Chapter Text
Crossing the ocean was no small feat, but for those men, it was nothing more than routine.
Carrying a massive cargo of hundreds of containers, the ship arrived at the U.S. port, where massive cranes unloaded the cargo from the ship onto the docks. And both the routine of the crane operators and the routine of the inspectors led them to carry out their duties with equal diligence, each performing their respective tasks without fail.
It was then that one of the supervisors, a man in his forties, while receiving a shipment of containers filled with clothing, noticed the first warning sign. One of the containers had been opened; a small hole, just big enough for a child to squeeze through sideways, had been cut into the side of the large, dark green-painted metal container. Everyone had seen it, but it was the supervisor who gave the order.
“Call the police.”
Following the order, one of the men who had begun to surround the container ran off in the opposite direction to find a landline in the office.
“Open the container.”
“Are you crazy? There could be a devil in there!”
“If the Chinese sent us a devil, then we have to make sure it doesn’t escape,” replied the man in charge, turning around to find faces that didn’t match his words. “Grab some metal bars, anything, the hole is small.”
The men, despite exchanging disapproving glances, couldn’t stop the group, men who, having spent years in the trade, had already experienced these situations. It was normal for demons to sneak into the cargo: small demons, often dying, who, after crossing the open sea, grew weak from lack of food. When the openings were no more than a meter wide and there were several men, fear was minimal; when the opening was large even with several men, then they could wait for the police. But waiting meant falling behind, and since this was the first case, the group of men went on the defensive while one of them—burly and brave—threw the door wide open, ready to dish out blows.
As he swung the door wide open and took a couple of steps back, they were met by a deep, dark container, where bundles of clothing covered in white bags were stacked in the shape of a fortress.
There was a devil inside; they knew it because there was another smell in the air besides metal, plastic, and fabric, something foul, a dirty but human smell. Yet no human would ever enter a dumpster like that.
But they didn’t need to remove any of the bundles; in fact, no one managed to wait for that order.
A burly man—the same one who had opened the doors and taken a couple of steps back—saw, before he died, a spark coming from the deepest part of the container. The rest only heard the gunshot, but they all saw the large body fall backward onto the ground, a bullet hole in his forehead, blood on the floor marking the trajectory, and the growing pool of blood spreading across the space.
Some men ran off instantly; others shouted the deceased’s name; two couldn’t even move, and only the supervisor was able to curse.
“Shit.”
Those who failed to run a couple of meters between the metal towers seeking shelter fell one by one to the sound of bullets flying at breakneck speeds.
When the police arrived, twelve deaths from gunshot wounds were reported, but there was no culprit, neither at the port nor in the city.
The gun demon is on the loose in the United States, or so the rumors say…
The capital’s cold had a way of seeping into Angel’s bones, even though it was far more bearable than the cold on the coast.
His school was large; the children they were sending off to college were the same ones who had once learned to write their names for the first time within those very walls. With hallways always crowded and a social circle that never had room for someone like him, Angel still covered his ears when the bell rang to signal the end of recess, and there were only two options: either he had to lift his head from the desk he never left, or he had to walk from the bathroom on the first floor to the classroom on the third.
The class had shared the same room for three years. Angel was there when his classmates got excited about being on such a high floor, and he stepped back from the scramble when everyone wanted to be by the window. He, for his part, chose a seat that wasn’t too far back or too far forward, but was very far from the window and out of the teacher’s sight.
It was a classroom with a shared identity; there were the occasional doodle or inappropriate drawing scribbled in pen between the shelves; it had a whiteboard that had fallen over at least twice, new and old desks, comfortable chairs, and others that snagged stockings. It had a tall communal cabinet, donated by a mother for all the students to use. Some kept their books there; often, unfinished craft projects were stored there too. It was frequently filled with trash, a couple of forgotten scarves, and an airtight lunchbox that had been sitting there since last year yet no one dared to check the state of its contents.
When Angel comes back from the bathroom, he has a habit of walking in and looking toward his desk, and when things are different from how he left them, the first thing he does is check that cabinet. Sometimes they hide his things underneath, sometimes behind it; that day, he could see one of his backpack’s straps peeking out from the top. But if there was one thing Angel had learned the hard way, it was that finding his things so quickly was by far good news.
