The second night I had to secretly escape from my room again, I accidentally ended up tripping over my own foot, pressing my eyes while cursing myself for the noise I had made. Stupid me. 

"I thought you had stopped doing that," Choerry's voice made me shudder for a moment, but the surprise soon turned to anger and I turned to revolt, having to mentally prevent myself from jumping on Yerim's bed and taking her head off.

What an irritating mania to meddle in the others' lives!

"I never promised anyone anything," I rolled my eyes, taking two cigarettes out of the wallet I kept hidden under the bed and putting them in my pocket.

"You swore!" She accused, being careful to scream in a whisper so Yeojin wouldn't wake up. "You swore you wouldn't go for anything after that-"

"Whoever swears always lies, Yerim," I interrupted, then muttered a good night and left her behind as I threw my body against the bush at the back of the orphanage, climbing the lower rail to get out.

Technically, I'm eighteen, so it is not so wrong for me to smoke, but that is not the real purpose of my leaving — not the only one, at least — and as much as my roommate likes to ignore it, she knows it.

The street was dark, lit by the few poorly distributed poles on the sidewalks, many of them failing due to the advanced age of the light-emitting diodes, and there was a little fog thanks to the cold of dawn. I regretted not bringing a thicker coat, or maybe even a blanked, since the first option is missing for all the girls at the orphanage.

Hearing the friction of the worn sole of my sneakers against the dusty track, I headed east until I found a female figure at the end of the street, at the first corner. It was Jo Haseul, my cigarette supplier and on needy nights since I was fourteen: a beautiful, mature young woman of nineteen, with eagle eyes and dark brown hair that goes no longer than her shoulders.

She was standing in her brown boots and holding a wad between her fingers. She smiled when she saw me and, unfortunately, I still recognized the same passionate smile from her lips from years ago, regretting it right away.

"I thought you weren't coming today, Kim," she said and spat the tasteless gum on the floor.

"When am I not coming?" I stole her cigarette, putting it between my lips and inhaling once.

"Hm," she murmured, taking another wad out of the front pocket of her pants and lighting it, imitating my next gesture. "I'm not going to accompany you today, prince. I have shipments to receive."

"What, you're already giving up?" I joked, my eyebrows raised and my posture failing because, despite not being authorized to do so, she sometimes joined me in my tasks to ensure that I was quick and safe.

The half smile that Haseul gave me said a lot. "You are the one who only does things for fun between us, Kim. I do adult stuff and I'm full of it today."

"I hate it when you talk like that," I rolled my eyes at her speech, taking a deep breath after finishing her cigarette and then throwing it on the floor, stepping on it to put out the fire. "I have no interest in being an outlaw, Haseul, much less a drug dealer. I want to graduate, go to college. I'm just keeping my word to pay a debt."

"What are you still doing here, then?" She retaliated and I backed away, giving her a goodbye wave as I walked away.

Sometimes, Haseul really knew how to piss me off.

She wants more than anything that I join her in her profession, if what she does to earn money qualifies as a profession, just to have me around forever, and made a point of making innuendo all the times we were together, as if I was going to miraculously change my mind and run away with her. Love in crime.

But I would never be able to return that feeling, not anymore; not in the way that she wants me to; not after I've frozen her inside me and hidden my feelings so well that I don't even know where they are anymore.

Perhaps in my fifteen years, the height of my rebellion, when I saw no future in this damned city. However, things changed when I entered the second year of high school and my teachers, seeing my student potential, presented me with a totally new reality. I had a chance to leave Loonaville and now that I know it, now that I've blocked all my feelings towards people, I wouldn't waste it, even if it means leaving Haseul and her broken heart behind.

One of the many promises that I have broken.

Zipping up my coat, I left, the dark hood covering my head and my hands being warmed by my sweatshirt pockets. It was around one in the morning now, a cold, raw dawn, with ghostly streets and high-pitched sounds. Nobody was out of their homes after eleven on weekdays, except the imbecile teenagers of the third year who liked to go to the bar because they thought it was super cool to get drunk and be friends with people from all over the state. Typical.

When I was far enough from my neighborhood, I headed northeast of Loonaville, where all the best attractions in the city are, such as the cinema, the amusement park and the aquarium, which today would be my victim spot. I was not at liberty to choose the places I assaulted, and I would not do so if I did; Haseul gave me the information a week before it happened, and they are always silly thefts that I don't even understand.

The first time I did it, for example, a few years ago, I stole a basket of apples from the central market. In the second one, it was a purple bat-shaped pillow from the upholstery shop. And in the most recent one, golf balls from the Eden Club course, a place frequented by wealthy people who know nothing about real life, but that gave me a lot of work, so much work that I only climbed another task a month later, this being that of catch a new arrival of beta fish. Who would get it?!

If I stay quiet and do not question, the service is worth more, so I am already used to blocking any kind of socially correct opinion that will want to censor me in my mind and, nowadays, I'm no longer curious about it. Thereby, the less I owe.

