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The boy is a tiny speck of a thing.
His face is sharp in a way that makes him look much older than his thin, little body suggests, and his eyes practically swallow his pale face from how big and desperate they are. Ears stick out from under his red hair, which is cut messily to the nape of his neck. He looks overgrown, and sickly, and sad.
Tao's punch nails him in the face.
Her fist digs effortlessly into his nose, sending him flying into the wall. He crumbles into a heap, but Tao isn't done—she's only getting started.
Stepping closer, she shakes out her fist. "Stay down, dickwad," she warns, but the kid still makes an effort to get up, hoisting himself into a shaky stance via the wall. It's too late, of course—Tao is already rearing her fist back, and when it slams in the cheek he goes down like a lump of wood. If Tao were a more sympathetic person, she would wince at the way his head thumps against the pavement beneath them, or the way his nose floods with blood, pouring from both nostrils.
But Tao is not a more sympathetic person, and this is the kindest thing a person like her can do.
"This won't do, sonny," she says. There is only an aborted effort to get up this time before the kid collapses into himself, panting from exertion. Tao knows the feeling—she has been hit before with punches like her own, and just like she hadn't, her attacker didn't hold anything back. The kid doesn't resist when Tao crouches over him, one hand nestled into his thin, worn-down tee shirt. "Don't go stealing in a town like this."
The boy whimpers lowly. At least, Tao thinks, he'll know to stay out of the city from here on it. The Mugen Group is ruthless. He was lucky to be caught by someone like her instead of one her more brutal comrades. She doubts the kid feels particularly lucky, but he'll understand when he's older. Ten—or however old he actually is—is much too young for these wicked streets. Tao learned that the hard way.
He'll learn, too. For better or for worse. Tao draws back her other hand, curling it into a fist—geez, the kid is light enough to hold up one-handed—and prepares to punch him again, when—
A rumbling sound, louder than Tao has ever heard save for railroads and automatic weapons. Startled, she looks for its source and finds it almost immediately.
The boy's stomach. Of course.
"Your belly sure is carefree," Tao says after a moment. The boy blinks up at her, having closed his eyes in a meager attempt to mitigate the damage of her attack. Now that she's closer, she can see their color: gray, hints of blue lining the rims. He looks scared. She had noticed before, of course, but it's different seeing it right in front of her like this. What the hell is this punk doing out on the streets, trying to pickpocket in the Gokuraku district?
His hand, which he had raised to block her punch, falters slightly. "I—" he starts, then swallows. His eyes never glance away from her fist, still reared up above his head. "I have no choice. I don't have any money," he explains. His stomach moans again, one of those desperate growls of the truly starving, and he whimpers lowly again, the hand not in front of his face darting to clench at his abdomen.
Tao huffs. Fuck, the kid looks pathetic, lying there in a heap, covered in his own blood. Tao wonders who had beaten him up before—his cheekbone is swollen with a day-old bruise that Tao herself couldn't have put there—and why it hadn't deterred him from coming back. Maybe it wasn't even from someone in Gokuraku. Maybe this happened at home, wherever that is for this kid.
Images flash through her mind. An alleyway not unlike this one. A needle. A hand caressing her jaw, as careful as it is cruel. A bruise not unlike this little boy's.
She lowers her fist. The sun is almost directly overhead, casting the boy in shadow. "How stupid," she says, and she means it as much as she's ever meant anything in her life.
The boy inhales sharply. She looks back down at him, meeting his gaze. The terror has faded into shocked confusion. "What're you—"
"You're hungry, huh? And you've got no money?"
The boy shakes his head, the confusion in his eyes growing tenfold. Tao sighs and unfists her hand from his shirt, letting him drop back down onto his back. Immediately, he scrambles away from her, sitting back against the wall, but he doesn't move to stand up. His nose is still pouring blood, two thin, endless streams dripping onto his shirt.
Tao remains crouched in front of him. "Here." She rifles through her jacket pocket—the opposite side from the one the kid just tried to pick. He was right that she keeps her wallet in the other one, but what may be the better prize lay nestled in this one. Pulling out two twisted spheres, she holds them out. "Kids like candy, right?"
Chocolate.
The kid's eyes go wide, flickering from her face to the candy like he's watching a tennis tournament. "For me?" he asks after a moment, disbelief coloring his voice. He hasn't been through puberty yet; the pitch is still high and broken only the strain of his injuries.
Tao raises a scathing brow. "Who else?"
