Figments of Beauty

I

Mid-August, 2012

"God-fucking-dammit. Does nobody have a cold beer right now?"

The blazing August sun beat down on the port city of Yokohama, and it was as if the heat was seeping into Chuuya's very bones and melting away his insides. He leaned against the side of an old brick building, sweat beads rolling unceremoniously down his cheeks and gathering underneath his chin. The rest of the Sheep were out terrorizing shop owners in hopes of getting some free food out of it, but Chuuya hadn't had any luck with the drinks. Alcohol was hard to come by in this part of the slums and even when he did find some, it wasn't more than half a can and well-protected by some junkie or another.

Chuuya looked down at the large box of food near his feet with narrowed eyes. He'd sort of hoped he wouldn't have had to do any work on his seventeenth birthday, but the Sheep had had other plans.

It had been almost a year since Chuuya had become a member of the Sheep. It's not like he had much of a choice—he didn't have anywhere else to go—but it was nice to have friends and people he could trust. That, and it was a lot easier to keep yourself alive when you had other people to help keep you alive too.

Chuuya let out a short sigh, frowning and breathing in the thick, hot air of August slum hell that scratched at his throat and left raw, dry stinging behind.

"Chuuya!"

When Chuuya's eyes snapped open he saw a head of silvery hair and soon enough, he could see all of Shirase running toward him; it looked like most of the rest of the Sheep were in tow. "Did you get the food?" he shouted.

That was when Chuuya noticed the sour, empty feeling twisting in his stomach and grinned, pushing himself off the building side and jogging to meet him and the rest halfway with the box in hand. "'Course. This is all ours."

Everyone crowded around Chuuya to peer down into the box and the gleam in their eyes said enough about their hunger. Besides, it wasn't often they got as much food—fresh food—as what they saw in front of them. This was a real treat.

"How the hell'd you get all this?" Shirase looked up at Chuuya with arched brows and a slightly complacent quirk of his lips, as if he were the one who'd retrieved the feast.

Chuuya shrugged, though there was a proud set to his shoulders when he gave an answering grin. "It was nothing fancy. I found a new food joint about a mile from here. It's a pretty wasteful lot up there."

Yuan had a wide, smug smile on her face as she stared up at him with big eyes. "That's our Chuuya!"

Shirase looked around at the rest of the Sheep with a glint in his eye and a wide, almost-wolfish smile. "Well, what are we waiting for?"

It only took about fifteen more minutes for them to meet up with the few scattered members of their party, and the next hour or so was spent gorging on the food Chuuya grabbed and a few liters of lukewarm beer a few of the others had scrounged up. They'd found a spot in the shade, luckily, so none of them were getting singed by the merciless sun, and the steady rhythm of Chuuya's life beat onward.

"—don't know what we'd do without our scrappy little rascal," Shirase was saying, waving his beer around as he threw an arm around Chuuya. "Starve, probably."

"Probably," was Chuuya's cheeky reply, to which Shirase only laughed and poked him in the shoulder.

"You're a good errand boy, Chuuya," he grinned, continuing to blab about Chuuya's value to the gang. Chuuya listened with his usual grin, arms crossed as he leaned back against a metal dumpster.