Feels Like Home

It was Friday. Lalin stood in the alleyway with her back close to the wall to avoid notice. She was waiting for her aunt to finish her business with a man that was old enough to be her grandfather to be called baby.

She looked up at the sky and sighed. She silently scolded herself for forgetting to grab her math workbook on her way out. She could have done something productive while waiting than just staring at the blue roof of the industrial building two blocks away from where she was standing.

They had moved to this place because it was nearer to the MTR—accessible to her school and her aunt's work, not to mention the rent is cheaper for the humming of machinery can be heard twenty-four-seven.

Two years ago, she couldn't sleep well at night for those noises were like beasts growling, threatening to come to get her in the middle of the night.

Another reason why she hated those noises was that they cover up the noise that has real danger. The reason for her study desk— that she rescued from the dump truck that a neighbor decided to throw away, pushed in front of her bedroom door.

Those nonstop humming of the machines from the neighboring buildings hid the footsteps that would come near her small bedroom next to the bathroom, right outside the small dingy room that was being used as the kitchen and dining room.

The living room was her aunt's room and her 'office' where she entertained those men. Mostly working from the factory around the area. Men who during their lunch break need something to relieve their stress.

Those with higher positions usually come at night, right after dinner time. Those are the rowdy ones. Needed more attention than usual. Not like the men at lunch break. She and her aunt had long decided that she can't show herself to her aunt's customers at night.

Lalin heaved another deep sigh and glanced at the sky. The horizon had been lit up with those street lamps that looks like skinny men looking down at her, questioning her existence.

She smirked and folded her arms over her flat chest. She's fourteen but still, shows no sign of growing breasts. Her classmates had been already wearing a starter bra since last school year. Meanwhile, she could still get away from just wearing a shirt.

A real puzzlement on why her aunt's customer desires her. She has no real attributes of a budding woman. Her looks didn't change much since she was eight!

One time, she asked her aunt about it and her aunt stared long and hard at her face with a passive expression on her well-painted face. She thought her aunt would get mad at her for asking but after a long time of staring, she told her in a tone of voice that she hadn't heard from her aunt for a long time.

Apparently, she had the eyes that issued a challenge. Eyes that seemed to understand things that a girl at her age shouldn't know.

When her aunt told her about it, it was her time to stare blankly at her aunt and think. She didn't understand the meaning of it and up to these days, she would still find herself staring at her own replication, peering at her own eyes as though they weren't hers, to find understanding to those words. And it infuriated her that she still could not find the answer.

Every now and then, she would find herself in reverie, lining her unanswered questions in her head, trying to find answers to them one by one like her math problems. The math problems that she should have finished answering by now if she didn't forget to bring her math workbook with her.

Blowing another sigh of disappointment, she pushed herself away from the wall that she had been leaning against. She glanced at their small apartment tucked away in the alleyway of industrial buildings, there was still no sign of her aunt finishing up her work.

Those men that came after dinner time was too much work.

Tired of wasting her time, she started to head in the opposite direction of their house. She took some twists and turns and ended up on a bigger road that would lead her to a roundabout. However, that wasn't her destination.

She glanced over her shoulder, checking if someone was watching her—-which barely happen because except for her red flaming hair, she wasn't interesting enough to be given a second glance.

When she made sure no one was looking at her, she pressed herself to the bushes along the road railings, she disappeared in between green dusty leaves as though she was swallowed by them.

Darkness and twigs hit her face. Yet she felt no fear for it wasn't the first time that she had been here.

Her body knew when to twist, where to push, where to duck her head, and where to slip her skinny body to find herself in a softly illuminated place where the clanging of wheels, hitting the asphalt could be heard accompanied by grunting and howling from rowdy shadows under a bridge.

"Yo, Lalin!"

She pulled off the hood of her hoodie, letting her locks escape from their confinement. This place was the only place where she wasn't insecure about her hair. This group of people never give her a strange baffled stare because of her locks.

She extended her hand to receive and go through a complicated handshake with the lanky boy who greeted her. His bony arm was covered in tattoos, he has three piercings on his left brow and one on the right side of his upper lip.

She knew that he also had one in the middle of his tongue—-his tongue that he tried to shove in her throat the first time they met. They became friends after he apologized on his knees with a contorted face, grabbing his crotch and gasping for air to breathe.

"Trez," she acknowledged the boy whose eyes turned into slits when he laughed.

Lalin felt at home in this place. Here, her safety wasn't threatened.

Here, felt like how a home should be. Safe.