At the confirmation, his hand darts out to grab the candies, receding back to his chest with his gifts in the heartbeat it takes him. He's faster than his small stature suggests. Without waiting for any further cue from her, he practically tears the candy from its wrapper, all but swallowing the first chocolate whole. His face is contorted in pure bliss.
Despite herself, Tao feels her gaze soften. He really was just hungry, wasn't he?
The kid doesn't seem to notice when she stands up, invested only in chewing his second treat. He's taking this one more slowly, seeming to savor the flavor. She waits until he's done chewing to speak.
"What's your name, kid?"
He swallows, then eyes her with bafflement. "Soma," he tells her. His gaze is even, but his breathing quickens slightly.
"That was a lie. Tell me another one and you'll regret it; liars are the worst kinds of people. What's your real name?"
Surprise causes him to rear back. He looks a bit scared again, but not quite so severely as before. " ... Alma. My name is Alma."
"That's a girl's name," Tao says.
He shrinks back. "I'm bein' honest! My name—"
"Yeah, yeah, kid. I believe you." Fuck, she wants a cigarette. Would make dealing with this a whole lot easier, if nothing else. "Look. I don't know what possessed you to come to Gokuraku like this, but you wouldn't survive a day up here. This is your first and only warning. Get out and stay out."
Alma stuffs the last of the chocolate into his mouth. This one only takes him a moment to chew and swallow. He shuts his eyes mournfully as he looks down at his palms, which are covered in some sordid mixture of chocolate, dirt, and blood. "What do you mean?"
"I mean this district isn't kind to kids. If you want to leave with your life, do it now, before sundown. I don't know what you're doing here, but you can do it just as well somewhere else. Better, probably."
"I can't!"
Tao rolls her eyes. Why is she even trying to convince this kid? "Yes, you can."
"No, I ... " He curls in on himself. "You don't understand. I can't go to one of the cities around here. This is the only place left I haven't been to, and the other ones, they... don't treat things like me... kindly. Since there are so many Beastmen here, I thought... "
"You're a Beastman?" She examines his body again, but no tails burst forth from his rear end, and no ears erupt from his hair.
"No, I'm ... it doesn't matter. The point is that I can't go anywhere else. This is all that's left for me."
Hm. "Tough luck, kid."
"Yeah."
They simmer in silence for a minute, the kid getting antsier and antsier as the seconds roll by, but he doesn't go to say anything. He almost does, once, but then his jaw snaps shut and he goes silent again.
Finally, Tao sighs, running a hand through her dark hair to push it back into some version of neat. She's been thinking of dying it recently, but she can't think of a color. Anything she considers feels awkward and phony, like it'll turn her into some separate version of herself—some version of herself who doesn't beat up hungry little boys in alleyways. "If you really refuse to leave, then that's your choice. You're the one who's going to have to live with the consequences. But whatever hell you're running from, I can promise that it's better than here."
He glances at his feet. He's still shrugged against the brick wall. "I really, really can't." To his credit, he looked like he at least thought about it, however briefly.
"If that's your choice, then that's your choice. Just ... " She racks her brain. "There's a Chinese restaurant about a block north of here called Hourai, underneath a Mojang place. There's a woman named Auntie in there. If you really need something, you can go to her. She might even help you."
"One block north... Hourai... Auntie," Alma repeats. "I can go there?"
"I can make no guarantees."
"Still, I... thank you. No one... no one's ever been this nice to me before."
Tao turns to walk away. "I'm not nice, and this is not a favor. I might need to use you in the future." If she can find a use for a scrawny ten year old, that is. And if he survives past dawn. "See you."
Alma yells out from behind her, stronger and louder than it had been over the last half-hour. "Wait! Wait." He wipes his hand on the wall and scrambles to his feet. "I didn't... I didn't get your name."
"I didn't give it," Tao says, not facing him.
"Please," Alma says.
She hesitates.
It's just her name, and just the first. It's not like he can do anything with it.
"Tao. It's Tao."
She isn't looking at him, but she can hear the shaky smile in his voice. "Tao-sama. Thank you."
A person like her doesn't deserve his thanks. "Hourai," she reminds him instead of responding to his misplaced gratitude. "Ask for Auntie."
Without waiting for him to reply, she walks away. He doesn't call after her this time.
Chances are he won't survive the night. Her help did nothing but prolong his suffering, ensure he has a spot of hope only to smash it underfoot. Auntie is kind, but she can only do so much, and it's clear that Alma has more than one skeleton in his closet. If the Mugen Group doesn't do him in, whatever chased him to Gokuraku will.
So what is this warm feeling in her chest?