The orphanage isn't hell. It's just tired.
It gives him:
A bed.Food.Basic education.Access to Sister's "don't get scammed" lectures.A network of adults who can say, "Yes, that boy worked, he didn't steal, he showed up."
Those references matter.
He sees how much when a new boy arrives one rainy evening: skinny, filthy, older than Ryu but with the wide eyes of someone who just got everything yanked away.
He doesn't talk much. Just eats, sleeps, and flinches.
A month later, he's already in trouble with the guards for loitering in the wrong places. No one outside the orphanage will vouch for him. Nobody wants a kid they don't trust in their shop.
Ryu watches all that and quietly updates his mental balance sheet.
Orphanage pros: food, paper trail, adults to write things about you that matter. Cons: rules, curfews, terrible porridge. Net positive. For now.
Haim notices the benefits too.
"You're from the home," he says one day while Ryu is wiping down a bench. "That means if you vanish, someone asks why."
"Comforting image," Ryu says. "Who's imagining me vanishing?"
"People who might want to use you for things and then not deal with the mess," Haim says. "They prefer kids nobody counts."
"Good to know I'm slightly less robbable," Ryu says.
"Slightly," Haim says.
He starts sending Ryu on deliveries further out. Not just to suppliers, but to clients.
"Take this part," Haim says, wrapping a component in cloth. "Warehouse by the canal. Ask for Jeren. Don't drop it. Don't let anyone talk you into opening it."
"If they offer to buy me, I should say no?" Ryu asks.
"If they offer to buy you, tell them your warranty is terrible," Haim says. "Go."
The warehouse by the canal is a new part of the city.
The air is damp, heavy with the smell of water, rot, and chemicals. Barges bump against worn piers. Men move crates with the dull momentum of people who do this every day.
Ryu walks with purpose. Bag over his shoulder, package held carefully.
He finds the right warehouse by the faded number and the name on a sign barely hanging on.
Inside, it's cool and dim. Stacks of crates, canvas covers, the rustle of rats somewhere.
A man with narrow eyes and a clipboard looks up.
"Yeah?" he says.
"Delivery from Haim's workshop," Ryu says, holding out the package. "For Jeren."
"That's me," the man says. He takes the package, unwraps a corner, checks the contents with a practised eye.
"Good," he says. "Tell Haim it fits."
He digs in a drawer, pulls out a few coins, and holds them out.
Ryu blinks.
"That's… for the delivery?" he asks.
"Small tip," Jeren says. "You kids don't get paid enough."
True.
Ryu takes it. "Thanks."
Outside, he considers the coins.
He could pocket them. Haim would never know.
He doesn't.
When he gets back, he sets the coins on Haim's workbench.
"Guy at the warehouse tried to bribe me to say nice things about him," Ryu says.
Haim snorts. "Keep it," he says. "If clients want to throw money around, I'm not stopping them."
"You're sure?" Ryu asks.
"You brought the part back? No? Then you did your job. Tips are yours," Haim says.
Ryu pockets the coins.
It's not much. But it's his.
Tip money goes in a different mental category than wages. Wages are for future housing, future independence. Tips are for small survival upgrades. Extra food when he needs it. Maybe, one day, a book that isn't falling apart.
The city offers tiny, sporadic kindnesses, apparently. He'll take those too.
On the day he turns eight and a half – not that anyone else counts it – Ryu realizes something obvious.
He's no longer at the very bottom.
Still low. Still weak compared to adults. Still broke compared to anyone with a real job.
But:
He earns a small wage.He has growing savings.He has a potential future apprenticeship.He understands rent and contracts better than half the city.He knows which streets to avoid at dusk, which markets have the cheapest food, which alleys lead to pits he's not ready to enter.
His body doesn't scream after a walk up the slope anymore. He can carry full bags without stopping. His push-up count passed fifteen last week. Small numbers. But they add up.
The orphanage, for all its grimness, has given him something like a launchpad.
Sister's lectures. Haim's grudging trust. Daro's stupid jokes. A city that doesn't care if he exists, but also hasn't managed to erase him yet.
One evening, he stands in the yard alone, watching the sky turn the color of dirty metal.
He thinks:
I have six years until they expect me gone. Less, if I move early.
By then, he wants:
Money. Enough to not be trapped in the worst housing.A solid job or apprenticeship he can drop if something better (or more dangerous) appears.A body that can survive real training.A map in his head detailed enough that when he leaves, he's not walking blind.
Somewhere beyond that lies the Hunter Exam. Nen. The main track of the story he used to watch from a couch.
Right now, he's still in the prologue.
He accepts that.
You don't start at the Heaven's Arena. You start in holes like this, with porridge and small wages and Sister's handwriting on a whiteboard.
Daro wanders out, kicks a stone.
"What are you staring at?" Daro asks.
"The future," Ryu says.
"It look bad?"
"It looks expensive," Ryu says.
Daro laughs. "You're weird."
"I know," Ryu says.
They stand there in silence for a minute.
The city hums beyond the fence: trains in the distance, someone shouting, someone laughing, the faintest thud from somewhere underground.
Ryu tucks all of it away.
End of the beginning, he tells himself. From now on, everything counts toward leaving.
The world is still dangerous. Nen is still out of reach. Hunters are still on platforms giving speeches while he sweeps floors.
But he's not the half-dead, confused kid who woke up under a cracked ceiling anymore.
He knows where he is.
He knows roughly where he's going.
And he's not planning on dying as background scenery.