burning bridges (amongst other things)

THIEVING BLOOD

It becomes a habit, picking up food from cheap convenient stores and cheaper wallets from people who need it just as much as he does. The guilt eats at him, so Aster buries it. Under whatever grave his Dad is in 一in whatever casket his Papa is in, if they didn't just up and leave him to rot. He thinks that they might've, maybe. Maybe he was bad; jiisan is bad, maybe一maybe. Aster doesn't think about it, it's not like he could get much worse. At least he's taking care of Hitoshi.

Hitoshi is sweet, like daifuku. Except he's purple一less daifuku, more lavender, he reminds Aster more of flowers than he does junk food. That's what it is一he tells Hitoshi; that's what Dad told him, Papa said he could only have it on special oc-casions (Aster doesn't really know what those are). He tried to look for Dad before一before.

Before Hitoshi.

Hitoshi helps preen Aster, because he can't reach the back, and Hitoshi doesn't get too loud, like Aster does. Hitoshi doesn't like it much when Aster's loud一Aster can see it in the way his shoulders square and the way his pupils thin. It reminds Aster of Dad way back before they were gone. Dead, maybe. It gets a little hazy, and he knows his Dad and Papa are not fireproof, just as he knows that they were running from a fire. Fire that was not blue. Somebody set that house on fire, maybe.

(Aster stops thinking about it. The thought of red makes him nauseous. He's glad his feathers burned to white, that his hair bleached itself.)

_

Aster is eleven and a half and there are three rules he knows about the way he works.

He cannot trade in favors to get out; he cannot be spotted; he does not have a last name (he doesn't have a first one either). He doesn't have a first one either, to be fair. There are no records. Takami Aster does not exist. So he steals enough money and he gets someone to change his identity. Shinsou Hitoshi does exist, for all that he wishes not to. Aster switches up his last name. The documents tell it all if anyone would ever bother to look it up.

Then, then, Aster does something Papa would think of. He covers it up. Gives himself an alias and tells the woman that gave him the papers to mark him as dead, but not untraceable, as she can. Aster is eleven, almost twelve years old, when he becomes the recently deceased Shinsou Tori, who died in an accident at seven years old, leaving his parents and little brother to mourn for him. He isn't Aster to anyone but Hitoshi. Just like he isn't supposed to be Angel so anyone but Dad and Papa.

It makes him feel all smart and shit, switching his name to Keito and Hitoshi's name to Toshi. That's what he calls him, in any case.

The legal documents say his and Hitoshi's last names are Shimura.

It's been a couple months, and everyone around here called him Angel for his wings for a while一then they saw him burn, and he became Fallen. Aster doesn't really know what that means.

Okay一look. It's not that he's illiterate, despite what Hasaki and Chung say, he can read quite well and has a penchant for stealing books. A really bad one, it might get him caught, but he likes reading. Helps him stay on the ground longer. Not in the flying sense一though it is kind of like that, if he really wants to think about it. The lady from down the block, Isuki-san, says that he's one of the smartest bastards here. Aster doesn't know what that means; whether it's good or bad. He'll pick good. The psychology book said that positive reassurance is healthy. He had to look up what reassurance meant at the computer in the library at the nicer side of town: uptown Hosu. He's meticulous about it, covering his tracks and such, even if he doesn't really have to.

It scares him, when he doesn't. It'll eat at his skin some, until he can't breathe and he has to burn his arms to think about something else or Hitoshi has to drag him out of it. Eyes cold and crying.