Crossing Fates : Book 1 - Escape (BakuDeku)

6 - A Bad Sign

A low-level panic continued to urge Izuku to run.

After several lip-chewing minutes, he decided not to return to his own apartment. The difficulty of the decision surprised him.

He didn't own many things that mattered but he did have a few mementos from his mother. Aside from possessions, the real wrench was breaking from the continuity of what home he did have.

"Don't let yourself get too attached to people, places or things," his mother had said. "You have to be able to leave everything behind."

"Be prepared to run on a moment's notice."

The definition of their lives had hinged on this. Izuku's mother had kept stashes of cash and different identities for them in a half-dozen places throughout the city. Izuku had memorized public transportation routes, lock combinations and safety deposit numbers for all the locations by the time he was six years old.

It was a good thing that having only one name without a surname is acceptable in their society.

They'd had regular escape-from-Musutafu drills where he would go through the routes and get access to the documents and cash while his mother followed and observed. The picture IDs got updated as Izuku had grown older.

Still, while Izuku had nodded and said he understood, the events of last week showed just how much he hadn't really understood or internalized things. His mother had died when Izuku was nineteen.

Now, at twenty-five, he was beginning to realize how sloppy his behavior had become.

It wasn't just his monumental foolishness at trusting Neito. He had kept up with the regular self-defense and martial arts classes, but he had fallen out of the habit of taking them seriously. Instead, he treated them like they were for exercise and entertainment.

Now his mother's early lessons were coming back to haunt him. He only hoped he would survive long enough to appreciate what it meant to be sadder and wiser.

Earlier, Izuku had wiped out one cache to pay the witch for the binding spell. Now he took a circuitous path to Brain Wash bar.

He managed to hit one safety deposit box before banks closed and a second, less conventional cache hidden at his old elementary school playground.

He had three new identities and a hundred thousand Yens in unmarked nonsequential bills stuffed in his backpack, along with a renewed paranoia weighing him down.

When he pushed through the front door to Brain Wash bar, he had begun to feel like he was wearing half the dirt in the city. He felt grubby and hollowed out, emotionally drained and physically hungry.

Stress had clogged his throat for days and he hadn't been able to choke down much food.

Brain Wash was open for lunch during the day. Lunch, served from eleven to three, was a supplemental part of the business as Brain Wash's came alive at night.

Shinso, the owner, could have turned it into one of Musutafu's premiere clubs if he had wanted to. He had the charisma and style for it.

Instead, Shinso kept a lid on the business getting too big. Brain Wash's was known as a good neighborhood club with a steady, loyal clientele of mixed breeds from all three races. They were the city's very own Island of Misfit Toys, the flotsam and jetsam of societies, not being fully Nyr, Fae, Elven or human and thus not fully belonging anywhere.

Some were open about their mixed-breed nature and argued the benefits of living out of the closet. Many, like Izuku, hid what they were and pretended to fit in somewhere.