He exhaled; behind him, his classmates were pouring in. It wasn’t worth looking for culprits, eight of them might be laughing, but any of the thirty-two could have done it.
Out of habit, He pulled out the teacher’s chair, climbed onto it, and without wasting any effort, stood on his tiptoes to reach the strap sticking out and managing it on the first try. The backpack came out without much effort; Angel climbed down and pushed the chair back without wiping the footprints off it. He knew something was wrong the moment the backpack felt too light, but it wasn’t until he sat down at his own desk that he opened it. His books were gone, and so were his pencils. That was when he cursed himself, knowing he should have taken his things with him to the bathroom, even if he had already used up absolutely all his energy attending to his biological need.
Kenna, a girl with warm skin, short hair pulled back exaggeratedly and tucked behind her ears, took a seat next to him while Angel continued to look inside his backpack with resignation. She kept talking to a couple of girls who were taking their seats, even as they walked away and she had to bend over to keep up the conversation. Angel then rested his backpack on her lap, exhausted.
“Kenna…?” He said, leaning forward slightly. “Kenna.”
She kept talking, since Angel was speaking softly and he knew it, intending to get her attention but without wanting to bother her. Still, Angel noticed when one of the girls his friend was talking to pointed at him, and the girl finally turned around.
“Angel? What’s up?” she asked, looking at him.
Kenna was his desk mate and also his best friend, a foreigner like him, with that slight accent and those features that set them apart from everyone else. Yet they were similar in the very things that made them different: she was tall, dark-haired, and always smiling; Angel was short, red-haired, and bitter.
“Can I borrow a pencil and a piece of paper, please?”
“Why? What happened to your stuff?” she asked, turning fully toward him with a concerned look and tone. Angel shrugged.
“Please.”
“Sure,” she replied without pressing the matter.
Kenna had the same worn-down pencils Angel had been seeing for years, plain and functional, but among them was one with a unique leaf pattern that she’d bought last summer. It was her favorite; in fact, Angel had never seen her use it, but he knew it perfectly well, because whenever Angel’s things were stolen or left behind, Kenna would lend him that particular pencil.
The sheet of paper was just any old one; she handed it to him and waited for Angel to take it, unlike the pencil she’d taken out of her pencil case and placed on Angel’s desk before flipping through the notebook to give him a blank page.
“Did you check on the shelves back there?” she asked as Angel took the sheet.
“No.”
“Do you want me to?”
“No, leave it.”
Kenna watched him for a few moments as Angel settled in to use the sheet of paper. The teacher coming through the door and being greeted by a few students before reaching his desk to officially start the class. The redhead could see out of the corner of his eye how Kenna was looking all around looking for culprits.
The good thing was that even if Angel could suspect everyone in that room at that moment, he would never suspect Kenna for even a second.
The aisle with the school supplies wasn't far from the entrance. Angel headed that way while his mother checked the list they'd made and his stepfather made sure his two-year-old stepsister was sitting securely in the small baby seat of the shopping cart.
Even so, his mother noticed right away when, next to the pasta and beneath the cans of tuna, a simple notebook and a blue pen appeared. At that point, pretending to be innocent was completely pointless, yet Angel still stared at the canned beans in the canned goods aisle where they were standing. His mother turned her head sharply and spoke with a frown.
“Are you going to tell me you lost your things again?” she asked angrily.
Angel didn’t dare look up. His stepsister was still babbling, even as his stepfather looked at him with concern.
Angel and his mother looked alike, both with small noses and reddish hair. She wore hers completely straight and her face uncovered, while he struggled with several unruly strands and a distinctive fringe. Angel knew that if he wore blouses and heels instead of sweatshirts and worn-out shirts, they would be the exactly same person.
“Angel!” The boy shrugged.
“They got stolen.”
“Who? How?”
“I don’t know.”
“How can you not know?!”
“Hey,” Frank, his stepfather, interrupted, placing a hand on Hana’s, his mother’s, forearm. “I’ll handle this, okay? Give us a moment.”
