A couple of hours later, I heard a knock at my apartment’s door and quickly scrambled to shove my clothing in the closet and force the door close before looking out the peep hole to see Kal standing outside, changed from the blue suit he was wearing this morning to a blood colored one, no vest or anything, just a blood colored blazer and matching trousers, black shirt with the top open a bit showing the dagger down his throat and a huge gold choker around his throat, gloves atop his cane and everything that sort he wears, pocket watch replaced with a very expensive looking regular watch on his right wrist with the face on the inside of his wrist with a distinct crown shaped logo and his hair was just in a very, very low and loose tail down his chest, a wide brimmed black hat on the back of his head, sunglasses at his lapel and a soft smile on his face.

“Ready?” he asked, I nodded.

“Yeah, one second, just need to make sure everything is locked.” I said as I quickly went over my apartment’s one window and door to ensure everything was locked before locking it behind me as I stepped out.

“How do you live in a place like this?” he asked as the two of us walked down the hall, he does need the cane, there is a rather distinct limp to his right leg.

“What do you mean?” I asked, but as I asked that the sound of my neighbors fighting again filled the hall.

“That…this place is falling apart…I’ve been in ship wrecks more together.” He said as we started down the stairs, no elevator, I laughed at that.

“It’s the only place I can afford.”

“Shame…Has nobody really hired you?” he asked as we walked out of the building and started walking through the parking lot.

“I have sent…hundreds of businesses my resume, none have even called me back, when I went to the few places that had walk in interviews, they laugh me out.”

“Well, fuck them for not realizing what kind of person they’re missing out on.”

“Thank you, Kal.”

He led me to that super, super expensive looking sportscar, solid black with red and chrome adornments, white wall tires and metallic black rims, he opened the passenger door for me before going around to the other side as he sat in the driver’s side seat, inside had matching red/black custom leather seats, dark wood headboard and lots of chrome, skull shaped gear-shift and a bat shaped charm hanging from the rearview mirror.

“I mean, you are young, so at least you’ve got that for you in a sense that, you’ve got a few years of still being on your parent’s insurance.” He said laughing a little.

“How could you tell I was young?”

“Well, based on what Mika said about you, based on various aspects of your personality, the way you talk, mannerisms and references you make…I knew that you were at the same college as Mika which is a primarily four year school, had you started when you were eighteen that would have made you at least twenty two now, so I was guessing you were between twenty two to twenty four depending on when you started. How was that, I in the ballpark?”

“I am twenty three. Right on the money.”

“I’m usually pretty good with that.”

“And yourself?”

“What?”

“Where’d you go to school?”

“Oh, Oxford.”

“Really?”

“Yeah”

“What was your major?”

“I dual majored: one in history and the other oceanography, I also have a few minor degrees in things like art history, music, a vocational school degree in cartography and a few other things like that.”

“Wow”

“Was that a…sly way of you asking how old I am?”

“Maybe.”

“You could have just asked, I don’t mind…I’m 35.”

“You’re thirty five!?” I asked surprised.

“No need to sound so surprised, I know I don’t look like a spring chicken anymore.”

“Please, Kal, you look barely older than me.”

“Well, I did get some good genetics for aging from my Dad.”

“Are your parents still in Budapest?”

“No, Dad is back in London.”

“And your mom?”

“She’s dead.”

“Oh, I’m…sorry, Kal.”

“It’s fine, it was a while ago. I was twenty two when she passed, skin cancer…from the whole sailing around everywhere lead to extremely prolonged sun exposure. She was forty when she passed, she was diagnosed when she was thirty six, nothing they did would work to get rid of it, so…there was nothing that could be done, so she just kept living her life normally.”

“Oh, that’s…so sad.”

“Its fine, I’ve had…quite some time to handle it.”

“Is she who the ring you wear is for?”

“She is: I was on a dive one day, a family’s yacht sank…they just wanted me to recover some family momentous first, I found the wife and daughter…dead in the yacht, pretty much just skeletons, still holding onto each other…after the job was done, I was sitting on the beach when I noticed an oyster was sticking out of the sand beside me and just curious, opened it up and this pearl was in it. When she died, she had it in her will that instead of being buried or cremated, her body would be left as is, but taken to the middle of the sea…and thrown overboard, weighed down so that she would forever be part of the ocean, she used to say that whenever I was in the sea and even when I was not, she’s be a current pushing at my back pushing me forward, so whenever I feel something push me forward…it’s her.”

“And now I’m crying.” I said as I realized I actually was crying, I’ve always been really easy to make cry. He smiled before taking the black pocket-square out of his blazer and handed me the handkerchief. “Thank you.”