“Please let Kôra stay with you,” Haren entreated his guest. “It’s for his sake.”

“Uncle!!!"

“It’s for your sake, Kôra."

With a smile, Keane Lampblack delicately put down his mug. A deep breath he took made a soft rustle. Inhaled, exhaled. As he opened his eyes, a distinctive warmth emanated from them. “To honor the relationship of our families, I offer my support.”

Haren’s weary eyes were gleaming with hope.

“However, I’m afraid that your request is beyond what the situation allows,” he continued with a refusal.

“This is the most viable solution,” Haren bargained. “You’d rather us to be alive, right?” he added the last part, which set up the desperation.

“Haren, this thing is—” Keane blanked for a second. “The thing is, this person is your nephew; this thing is your responsibility.”

Kôra’s thick eyebrows are knitted. How stiff Keane was when delivering the sentence ticked him off. It set off a thought: was he a “Thing” to him?

“I’m sorry. I tried. I really want to be a responsible uncle to him, but I failed.”

“Try harder.”

“I don’t want to risk it for him. Nobody wants to take care of him, nobody can," Haren argued. “I can’t, nobody can but you. You promised us, you’ll support us, right?”

"I will, but why me?”

“You are a member closest to us, you can give him better protection. I will pay for everything he needs there, just for a while until I find a way,” Haren pleaded. “Or I beg you, just leave him to any original member of the organization my brother told me. Maybe your parents, the Zhang, Kasûka, Basiether, or. . . Or anyone else. Please.”

“Oh,” the man exclaimed. “They’re dead.”

It silenced Haren for a while. “Could it be. . .  Are you afraid you’ll too?”

“I’m not, I will kill anyone who tries to kill first,” Keane joked, followed with a snort of amused laughter. “But that’s it, I’ll only back you up and coordinate with the organisation.”

“Is this your final decision?”

“It is.”

“Well then, I had no choice.” Haren surrendered. “I might need to call you a lot though.”

Kôra’s face beamed to the soothing news. However, Haren’s disheartened expression told him to hold his joy back.

“That’s fine as long as you give me this tea for each of my visits,” he made a carefree remark while shaking the mug gently. Three quarters of it was left.

“Then before I forget, let me pick it up for you,” he offered with a heavy smile, before standing up and quit the room.

Both Kôra and Keane followed him with their eyes. After a chain of noises from the opened door, pulled drawers, cabinets slamming, and clanking metals, he was back with hurried steps.

The man returned with a damaged insignia, around five centimeters in length. That metal piece was crumpled, altering its original shape. He placed it on the table side by side with another insignia.  Kôra did not realize that it had been there, he assumed that it belonged to Keane.

The intact shape was a kite with two thin wings on its side; the lower half portion resembles a dart. Its surface was faceted with a matte luster. The crushed insignia Haren brought was in indigo color, compared to the pristine sky blue one which belonged to Keane.

“The insignia!” Keane commented with excitement, before his brows furrowed—getting repulsed by its shape. “Why is it busted, though?”

“My bad, must be an accident on my side,” Uncle Haren apologized. “You need this to report, right?” 

“That’s right,” replied Keane. “The condition doesn’t matter, let me take it.”

Haren picked the two insignias. Instead of handing them to Keane, he took it with him. An unexpected move for Kôra and probably Keane. He sealed them both into his lower left arm, imprinting their shapes in a tattoo.

“What did you just—”

“Consider my request, then. Please.”

A sharp spike of laughter answered it. “Oh! So you are being persuasive?” Keane asked with an amused smile. “For your information, I can get mine replaced.”

“But not with the one Polat gave,” the redhead man contended. “Your overseer must have sent you an objective to fulfill; a proof to collect. Hearing from Polat, that’s how it works, isn’t it?”

“It is,” the guest said with a blink. “But I don’t want to bother you, so I’ll take it myself.” He took off the ring on his middle finger and stood up.

“Take it if you can.” The seal inscriptions on Haren’s skin began to glow. “Even if you managed to take it away from me, what would your overseer say about this?”

