On the way home, the two boys walked into the intricate back alleys and secret paths that adults call a "maze." The boy stopped and stared at an alley, neither dodging or moving. Zhang Yang, he just watched.
"what is that?"
his friend asked, but the boy didn't need an answer.
"oh."
His friend said after a while:
"Let's go before they see us."
The boy stayed still, the narrow walls of the alley were filled with garbage, and among the garbage, a couple hugged each other, at least the man hugged the woman, and the woman lay helplessly on the dirty ground. The clothes were in tatters.
Suddenly, she turned her head towards the boy. When the man moved on her body, she looked at the two children with pure black eyes.
"Go quickly..."
His friend murmured and pulled him away, and the boy was silent for a long moment, which was made up for by his eloquent friend.
"Just look at it like that. You're lucky we didn't get shot. Didn't your mother teach you what politeness is? You can't look at it like that."
The boy was still a little stubborn and said:
"She's crying."
His friend was getting impatient.
"You don't know, you just see it."
The boy looked at his friend.
"She's crying, Ciel."
His friend fell silent after that, and they walked the rest of the maze in silence, without so much as a "goodbye" when they finally reached their residential spire.
The boy's mother had arrived home before him, and he smelled the cooking noodles and heard her voice humming in the living cabin's only room: a small kitchen with a plastic-steel screen door.
She rolled up her sleeves to her wrists as she walked into the main hall, hiding the tattoos on her arms, but the boy never commented on the way she always hid them. The code symbols tattooed on her skin marked her master. The boy at least knew that, though he often wondered if they had any deeper meaning.
"Your tutoring school called me tonight."
His mother nodded at the lectern—it was now blank, but the boy could easily picture his mentor's face floating on the flat, grainy screen.
"Is it because I'm too slow?"
"Why do you think so?"
"Because I didn't make a mistake, I never make a mistake, so it must be because I'm too slow."
His mother was sitting on the edge of the bed, her hands on her knees. Her freshly washed hair was damp and dark. It was usually blond--a rarity among city dwellers.
"Taros, can you tell me what's wrong?"
The boy sat next to her and let himself fall into her arms.
"I don't understand the point of tutoring, we have to study but I don't understand why we have to do it."
"To be smarter, to be wiser and more powerful, so that you can live on the edge of the city and go work somewhere... somewhere better than here."
She spoke the last few words slowly, scratching casually at the ownership tattoo on her forearm.
"Is this really okay?"
The boy smiled for her, and she responded by hugging him, as she always did after a beating.
On those nights, the blood on her face would always splash on the boy's hair, but tonight there was only one thing splashing on it: her tears.
"Child, why do you say that?"
"I would join a gang, like my father did, and Charles would join a gang, like his father did, and we would both end up dead in the streets."
The boy seemed thoughtful rather than simply melancholy, and all those words that broke his mother's heart failed to move him at all.
To him, facts are facts.
"The edge of the city isn't necessarily better, is it? It's not much different."
She cried, just like the girl in the alley, and the things in their eyes were so similar, the same hollowness, the same numbness.
"Yes."
She admitted in a low voice:
"It's no different there."
"So why do I have to go to a cram school to study? And why do you spend money to buy these books for me to read?"
She failed to give an answer for a long time. The boy listened to her choking and felt her trembling.
"Mother?"
"You can do something else."
She began to rock him, just as she had done with him when he was younger.
"If you stand out from the other kids, if you become the best, the brightest, the brightest, you'll never have to see the world again."
The boy looked up at her, unsure if he heard her correctly or if he liked the idea.
"Leave this world? Then who will..."
He almost said, "Who's going to take care of you," but that only made her cry again.
"Who will accompany you?"
"You never have to worry about me, I'll be fine, but please do answer the tutor's questions and you have to act smart, that's important."
"But where should I go? What should I do?"
"It's all up to you where you go."
She smiled at him, happily.
"Because heroes are free to act."
"A hero?"
The thought made him giggle, his laughter easing his mother's grief - a change he could already notice at his age, but it would take teaching him to understand how something so pure could stir a mother's heart. Resonance, it’s still too early.
"Yes, if you pass the trial, you will be taken away by the legion. You will become a hero, a knight, traveling in the dark night with the stars."
The boy looked at her for a long time and suddenly said:
"Mom, how old are you?"
"Twenty-six revolutions."
"Are you too old to participate in the trial?"
She left a loving kiss on his forehead before speaking, then smiled, and the tension in the small room suddenly disappeared.
"I cannot accept the trial. I am a girl. The Legion only accepts the best boys, but if you are like your father once, your qualifications will also pass."
"But I hear the Legion takes boys away from gangs all the time."
"not always."
She took him aside and continued stirring the noodles in the pot.
"Or it'll take some boys from the gang, but it's always looking for the brightest and brightest stars, promise me you'll be one of them, okay?"
"Okay, Mom."
"Won't you keep silent in the tutoring class?"
"No more, Mom."
"Very well, would you say that to your friend?"
"He wasn't really my friend, he was always angry. And he wanted to join a gang when he grew up."
His mother smiled at him again, but the smile was sadder, like a silent lie.
"In this world, everyone joins a gang, my little maester, that's just one of the things that are destined to happen. Everyone has a family, a gang, a job...but you It can’t be like this, remember, there is a difference between doing something that must be done and simply satisfying your desires.”
She brought the supper to the little table, her pale hands covered with little gloves to avoid being burned by the tin bowl.
Then she threw her gloves on the bed. When he took the first bite, her mother smiled, touched his head and said softly:
"Remember, Talos, you are going to be a hero."
"Owner......."
Suddenly, Talos felt something gently touch his face.
It was Octavia. She was gently wiping the tears from his face with a silk scarf. Her face was full of worry, like a mother waiting for him to come home.
Talos touched his cheek. He did shed tears, although he had not shed tears since Char's death.
Markusen also stood on tiptoes and stretched out his hand, as if he wanted to touch the teardrops on Talos's chin, and then asked.
"Uncle Angel, why are you crying?"
Talos smiled.
"Because I saw you."
Octavia put away the silk scarf. Although she realized that Talos' emotions were very rich among his brothers, she did not expect that Talos would suddenly burst into tears.
Her mother's sensitivity led her to guess that this might be related to Talos's past family, so she asked softly:
"Does it remind you of your parents?"
A bitter smile appeared on Talos's face.
"Ha, my father was a murderer, and my mother was a contracted prostitute. The painful years wore her down completely, and her face was always haggard... I couldn't live up to her wishes."
"I'm really sorry, I shouldn't have asked this,"
The boy could not understand the conversation between the two. He just raised his little head and stared at Talos, his pure and innocent eyes reflecting the face full of fatigue and scars.
"Uncle Angel, can I be a hero like you?"
"Everything is possible, kid, as long as a person has determination, will and courage, then he has the qualifications to become an angel."
At this moment, the communication speaker on the wall sounded, and Valier's voice came.
"The Chapter Master is here."
Talos straightened up and looked at Octavia.
"Ottavia, Septimus, thank you for bringing your children to see me. Go back to your comfortable and peaceful life. Don't come again. Since you and your children are far away from the darkness and War, don’t touch it anymore.”
Octavia nodded silently, took Marcusen's little hand, and left the medical cabin with Septimus and the other two children.