Frank stepped away from the shopping cart where, just moments ago, he had been leaning his weight on its handles; he raised a hand to calm Hana down and took the notebook and pencil out of the cart. Then he approached Angel and, with his free hand, gently took him by the shoulder and led him in the opposite direction out of the aisle; his mother huffed as she grabbed the cart and went back to checking her list.
Once out of earshot, Frank—a sincere man with short brown hair, thirty-six years old, a beard that had taken him longer to grow than it appeared, and a pronounced belly from a quiet life—spoke calmly.
“Willing to tell what happened?”
Angel didn’t feel comfortable being led by the shoulder, especially by such a big man, but at five feet tall, only children were shorter than him.
“Angel?”
“Already said it.”
“Yeah, but maybe you could give a little more detail?” Angel exhaled.
“I left my things while I went to the bathroom, and when I came back, they were gone,” he said as they arrived, the hallway of supplies peeking out among the others, walking without any hurry.
“Know who it could have been? One of your classmates?”
“No.”
“You don’t know, or…?”
“I don’t know.”
Frank sighed at the response as they crossed the aisle toward the notebooks; there, the hand rested on his shoulder patted him a couple of times before pulling away.
“Alright, thanks for trusting me,” he said sincerely.
As they parted, Frank left the things Angel had put in the cart scattered to one side where they didn’t belong. Angel looked for a moment at where the hand had been before glancing at the wide variety of prices, designs, and quality of notebooks standing before him.
“You can pick whichever one you want; I’ll pay for it,” he said, standing with his hands at his sides. “Go ahead and get one with a ring binder.”
“Why? I’m just going to lose it again,” he asked, turning his head slightly toward Frank, who had stood behind him. The man shrugged and scratched the back of his neck, speaking casually.
“I don’t know, maybe if you pick something you like, you’ll take better care of it.”
“You think that’s why I lost it?” he asked, annoyed.
“No, no. Just…” He shook his head and waved his hands. “Pick something you like, okay?”
Frank walked around him until they reached the shelf, both aware of the exaggerated distance he’d kept this time. He picked up a standard notebook with a thick cover; on the front, a pair of cute dogs in a basket were shown off. Angel’s displeasure slipped out in the way his mouth twisted and he threw his head back; a small sound of protest didn’t go beyond his lips.
“Take this one, it’s cute.” Angel looked up, deeply offended.
“You think I’m a fag?”
Frank was taken aback; his smile faded, and he raised his eyebrows in astonishment.
“N-no, no! Angel, Don't say that!” he muttered, glancing from side to side to see if anyone had heard him. “I-I didn’t say anything.”
“You thought it.”
“No, no. Why would I?” he asked, placing the notebook back on the shelf, in a different pile from where he’d taken it.
“Then why did you offer that?”
“It was the first one I pulled out, for God’s sake!” Frank shifted from foot to foot, stammering over what he was going to or should say. “Pick whichever one you want, just don’t take the cheapest one. I’ll leave it up to you.”
Frank stepped aside, but Angel still took a few moments to stare at him before walking over to pick up a notebook. Although there were some interesting designs, he chose a hardcover one with a plain color cover. Next to him, Frank held out two packages; one contained several spare pens in the classic blue, red, and black, while the other held graphite pencils. When Angel reached out to take them, Frank didn’t let go and leaned down to be at eye level, speaking with the utmost seriousness and understanding.
“I don’t want you to ever treat yourself like that again. Got it?” he said, looking Angel in the eyes even as the redhead kept his gaze fixed on the pencils.
“Okay.”
“Angel, I mean it,” he said, pulling the pencils away so the boy would look at him. “I would never think that way about you.”
Angel didn’t answer, but Frank let go of the pencils anyway. Without taking him by the shoulder, they began walking back toward the hallway where Angel’s mother had been standing, but once they were a few steps away from the hallway, Frank asked again.
“Do you have a pencil case?” he asked in his usual calm tone.
“No,” Angel replied, in the same flat, low tone he always used.
Frank turned around, and Angel followed him.