin. Looking down it seemed the old man was pulling an all nighter again. The 'old man' Riku would mention was one of the men that sat in front of him in the interrogation room 4 years ago just before he turned fourteen.

It seemed that this man took it upon himself to take Riku under his care when that woman died.

'That woman wasn't even my mother' Riku thought as he stepped into the shower. turning the water on with three taps to a motion sensor before guiding his hand up on a separate screen to have the water on high blast. 'Such efficiency'

It never got old as that sense of 'how odd it was to have clean running water and be living in a more rich district then where he had come from.' Had never really left him.

|| Why do you smell different to the other humans? || maybe because he wasn't originally from this district?

|| You are a very intriguing human then ||

'Another to the list, not brave, not a leader, not intriguing.' Smirking Riku scrubbed his body with soap which he'd found foreign. Even now holding the soap made him think back to the times where he would jump into the only semi-clean water that would separate his old district from those districts with privilege.

"Yo Riku! Coming in for a dip?" Spoke a Man who look malnourished and had quite a bush on his face. Riku simply nodded as he jumped in and washed himself with a stone that had been made smooth on one end.

"Riku!" Came the voice he knew all too well as he looked up at his mother who'd just come back with some scraps of food for supper. Knowing the look on her face Riku made haste out of the water and climbed up the rocks to the filthy street she awaited him.

'Back then, I thought I was more fortunate than most' Riku thought, as he came back to the present and turned off the water by simply tapping the motion sensor twice in front of him. Everything in this house was embedded with the high end side of well efficient technology. Riku had always stolen money to get on those trains back then but now the train simply ID him by scanning his body at the entrance.

Although the house took the finger and hand prints of those who touched the door.

Leaving the towel on his head, he sat on the plush lounge in the living room as a holographic page came in front of him.

"Would you like to watch TV master Riku?" Sighing Riku dried his hair with his hands before replying to the automatic house embedded lady maid. An AI built into a house to provide more efficient lifestyle.

"I told you not to call me that"

"But Master Riku, you are the son of Vonic Welton who is a well respected detective" The AI maid replied.

"Then as an official order call me Riku" he said as the AI went quiet as the front door to the house opened.

"You giving her a hard time again Riku?!" Called out Vonic from the hallway as Riku groaned, 'Of course she would have told him'.

"No!" Riku called back obviously lying causing Vonic to chuckle at his adopted son's behaviour.