Kôra grabbed Haren’s arm. “Uncle, what are you doing?! Do not pick a fight with him! He is from earth; We do not know what his power is. That ring can be a weapon!” he advised in a whisper. “Please!”

Haren shrugged Kôra off. On the other hand, Keane gave the boy a smile. Cold as a slitting knife.

“Nothing; that thing is a moron and I can always falsify my record,” the blond man answered with an unperturbed face. “For example, ‘The boy accidentally killed his uncle using his power’ is close to what happened.”

Kôra closed his eyes. That actually kind of happened.

“That’s fine,”  Haren remarked with resignation. “I don’t have to draw the knife, then,” he added, sounding liberated.

That tranquil sentence shook Kôra. He let Haren go from his grasp. There was something felt like a crack of ice inside his chest; a sharp cold and burning pain. The teen boy froze as he could not process the rush of realization. Tension pressured his temporal region to an ache. It was the same shock from when he learned that his reflection could come alive; a reality in front of him that he would rather deny. The brain of his ran repeated cycles of proofreading: was it really the truth? Would his uncle rather die than having something to do with him? Even the guest was taken aback.

“Are you this desperate?” the blond man asked, before looking at Kôra.

Kôra turned his face another way, not wanting his eyes to meet Keane’s. The stare was unusual. He expected something of how his classmates stared at him when he struggled to read a passage aloud in front of them: pity, second-hand embarrassment, and condescension. The face of Keane, however, is of when his classmates are concentrating on a tricky multiple choice question: contemplative.

“Forgive me for my lack of manners earlier,” he apologized out of the blue. To the transparent fakeness, Kôra gritted his teeth. “I get it; you are desperate," he said; a surprise answer to Kôra.

Keane put his ring back on his middle finger. “As I said, we would rather have you alive.”

"So you will do it?"

Before he answered, a vibration came out from his phone. Keane's expression became livelier in a second. "Please wait while I explain the situation to my superior, I hope we can reach an agreement," the man said.

While Keane was doing his business, the uncle and nephew sat still. Motionless and wordless. Both looking worried at Keane’s fast typing and tense face: as if he was having an argument. Especially for Kôra, the defined features of the guest's face enhanced his intimidating impression.

Unknown to both, it was not a result of the meandering process of a vertical bureaucracy. That frustration was a result a difficult gameplay: a magical fight against a much higher level guardian monster as a part of a rush event. Faster and faster, his fingers tapped the control bars on the bottom of the screen. Releasing his attacks to scrape off the near-full health bar of his enemy before his own ran out. A round sixty seconds of a minute, a combo attack, halved into thirty, mana point drain, his fingers slipped. . .

Keane clicked his tongue; the battle ended in defeat. Its spoils were not what he aimed for, but it probably sufficed to advance him. The grand prize of this endeavor was an ornamental chestplate with average starting stats, a description accompanying it said that it was able to be buffed with special abilities.

Not the best in store, yet still a rare item with potential.

Keane put down his phone after putting the item to his virtual inventory. He cleared up his throat, to the other two’s anticipation. Enough playing.

“Okay, in this scenario I accept it,” Keane decided. “Now I will report to the rest of the original members,” he continued while picking up his smartphone. “And my sister,” he added under his breath.

Haren sighed in relief. He put a smile of an ease, as if a burden had been released. “Thank y—”

“Now, what about your nephew?” Keane cut through Haren’s sentence. “You assume he’s willing to follow your plan through, don’t you?”

“Kôra. . ." Haren turned to his nephew.

“Annô! Tânna jyiae-tsa vasae oyaoyu-tsa trangyû,” Kôra stated that he is not staying with the scary man; absolutely not staying with the absolutely scary man. “Jyiae-tsa,” he expressed his refusal once more.

The absolutely scary man was holding his laughter in response to what the kid called him. Kôra did not anticipate his linguistic capability. What an irritating presence.

“I know you are suffering with me.” Haren looked at his nephew with a somber look. “It must be hard to forgive me and bear with me, so please stay with him for a while to clear your mind.”

“There must be another way, why is Uncle doing this? I will try my best to make your work easy!” Kôra promised. "I am sorry for being a burden! I will try harder!"