It took me a good hour and a few minutes walking to reach the aquarium, sighing with relief when I saw the big dark blue building and its large illuminated letters flashing in front of me: Aquarium Loonaville, service center and specialization for sea creatures. I climbed the left side wall — the one that was not visible to any security camera — and reached the top with ease, having to climb the second floor wall again and look for the trapdoor that, according to my contacts, should take me to the new section, which was still under construction and, therefore, had empty water tanks with rubber floors, perfect to cushion my fall.

But when I jumped trusting my superiors, it was not the rubber that cushioned my fall, but the cold water that paralyzed my body instantly and I knew I was very, very screwed.

.

Flashes of light from below and from above the huge glass cage illuminated my vision — as they were not potent, however, they were overshadowed by the lack of natural light and the great amount of water —, which was not good because everything that appeared in front of me was some big fish and a huge bug that I couldn't even identify. He had a fat body, mustaches and bulging eyes.

I doens't matter what it was because I am completely terrified of any sea creature — I didn't go to the beach to get into the water or even the pier and I had never been to the aquarium before —, so I had no reaction but to scream, my voice being reversed into air bubbles in the water, and move as fast as possible.

In response, the creature was also frightened, imitating my movements and accidentally throwing its tail, or legs, I was not sure of what it was, on top of me, making me sink deeper and hit my head on a hard surface. I felt a throbbing pain in the back of my skull and something breaking when my back was pressed hard.

That was such a bad sign.

I pushed myself up as soon as my feet touched the slippery floor and swam to the surface, gluing my arms on the first thing I could find. Unfortunately, the thing had wet skin and a weird texture, and it put its head in my mouth just out of curiosity. I screamed as loudly as I could and threw myself back to find a way out of that nightmare. My feet hit the ground again and I got taller as I tried to run.

My uncoordinated screams had lasted a little longer, until my throat started to hurt.

I fell on the ramp when my knees went against it and sighed in shock, already out of the water. My nose wrinkled with the strong smell of fish and salt that the place exuded and my body started to shiver with both cold and fear, and all I wanted to do was go home, go back to the orphanage. I should have insisted a little more for Haseul to come with me.

Around me, more creatures like the previous two were scattered, some sleeping on artificial stones, some playing in the sand and some swimming in the water. I got up in time to see the one responsible for my initial scare identify me and make a loud, shrill sound, looking directly at me. Oh, gosh.

I opened my eyes wide when I realized that the creature was about to come after me and started to run in search of an exit, finding it on the other side of the room, a white door with a handle high up. I stumbled twice before reaching it, falling on the first of them on top of one of the animals and giving to another one a chance to bite my sneakers.

The fat, noisy beast was very close to reaching me when I finally left and I hurried to lock the door behind me, breathing heavily and thanking whoever was listening for letting me out of that nest of snakes alive.

The door — it had a metal plate with 'Seals' written in white letters — took me to a room with dark walls and metal shelves, plus two more doors. The first one I opened showed a freezer with dead fish that made me sick and dizzy, and the other one led to the main corridor of the aquarium's service area. On the central wall, a huge map with the aquarium's perimeter stretched over a blackboard that I soon tried to memorize and locate myself from the information; I was in the west wing and I was supposed to go to the east wing, which was on the other side of the place.

"That's ing great," I murmured, realizing then that there was something in my head. My hand touched it and my body gave a huge jump when I saw it was moving, but it was already lying on the floor.

Good thing it was just a fish.

The path between the dark walls and the metal shelves was lonely and almost without lighting, if not to mention the flashlight that I happened to find lying on the floor of the starfish section and that I was using so as not to get lost. The smell of salt that seemed to stick to every corner of each wall made it all the more unpleasant, and I couldn't help thinking that no other task could be as uncomfortable as this one was being; it was more boring and exhausting than keeping an eye on the children at the orphanage during Saturday mornings.

The signs on the doors guided me and indicated the path I should follow, since the wing I needed to reach to get the precious beta fish was fixed in my head, but an irritating and new noise similar to the sound of a siren began to bother me.

I opened my eyes wide when I realized that they were indeed sirens. Sirens from a police car.

Unwittingly, my nervous hands dropped the flashlight and the glass shattered on contact, immediately turning off the light. I was in the dark now.

"," I looked around to decide what to do, but there were no more clues visible around so much darkness, just turbids moving due to my pupils' lack of focus and the anxiety that was building in my stomach.

Desperate, I started running without knowing where to go.

I couldn't get arrested. Well, technically, I can be arrested because I'm old enough for that, but that doesn't mean I want to! Or that I can afford to tarnish my name; it would be like saying goodbye to a good college. And, damn it, that wasn't the deal! I cannot leave Yerim and Yeojin alone.

But fate certainly hated me because I ended up bumping into the wall and bruising my head so hard that I fell and passed out. The sirens still shouting, loud and moody.