I spent the next three hours walking to Ame city, but luckily I made it there before the G.S. had begun. Ha, good thing I left home early. I found a nice place to set up shop at a plaza called 'Hina to Tsuki'. The place was enormous, one could probably grow entire months' worth of food for a quarter of the city if it weren't covered in cement.

Rising skyscrapers surrounded us, they touched the sky with their spires that reminded me of lances. The city though wasn't as futuristic as I had imagined it to be. Actually over half of the city looked to be in conditions as bad as the inside of my home, or worse, far worse. Meanwhile, the other section of the city was full of business buildings, fancy restaurants, big brand-name shops I had only ever seen on television, and even mansions.

"Melons, buy your melons here," a boy with semi-long light blue hair yelled out. He had the most beautiful eyes I had ever seen, they were like the clear waters of a deep lake.

"So you are selling food too?" I said. His melon cart was almost empty. I tried to hold back a chuckle. I was right to come to the city.

"Yeah, I started selling these melons before the sun rose," he responded as he looked up at the sky with his topaz blue eyes. "So what are you selling?"

I showed him a white dress that my ma had made. "I'm gonna sell clothes my ma made, along with corn, strawberries, apples, watermelons, and citrus fruit."

His eyes seemed to glow at the sight of the dress. "Wow, your mother makes beautiful dresses. It sort of reminds me of my mom, she always used to sew clothes for us." He smiled as if reminiscing about his childhood. He shook his head and held out his hand toward me. "How rude of me, I have yet to introduce myself, I'm Shion Topaz."

"Shion, isn't that a girl's name?" I said jokingly. Wow, did I sound like Tsukyo, or what?

He puffed his cheeks. "It's not. It's a unisex name. What's your name?"

My eyes darted up towards the sky. "I'm Sora Citrine."

The boy chuckled as he glanced up at the sky again. "Sora? That's a unisex name too. Doesn't that mean sky?" 

I grinned. "It does, Ma said she called me that as she saw in me the vast sky."

Shion laughed.

I blushed as red as a red potato. "What's so funny?"

"I just found your face to be cute."

My face became redder. Being called 'cute' by a guy wasn't on my list of acceptable compliments.

"Well, it was nice to meet you, Sora. I'm almost out of melons, so we will going to have to talk another time. I'll leave you to your work."

"I can give you some of my fruit to sell but you have to give me seventy-five percent of what you get from the sales," I said jokingly.

His eyes glowed. "Alright, I will." He didn't hesitate to take some apples out of a bag in my cart.

I picked out some apples to sell by myself. "You mean ya'll really help me out?" I placed the apples on a white, and red cloth. "Ya don't have to, really."

"Of course, I will have nothing else to sell if I don't," Shion said while he turned to sell someone a melon.

"True," I responded as customers began to appear. 

Shion turned out to be a big help. For the rest of the day, we saw giant crowds of people come from almost all corners of town and even some who came from other parts of the nation. Some had accents I'd never heard before meaning they were not from this southern part of the country. Was I really so isolated to not know my own fellow countrymen's dialects? Well, Astora was a vast country.

"Well looks like I have to go find a place to stay," I said as we finished selling the last dress.

Shion removed the iron rods from his tent. "You can stay at my house, and don't worry I won't charge you a penny."

"Thanks a lot, but I don't wanna impose."

He shook his head as he took out another rod. "It's no trouble. You helped me make some extra money. Let's finish cleaning up here and I'll take you there." Shion looked up and saw two men in black talking to some merchants from across where our stand was. He threw the rods, and the tent into my cart, and grabbed my hand. "Let's get out of here."

"What's going on?"

He glanced over at the two men in black as they pushed a female merchant against the wall in a threatening manner. One of them reached into his pocket for something and screamed something causing the woman to hand over a wad of cash. 

It didn't take me much to realize what was going on. I pulled up my sleeves and took in a deep breath. Ma and Pa had always said "Help out a fellow man, or woman. Turning away is the coward's way." I wasn't willing to be labeled as a coward just yet.

