Chapter Text
Damn were you hungry as fuck.
You eye the food stands with a predatory gaze, your stomach churning and twisting into itself. The sensation was nothing new, hunger was a feeling you were intimately familiar with and it’s results were never any different. Ever present shame rises in your chest as you flick up your hood.
The clerk was busy tending to a customer, a lovely lady with her cobalt hair tied up into a bun. You pass curtly, keeping your head down and feeling guilt as you pluck an apple and a small loaf of bread off of the counter. You tuck them into your pockets and walk away just as casually as you had come by. Neither adult turns to you, too focused on handling produce and coins.
You quickly retreat into one of the many alleyways and check the spoils of your crime, realising that you hadn’t nicked a loaf of bread, instead a meaty ham and cheese sandwich sat heavy on your palm. Crap, you couldn’t make it last a whole week without some of the ingredients going bad.
With a huff of frustration you stalk away, weaving through villagers and travellers alike to get back to where you had hidden your things. The route came easily to you, climbing onto a roof and surveying your surroundings in case someone followed you before slinking back to your hideout.
A burnt house wasn’t ideal to live in but as long as you avoided certain areas, it was actually pretty safe. Since nobody wants to risk the roof caving on them, nobody checked on it which made it perfect to hide in. You lightly step on the areas of the floorboards that you knew were sturdy, going down the steps into the basement.
The place was cozy by your standards, there was a cot with a thin blanket tucked into the corner behind a bookshelf which was overflowing with stolen books. On the floor there was a box of candles and matches, a scratched tea-set, a towel, a set of ragged clothing and a clay pot filled with river water. Your possessions.
You set down your goods, wrapping them up in the towel you kept in handy and sitting down to pluck a random book. Your eyes peruse the cover, ‘How to set up a self-sufficient garden’ you had none of the resources to even get a seed, let alone set up a garden but hey, you could dream.
Your reading probably took hours of time but since you were hidden from any sort of windows you could only merely guess what the time was. Your back cracked when you set down the book next to your cot, getting up and stretching. You clap to get the dirt off of your hands and cup them to take a sip out of your pot of water. It quenches the thirst that you hadn’t even realized you had.
You felt restless, though there wasn’t much for a homeless kid like you to do. You decide what you want to do, you take a quarter of the sandwich you’d nicked and put it in your pocket. Getting out of the house is easy, you set off, wandering about the streets. Jamanakai village is as empty as you had expected, only an occasional fellow wanderer like you crossing your path.
You jump up and dig your hands into small crevices on the side of a familiar building, climbing up to the roof and settling down criss-cross. You look up at the stars with a sigh. Star-gazing was a fun thing for you to do with your mum -and additionally free of charge- but nowadays she wasn’t around anymore, you don’t know why.
You look at the empty space beside you sadly before digging out your sandwich quarter, enjoying it slowly.
You ignore the loneliness that settles in your chest.