Rin & Harin

"Mother!"

The same nightmare struck me for the 3rd time in the night. I had already swung the sword as if I was faced with an enemy. I only calmed down after some heavy breaths.

"Get out of here, you bastard," a voice yelled from above as something came flying down. A resident, awoken and probably annoyed by my shout just now. I dodged the empty can and sat back down.

The nightmare...this one felt too real. That scene of mother and father...no, don't try to remember about it.

I looked up at the sky, unable to forget what had happened. The night sky washed away some of the horror with its beauty. But so much.

"Mister?" the voice of a child sounded from the side.

"Who?" I immediately held up the sword. But I dropped it just as fast. I've been so sleep-deprived that I actually held the sword to a child. Cursing myself, I looked for the child in the dark street we were in.

From behind the garbage piled up along the outer walls of the houses, a child of maybe the age of 8 peaked out. She was incredibly filthy, though I wasn't any better off. She looked frail and weak.

"A-are you okay?" she asked me.

"Don't worry about me, kid. Worry about yourself. What are you doing here?"

"I...live here?" she said, giving me a shock.

"You live...here?" It was a dump. A trash heap. "What about your...parents?"

"I don't know them," she said. She looked down in sadness. Or so it seemed. There wasn't a hint of sadness in her voice. Instead, I found maturity. For a child this young to be so mature...what happened to her?

While looking down, the child pushed something forward.

"This is—" A plate of food. Some rice, mostly vegetables, and no meat. It was discarded food, I could tell. "Is this what you eat?"

"It's perfectly good food, mister," said the girl.

"This is leftover. You actually eat this?"

"It's the only food I can get, mister. Do you...not want it?" The girl pulled back the plate.

"Wait!" I stopped her. It had been about 2 days since I had last eaten. Remembering the food I always left uneaten to be thrown away, perhaps this is my punishment to eat leftover food. My stomach grumbled in hunger.

It was horrible. The food was cold. Unappetizing. There was a strange odor to it, possible from being in this garbage dump for too long. While I scoffed down the food, the girl looked at the food with longing. Did she really eat this? Her eyes couldn't bear to part with the food.

Finally, I had devoured the food. The urge to vomit did not come like I had thought it would. It was probably because of what I had seen 2 days ago.

"Mister?" the child called out to me, snapping me back to reality.

"I'll pay you back for the food...what's your name?"

"You're supposed to introduce yourself first, mister," said the girl. I chuckled a little at her fake angry face.

"I'm Rin. Now, tell your name."

The girl got excited for some reason. "My name is Harin!" Oh...that's why. "We have the same name at the end."

"I guess so. Good for you kid." For some reason, Harin felt really happy at us sharing a part of her name.

"Mister, can I ask you something?"

"Sure, go ahead."

"Umm...why do you keep holding your sword?" She pointed at the black sword in my right hand. Not even when I was eating that disgusting garbage did I let go of the sword. It wasn't like I could anyways.

"You're better off not knowing, Harin."

"Ok...I understand." She looked a little upset that I didn't answer her, but that was fine. She really was better off not knowing about this cursed sword.

Harin stared at me with curiosity. Soon, dawn hit us and I could finally get a good look of Harin. She had muddy dark pink hair. It look black before there was light. Her clothes were tattered and very dirty. There were scars on her face and limbs. Even though she obviously had not washed in a long time, there was still a cuteness peering through. I sighed as I knew what I would do next. It would take away time from my own goal, but maybe this was worth it.

"Let's go, Harin." Standing up, I felt a power course through me. My body was still adjusting. I could feel it.

"Mister?"

"It's time I repaid you," I said as I stretched out my hand.

"You're not going to sell me to slave traders, are you?" Harin said with a flash of cautiousness in her eyes.

"Relax. Slaving has been outlawed for centuries...where did you even learn things like that?" I asked her. A child so young shouldn't know about this stuff.

"That's just what you think, mister. Last week, some guy took Lucin and he never came back," said Harin.

"Lucin?"

"Lucin lived near here. We hang out together with the other kids sometimes," said Harin.

"How many of you kids live on the street?"

"On this street there's me and 4 more," she said.

"On this street? There's more on the other streets?" I asked, not wanting to know the truth.

"Of course...everybody knows this, mister," said Harin.

There's that many homeless children? I could not believe it.

"I'm worried about Lucin, mister," Harin suddenly muttered.

"I'm sure he's fine. I'll take care of you first, and then...I'll go look for Lucin," I said. This would further prolong my goal, but I couldn't ignore something like this. Harin cheered up.

"You're not like the other adults, mister," said Harin as we started to walk out of the street.

"I'm not sure I'm that different, Harin."

"No, mister. I can tell you're not like the others," she said. Something about her cute way of speaking made me forget my burden for a moment.

"Look at you, you're not like other kids either, Harin," I said. And I fully believed it, too. "Follow me. I'll buy you something to eat first." I had not even noticed that this was the first time I had smiled in 2 days.

We went out the street and onto a bigger street. The shops weren't open yet, but we found a bakery that was about to open. I asked a worker and they said they would happily sell ahead of opening time. Waiting for a dozen minutes, I asked Harin some questions. The girl was shockingly the age of 10. Yet she looked so frail and weak that I had thought she was 7 or 8. Her unordinaryly small size did not help with the misunderstanding.

Harin never knew her parents. She had been an orphan for as long as she could remember. Her family consisted of the other kids on the street. She lived day to day scrounging for food in trash behind restaurants. And sometimes it was down to theft to survive for her.

It was a different life than myself. A night and day difference. I never had to struggle in my life until recently.

"No need to pay," said the worker at the bakery. He smiled and said that the boss was feeling generous. What luck.

We walked down the street, eating the loaf of bread. My hand never let go of the sword.

"Where are we going, mister?" asked Harin. She had already finished the big loaf of bread.

"An inn. You can stay there for the time. I'll find someone to take care of you afterwards." Harin stopped in her track.

"What's wrong?" I asked her.

"It's just...why are you giving me so much, mister?"

"No reason. I just have too much money and I don't know how to spend it," I lied. I couldn't say that I pitied her and wanted to help. But there was a deeper reason that even I hadn't realized.

Harin's eyes lit up. "So you're not some homeless person like me? How much money do you have, mister?" Her eyes shone like the gold coins in my sack. I had taken a handful before leaving, so this was not even an amount that I should care about. But to Harin, this was an immense amount of money. A took out a gold coin and placed it onto her trembling hands.

"I'll take care of you from now on, Harin. It's payback for sharing your hard found food with me," I said. But suddenly, I saw Harin's eyes widen and she started to look for a spot to hide.

"What's wrong, Harin?" I asked after following her to a street.

"It's...him," she said. I followed her gaze and saw a man. It was still very early in the morning. There weren't many people on the streets. And the man Harin was looking at stood out like a sore thumb.

"Who is he?" I asked. I got a better look at the man as he kept walking forward and came closer.

"He's the one I told you about. He took Lucin last week," she said.

"Are you sure it's him?" I asked her to confirm. I gulped.

Harin nodded. "I'm very very sure, mister," she said. I could tell she fully believed it. I still found it hard to believe, however, because that man was—