Shion touched my back. "Don't. You'll get yourself killed, as well as that woman. If you want to help her, let it go. You don't know these people like I do. If you're to fight them, it's best for others to not be around." The plaza was still full of people.

I released my already formed fists and picked up my tent. I threw it into the cart and followed Shion out of the plaza.

***

Shion escorted me across town. The city at night looked like a giant light show with its brilliant lights shimmering everywhere from the rooftops to the roads. Speaking of roads I nearly was run over twice while crossing. Shion had to lecture me on how to cross the street safely. Finally, after a while, Shion took a left turn into a dark alleyway.

"Looks like I can finally go back home tomorrow. Though, I could always buy some things to sell," I said as Shion and I entered the alley.

"That's what I do." Shion stopped and touched the ground. "Here we are, help me pull this up."

"You know I didn't expect Ame to be this much of a slum," I said, recalling those two men in black.

"Wow you must really be naïve to think that Ame doesn't have slums," Shion said in a tone that was similar to Tsukyo's. "Every big city in this country has one."

"You know, you sound like my friend Tsukyo." I helped him pull the concrete slab from the ground. "Why are we doing this anyway?" I soon got my answer when I pushed the concrete slab to the side. A dimly lit staircase was under where the slab once was.

"This is my home. Remember Ame is a slum," Shion said with a somewhat feminine tone.

"Did your voice just change?" I asked, blinking.

"What do you mean?" Shion said as we began to walk down the stairs.

"Your voice, it sounded like a girl's. I don't mean to call you a girl, I'm just saying it sounded a bit feminine just now."

He entered the dark staircase.

"Sorry, if I made you upset."

"It's fine."

"Shion's home," a little girl's voice yelled out interrupting our conversation.

"Hey, Sis," Shion said as he picked her up.

"Yay! Shion is back," a little boy said with a smile on his face. This little boy reminded me of my baby brother.

"I brought you two some food," Shion said as he handed both of them an Apple. "I'll go buy us dinner later. For now, let's go clean up your faces."

"Speaking of cleaning up, can I use your shower?" I said as I touched my dirty face. I glanced down at my dirt-covered white jeans. "I probably should've changed a while ago." I'm surprised that I managed to sell my stuff looking like I had. One would've expected that with such sales that most of Ame wouldn't be doing so badly, yet there seemed to be rampant poverty. Something was definitely off about this town.

"Yeah, of course, feel free to use it," Shion said as he held his sister in his arms.

"Thanks," I said as I unbuttoned my shirt.

"Uh, what do you think you are doing? Shion yelped as I was halfway done unbuttoning my shirt. His face was as bright as a red apple.

"Huh, is something wrong, your face is all red? Are you sick?" I reached my hand out to touch his forehead, but he slapped my hand away.

His eyes were directed at his siblings. "Nothing is wrong. Now go and take your shower, the bathroom is the room to the right."

"Thanks," I said. "Shion, if you're feeling unwell tell me. I can get you some medicinal herbs that will have you feeling well in less than a day." Silence filled the room. I opened a blue door the color of Shion's eyes. Why had his face turned red if he wasn't sick? He had also called me cute...

Could he be gay? This was my first time meeting such a person. Though, Ma always said that they were no different than everyone else.

I smiled. Think Ma was right. Even if Shion liked guys, he was still a nice guy.

Once I finished taking a shower and changing into a clean set of clothes, I walked into the kitchen where Shion was washing his siblings' faces.

"Why were you all red when you saw him," Shion's little brother asked Shion as he washed his face.

Shion's face turned as bright red as before. "That's because he's a boy and I'm..."

*Solar Notes: I've dedicated this chapter (part) to ZARIAKELVIN for her encouragement, and help. She was the one who encouraged me to edit the summary for this story years ago. Be sure to check out her work (although, she's not active on here anymore)!*