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Finding a good red is a hard thing to do in the New World.
Kid’s particular about his reds. It can’t be a coral, or burgundy, or carnelian, and god forbid he see an amaranth red. It was hard enough to find a fur coat pigmented enough for the red to really bleed under the sun (he would know— he taught a lesson to every shifty-eyed salesman that tried to sell him clothing dyed so poorly the color rubbed off with every touch).
And Kid detests a rusty red. Rust taints metal. It tarnishes. It ages. It degrades. Cheap metals turn a sickly orange-ish red— and he keeps his metal arm shiny. Polished. He really does care about his appearance.
He’s definitely not shameless enough to walk around in pink, either. Robbing a boutique that reeked of perfume with his looming menacing appearance, all to find a decent lipstick and a nail polish; he’s made many sacrifices for his signature eye-burning red. Kid’s effeminate tendencies have their own exceptions and he’ll die an honorable death as a red elitist. (Is he Big Mom? Childish and girly with cherry cheeks and princess dresses? Absolutely not.)
But when the Victoria Punk crumbles apart like a shoddy sandcastle made by a toddler, the planks breaking as if it’s as thin as a chopstick, he’s barely clinging to consciousness. As his creation dies before his eyes, he’s watching barrels of his precious red stain the sea.
As if Victoria herself is bleeding out. And he cares so much.
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Red was everywhere. But red was only for the rich.
The water runs red on their island. Brawls break out so often in the slums that Kid and Killer hardly bat an eye seeing a body beat till its face is nothing but bloody pulp. They dodge the little rivers of ruby that run through the city streets as if their feet are well acquainted with the lingering violence that infects every aspect of that wretched town.
Killer’s barely fifteen with Rapunzel-like hair, yet his shredded knuckles and scraped-up legs contradict that innate delicateness.
Kid’s eleven and nothing but a brat who follows around creepy ol’ Killer, scratching eyes out with his jagged motor-oil stained nails.
“The Navy won’t do jack shit for us,” Kid mutters as they share a loaf of molding bread. “But a pirate could. You saw how they nailed that gang of older kids with guns on crosses and left those fuckers to rot.”
“What are you blabbering about now?”
“I’m sayin’ that we’re leavin’ this shithole,” he spits out, and Killer can almost see crimson in the sclera of his eyes. “An’ I’ll become a pirate that’ll make those rich pigs with their tacky ass red capes fall to their knees in front of me.”
He turns back to tinkering with his toys in silence. Killer almost laughs at how pathetic he looks; a scrawny little thing, shoulders shaking as he fights with his fiery anger. Scary and scrappy Kid. Kid who was born with scarlet hair that screamed danger. Kid, whose clothes are dirty and smelly and all stained with blood. No matter how hard Killer scrubs, the baseball-sized stain from when Kid got stabbed in the hip refuses to fade.
But, even in dim candlelight, in the darkness of their dank dirt hovel, Killer sees the red underneath it all. Not the muted and mind-bogglingly expensive pigments that "rich pigs" treasured— a deep, natural red, imbued into him like born royalty. He can't help but think about how envied he'd be if Kid wasn't born to a mother who couldn't live without needles. He's got pale skin that almost glows under moonlight; the kind that nobles bathe in bleach to achieve, only to get a sickly translucent instead of Kid's smooth quartz. Royalty would kill to have his startlingly red hair, untouched by dye and gel and forever shaped like a roaring flame. When Kid looks back at Killer, looking for an answer but really just afraid to hear Killer say no; Killer can feel a golden aura beating down on him from that intense gaze that shouldn't belong to a little shit like Kid with mud caked behind his ears but belongs to a king. He sees steel forged and nailed together behind red irises and he knows, as gold washes over him, that Kid's throne lies far outside of this suffocating island.
For now, he's a king that can only afford to play with a robot cobbled together from trash scraps.
And Killer is forever his right hand man; a rats nest of 24 karat gold hair atop his head and dressed in a three piece suit of rags.
“Aye aye, captain.”