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Chapter 1
I am a cleaner in the slums.
I don’t remember exactly how old I was when I first wandered the alleys, but my earliest memory here is of picking up things from the ground.
Of course, in the slums, you hardly ever find anything useful.
There was only one place where decent items could be found—a secretive building tucked away in an alley.
Strange people who went in there would always toss me some coins as they passed by the entrance, where I usually sat.
As I picked up the coins from the ground, I gradually started feeling grateful toward the people who passed through that alley and began picking up trash as well.
That was the very beginning of my fate as a cleaner.
Other alleys were full of litter, but the alley I took care of was spotless—not a single leaf in sight.
Apparently, the people who used that building appreciated it, because they’d toss me coins with satisfied smiles on their faces as they left.
By the time I became familiar with the faces of the people who came and went in my alley—and transformed into a born cleaner—I had turned ten years old.
I had become the mascot of the alley, the top-level cleaner of this area.
I had even gained the skill to recognize people by their clothing alone, knowing whether someone was visiting for the first time, a regular, or even the owner of the building.
“Red, good work today.”
I originally had no name, but people started calling me after the color of my hair. I didn’t mind it at all.
Robin, the owner of the building with no signboard, would always stroke my hair when leaving for the day. If I bowed deeply, folding my body in half and smiled brightly, Robin would always place a few extra coins in my hand compared to others.
I had originally slept in a corner of the alley, but after saving the money I earned in the slums, I managed to get a modest little room a few months ago.
One day, a competitor appeared in my alley.
As usual, I stood at the alley entrance, holding my sack, tongs, and broom, when a boy appeared shivering right next to the building.
I had won countless fights to claim this alley, and for several months, no one had challenged it. And now, after a few months, someone dared to come for it!
I tensed and glared at him.
The boy, slightly smaller than me, nervously shifted his golden eyes toward me and hesitated, trying to speak.
Ha. How presumptuous.
‘Daring to set foot in my territory?’
I ignored him and continued cleaning the alley, picking up trash and throwing it into my sack. The boy, who had been staring at me all along, picked up trash from farther away and held it out to me.
“What’s this?”
I flinched at my own sharp tone.
“…Do you want this?”
“What?”
I found his gesture of offering the trash a little endearing. My guard against him unintentionally softened. Maybe he wasn’t such a bad kid after all.
“Well, trash exists to be picked up.”
I opened my sack and took the trash, cleaning the alley alongside him to the very end.
“Red, you even brought a friend today?”
Robin said as he came to work.
“He’s not my friend!”
“Thanks to you, this alley is so tidy. Here, go buy some bread with your friend today. Buy one for me too.”
“Robin! I said he’s not my friend!”
“Alright, alright. Still, go buy some bread together and enjoy it.”
Grumbling, I took the coins Robin gave me and went to the bakery across the street, picking out two pieces of bread—one for Robin and one for myself.
Well, I just bought one extra since Robin said to get one for him too.
When I ran back to Robin and handed him the bread, he gave me two coins back as payment for the errand.
I carefully put the coins in my pocket, then handed a piece of bread to the boy. He shyly looked up at me with his golden eyes.
“This is from Robin. Eat this, then go home. Anyway, this is my territory.”
“Thanks.”
The boy stared at the bread for a moment, then slipped it into his pocket and sat down in a corner.
He’d probably eat it later.
But that day, until the work was done and I returned home, the boy stayed sitting right there.
‘He’ll go home on his own. It’s not my business.’
I said goodbye to Robin, went home, and ended the day.
The next morning, I went back to the alley in a cheerful mood, only to find the boy back in the same spot as yesterday.
He was shivering in the corner, napping, which annoyed me a little, but I ignored him and picked up the trash in the alley.
“Red, who’s that kid? He’s doing the same thing again today.”
Robin nodded toward the sleeping boy.
“I don’t know. I met him yesterday for the first time.”
For several days, the boy didn’t move from that spot.
What really annoyed me was that over five days, his clothes grew more tattered, his hair more messy, and filth started streaming from him until he became almost unbearable to look at.
For a cleaner like me, who had to keep things perfectly tidy, it was extremely irritating.
A kind of occupational hazard, I guess.
Unable to endure his filthy state any longer, I finally brought the boy home on the fifth day.
“This is my house. I live alone. Where are your parents?”
The boy said nothing.
“Where is your home?”
He shook his head silently.
“If you don’t tell me, I can’t help you. I’m not angry, I just want to help, but I can’t if I don’t know anything. Why didn’t you go home and stayed there all this time?”
Tears quickly filled his golden eyes.
“…I don’t remember.”
“What?”
“I don’t remember anything.”
“Not even how you got here?”
“Yeah. When I woke up… I was in that alley. I don’t even know who I am.”
I was dumbfounded.
No memory at all? Then why were you standing there?
Ah… he didn’t know where to go.
I hope I’m not making things worse by helping him.
“Anyway, you’re way too dirty, so I’ll help you for a while. You can stay at my place until you recover your memories. But you have to do exactly what I say. Here, I’m the boss.”
The boy’s face instantly brightened.
Come to think of it, even though his clothes were dirty, they looked like quite expensive material. Not something a commoner like me could ever wear.
‘Maybe I can make some money off this. If a noble comes to pick him up after I take good care of him, I can get a nice reward.’
From that day, living together with the boy began.
He remembered neither his name nor age, so I gave him one that matched his black hair.
“Nocturne! Hurry up, you’re making us late again!”
Nocturne, following me with a sack, soon became my faithful assistant, cleaning the alley together with me.
A few months passed, and Nocturne told me,
“Red, I want to see other places too.”
He wanted to see alleys other than the one we cleaned every day. I refused multiple times, but I couldn’t suppress his curiosity.
“Nocturne, you really are a curious child!”
“Red, you’re a child too, just like me.”
“I earn my own living. Robin said people who do that are adults. So I’m a proper little adult, and you’re still a child I have to take care of, Nocturne.”
“That’s not true. I’m just like you.”
He looked like a soaked little puppy, whining at me, and I couldn’t refuse any longer. We went together to places he hadn’t seen before.
The nice thing about going together was that after work, we could wander the streets, exploring this and that. Though it was the slums, I showed him every nook and cranny of where people lived. Nocturne’s eyes sparkled as he saw new paths instead of just the same commute every day.
That day, after finishing our alley tour and heading home, a thug named Sam blocked our way with a menacing expression.
“Red, you never budged when I called before. Is this the kid you’ve been carrying around lately? Huh? What could a little runt like that possibly do?”
Sam grabbed my chin roughly, and I glared back at him.