“He just wants to get rid of you, lad.” Keane mumbled.

“Stop talking like that about my uncle! He is doing his best.”

“Did your head hit something? Best?” the blond man sneered. “You heard him earlier, he’d rather die than be with you? He better get you a head CT after this!”

Keane finished his tea. His entertained face was utterly irritating to the boy, moreover, at this poor timing. It was not for his uncle holding him, Kôra would stand up and punch the man’s face. His breaths were dragging heavily from the effort of keeping his cool. His wounded right hand stung as he clenched it.

“It’s my fault, I don’t communicate clearly,” Haren said.

“Then fix your faults instead of dumping it on me,” Keane responded. “What’s so hard telling ‘Hey, drink this makeshift potion to control your power even if it might kill you’ to him? It’s not like he'll actually use his brain–if that even existed," he added with a mockery.

It was a disconcerting sight to the least, pretty much infuriating. His uncle was being cornered by a stranger. A strange man, younger than him, who knows nothing about him.

“And what have you told us too? What do you know about the earthquake? About my parents? About me? But you not telling us too? Why you not even call us earlier?” Kôra argued. “You are just same!”

“Oh, for sure we could come earlier to help,” Keane replied, his honeyed tone reeking the fume of sarcasm to Kôra. “If only he didn’t break the insignia.” His eyes pointed at Haren.

“I was afraid it’ll be used to track us. . ."

“It is a tracking device, Sir,” Keane explained. “We use the function exclusively in emergencies.”

“. . . By whoever the enemies are.”

A gap of silence separated their discord. 

Keane did not utter a word, not even an exchange of gaze.

Kôra moved himself closer to his uncle. Haren looked gloomy and defeated, if only Kôra could ease his situation. If only he could do something. If only. . .

“Anyway, what’s done is done.” Keane said. “I have agreed to let him stay with me," Keane said. “Now what’s your decision?”

“Kôra. . .?”

Uncle is really burdened with my presence, he did this because my only presence pushed him this far, Kôra reflected. But this man, he could be my only way to know the truth.

“I do. . .”

I don’t want to suffer and cause more trouble for Uncle, but I do not trust Keane. His mind conflicted, his body felt hurt again. God, what should I do?

“I do not...”

Please God, what should I do?

“I do agree to stay with him,” Kôra made his decision.

I do not agree to stay with him.

“Are you sure? Are you sure you’re doing this by your own will?” Haren reiterated. Kôra sensed it; it was not a worry for his nephew in each wavelength of his voice, it was for his own. It was the worry for his own problems he wanted to get away from.

“I. . . I am sure,” Kôra confirmed with a shaky voice.

I am not sure about this.

“I am. . . Sure. . . As long as you all will tell me the truth.”

Truth is, I only want all of these to end. I want to be home with my family.

“As long as uncle will not disappear from my life once I left.”

Or if that is too much, I just want to just disappear.

“This. . . Is. . . This is my choice. I stand by it!” he proclaimed.

But I cannot. I have no choice. What should I do?

“Deal,” Keane casually stated; lightly accepting it just like he never held any refusal. Kôra noticed his contrasting behaviour; was his objection a play? Was his acceptance a play, too? A sincere insincere on display.

The man gave his hand for a handshake. For a second, Kôra was taken aback on how his white skin accentuate the blue veins on the back of his hand. This time Kôra grabbed it firmly, squeezed it to the bones. It was warm as a normal human’s body temperature, different from the coldness Kôra expected. 

“You can change your mind anytime, but I will always welcome you for any help.”

The boy had to look up to see the man’s face; he is more than a foot tall above him. A face that is quite long with a cleft chin and defined cheekbones. Under his thick eyebrows, blond eyelashes shaded his eyes. Eyes of three whites. Full of eeriness; those eyes looked like they did not belong to a human, yet were alive unlike those owned by the one inside the mirror. Looking down, Kôra notices a gauze wrapped over his neck; a sudden moment of a feeling choked him.

What should I do besides having to be very careful with my life?

“Now give me my insignias.”