When they returned from their run, Hikari had too many thoughts dancing in his head. Names and memories suffocated his brain. Ren had been more quiet than normal throughout the whole ordeal. Hikari had done what Katsuo had said and told their distributor that the rest was coming. He didn’t want to lie without any concept of Katsuo’s plan going forward, but he could think of nothing else on the way over. It was nearly midnight now and he dumped his bike in the garage. Katsuo was not back yet and Hikari didn’t want to see him. He said good night to Ren and walked to the nearest suspensor train station.

  The suspensor train rails were floating over the city, weaving between the buildings throughout all of Arcadia. Hikari used it now to go back to sector 18. There were only a couple passengers on the train when Hikari boarded it, all homeless. An image of a clean train in the Circle flew by him as if it was a building passing by the window. One of the homeless men rolled over in his seat revealing a veiny arm. His veins were bulging out of his skin. Instead of the normal blue hue, his veins were a soft green color. The sign of a Glowhead. He had just recently injected too. Hikari wondered if the Glow he picked up last week was the very same that led this man to be passed out on the train next to him. It almost certainly was.

  The eye trinket on his keychain comforted him. He felt that deep pang in his chest. Longing for something he never had. The soft swaying of the train in the air was familiar and soothing. The suspensor trains moved so quickly that the city was a blur. Lights already obscured by smog were puffy and bright. For a moment the city washed away and Hikari was floating above the smog. He could see the stars.

  The train screeched to a halt and he had arrived at the station. An elevator took him back down to the street. Without thinking, his feet carried him down the familiar streets. The streets where he had grown up. The roads that led him to where he was now. He removed his mask, fully breathing in the smog. It tickled his lungs in a way he remembered from his youth. The dangers were obvious and well-documented but it didn’t matter. Anything was worth breathing air for yourself, not through a device.

  The water in the air felt cold. Events of the night played through his head like scenes from a book, like he hadn't actually lived them. In his memories, he watched himself from a third person point of view. Those issues seemed distant and unimportant now.

  Yoshi’s corner store came into view. He went in through the backdoor with the second key attached to the chain. The store was dark.

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  “Hikari? Is that you?” Yoshi called out cautiously.

  “Yeah, it’s me.”

  “Good. Some hoodlums tried to get in that way a few nights ago. I was worried that they had returned.” Hikari stumbled in and Yoshi turned on the lights. “You took your mask off?” Hikari shrugged. “Don’t tempt the air. Neon Lung is not something to risk. When you get to be my age, it all catches up with you. I’m one of the lucky ones.”

  Hikari sat on a crate on the floor. A bright sign on the wall advertised a discount on mask filters. Discounts were becoming more common in Yoshi’s store. New wrinkles in his face stood out to Hikari. His moustache looked whiter and the bags under his eyes seemed heavier. Yoshi was studying Hikari. He had a way of reading people that no one else did.

  “More trouble with the crew?” he inquired. Hikari shrugged again. “Talk to me, son. I can’t read your mind.” Hikari laughed to himself because many times it felt as if he did exactly that.

  “I don’t know. Everything just feels wrong,” Hikari confessed.

  “Sometimes it feels that way,” Yoshi said as he approached Hikari. “You know…there are other options for you.”

  “Don’t start this again. Not right now,” Hikari didn’t have the energy to argue.

  “Running drugs is not what you were meant to do,” Yoshi said. Words like this always triggered Hikari.

  “Then what was I meant to do, Yoshi? You tell me if you’re so wise about this stuff.” Hikari buried his head in his hands, already regretting what he said.

  “That’s not for me to tell you. But I know you were meant for more. The evidence is here,” said Yoshi, running his fingers through the white stripe in Hikari’s hair. As a younger kid, when Hikari first started visiting the shop, Yoshi used to say his streak was a sign that he was favored by the powers beyond. Yoshi’s old fashioned beliefs influenced every piece of advice he gave Hikari. He believed in stronger beings that designed the world they inhabited. Hikari liked hearing that he was destined for greatness as a child but rolled his eyes at these statements now.

  “Right now, that doesn’t help me.”

  “One day it will, son. I hope I’m around when it does.” He ruffled Hikari’s hair one more time. “I’m off to bed. The loft is open.” The old man shuffled over to his room which was connected to the back of the store. Hikari waited for a moment in the darkness of the store. The words didn’t help, but just being there always did. The clouded air around his head lifted slightly and things looked clearer.

  Hikari climbed up to the loft where a bed that he used to live in was waiting. The sheets were the same from the last time he had spent the night a couple months ago. He was thankful to let his brain rest and tried not to think about the next day.