High & Low | Crystal Rain

Ep. 7 | New Friends

After Lala had recovered, she and Smoky would stop by regularly, either for a meal, first aid, a warmer place to sleep and sometimes even schooling on the rainy days.

Lala loved the fairytales her mother would tell them about heroic knights and the noble deeds they performed. They distracted her from the cruel truth of reality, that no one was going to come and sweep her off her feet away from these desolate streets.

She wasn't like those fair maidens in those stories. Still, she found some form of hope and comfort that things could get better with the lessons these tales tried to teach. 

When she had found out what the term Lala Land meant she associated with all the wonderful dreams she had had, awake and asleep. Dreams of a prosperous future not only for herself but her brother and the rest of the children on the Nameless Street.

As a young seven year old, only a couples months younger than Rain, Lala grew attached to the name and soon took it as her new name rather than what she remembered as her original given name,  Shiko.

According to Rain's mother it meant stone, a much more depressing meaning if you asked her. "I want to be called Lala," she had said with the most adorable smile that no one was going to argue against it. Time soon past and eventually no one, not even Lala, remember her birth name. I mean why use a name that someone who didn't love you or want you gave you.

Once Lala was fully recovered she was much more sociable and talkative than her brother. Smoky was still a boy of few words, he appeared stoic but his eyes were gentle and you could tell he cared a lot for his adopted sister, for him actions spoke louder than words.

He, P and Shion not only practiced free running higher and higher into the factory buildings, but soon began sparing with each other for sport. Rain, who was always used to being with her brother, had wanted to join them but found herself cast aside with the reason she'd only slow them down.

Typical pre-teen boys, not thinking she could keep up. One ankle sprain after a simple jump on to an unsteady pile of containers and she was marked as to delicate to free run in such hazardous places.

She and Lala would hang out instead, helping her mother or other elderly folks on the street with mundane tasks. Rain taught Lala how to crochet bags from discarded plastic ones and in the evening they would sneak out of Nameless Street to try and sell them in the surrounding neighborhoods.

Even though the boys would no longer let the girls run with them, air quote, "For their own safety," Rain continued to free run on her own. She would spar with contraptions she made out of discarded wood, metal and rope. She hung pieces of wood from I-beams or tied pillows to posts for kicking target practice.

While Lala was not as daring as her in this feat, she could still hold her own. Lala was also seen as frail by her brother and his friends, who only had her best interest in mind, ever since she had so easily gotten sick when they were younger.

Life on the Nameless Street, while not the ideal life one could hope for, they were able to find some semblance of their own kind of normal. P and Rain's mother continued to be a moral compass for the kids, but still let them have their own freedom playing and racing through the intricate structures of their home.

Cain would still drop in now and again, but his appearances were getting farther and farther apart. Sometimes people wouldn't see him for weeks at a time and Shion didn't know more than anyone else only that when he did return he came baring new expensive clothes or delectable sweets.

As they grew older more and more orphaned children showed up. Rain's family and her now extended family were always there to look out for them. She, Lala, P, Smoky and Shion began dedicating most of their time to looking after the kids who were even younger than them.

This is how Takeshi came to join them, another abandoned child around their age who wondered into the streets one evening without a warm place to sleep for the night. Smoky had invited him to stay with him and Lala in the office building.

Since that night he had closely followed Smoky and P and soon joined the boys in their daily racing, sparing and patrolling activities. Arriving on the Nameless Street like many others, without a real name, he was given the name Takeshi by Rain's mother. She'd witnessed  him defending a little girl from being harassed by an older boy with a fighting style that could only be described as break dancing.

She tended to the girls wounds while addressing Takeshi and the group, "Looks like we have a real Beat Takeshi on our hands." Once she had explained the reference to them, the name just sort of stuck. Takeshi didn't appear to have any problems with the name, in fact he seemed to relish in it.