Red lights

(Mei's PoV)

The red lantern lights reflected the whole street.

The lights may not be bright, but it reached every corners of the streets.

Musics flying across the streets, windows open with an worker in every single one.

It's a beautiful place…

I live here, I was born here, and I've never left this place before. But I rarely go out into the streets with my nanny stopping me every time.

"Mom works there though, why can't I go meet her?"

"Because the sale goes down if they have a kid- I mean… it's stuff you shouldn't see."

Stuff I shouldn't see… nanny doesn't know that I already went out multiple times to look at my mom's work, and that I already know about this man who visits her every friday. I've never seen my mom smile like that, not even to me.

"Time to sleep, don't forget to brush your teeth." nanny left right away after saying that, probably to her other own work.

The nights are when the street lights up bright red and yellow, and when the smell of flowers roams the street.

No one sleeps at night here, night is when everything begins.

I put on my shoes, grabbed my pouch full of allowance I got from my mom, and sneaked out through the small hole on the fence/wall I always used.

That's when I'm always captivated by the breath takingly beautiful street.

A beautiful street with beautiful lights and beautiful people, who wouldn't like this street?-

I opened my eyes to see a boy in front of me, on the floor just like me… maybe because I bumped into him… "I-I'm so sorry!"

"Catch him!" some people were running towards us yelling something.

"Tch, watch where you're going!" The boy said that and started running away, disappearing into the crowds.

My only thoughts were: "What a weirdo, it's also his fault for running blindly!" But I also couldn't help but think… what a beautiful boy, perhaps even more beautiful than the people here, even… more than my mother.

His green eyes were not befitting this colorful street, but it's a rare color that surely would've looked good starring at a luscious forest.

Now that I think about it, his eyes were not the only thing rare, his hair looked silver… can't be though, silver hairs are…

I changed my direction to the dark forest.

———

(Akari's POV)

"I lost them…" I was finally able to catch my breath-

"Hi!"

"THE F-" it was a girl with pure black hair and eyes like the midnight, completely different than my white hair that look's like an old man's.

"How are you here?"

She's used 'how' instead of 'why' meaning she already knows my situation… wait, the spell came off!

I quickly chanted a simple spell to change my hair color to brown… no wonder they caught up to me so fast, my glowing silver hair didn't help me at all.

"Do you need a place to hide in? I know a really good place."

Following a stranger is a bad idea-

"The food there is also good."

She's not a stranger, I already met her once (bumbled into her few minutes ago)

———-

(Mei's POV)

Silver hair, signaling that he's some mythical race… I heard the auction has been taking a lot of special races to sell them, how horrible-

"How far do we have to walk?"

"We're here!" I pointed to my 'home'

"But… it's a brothel, the biggest one here at that, I'm supposed to keep a slow profile…"

"There's quite a lot of people with unique races here, bad people won't be able to take you away when you're here, they will think you're already taken!"

"That's… a genius idea!!! but, will they take me in?"

"Don't worry, my mom is the number one of this place, the brothel will definitely take you in if my mother asks them."

"You're mother is a?…"

"hmm?" I turned back to face him since I couldn't hear him very well.

"Nothing…"

The sounds of a familiar jingles of bells made me look towards it, making me immediately rushing towards the women who wore it. "Mom!" I leaped into her warm hug, the hug might have smelled like someone drenched in perfumes, but it still smelled good when it was my mom wearing those.