My mother schedule is quite hard to put into words.
The morning is not the morning. The night is not the night.
She wakes up when she wakes up, and sleeps when she sleeps.
Usually, she wakes up when her body manages to gather the energy to live, it's been struggling more and more the longer time goes on. I think it's a result caused by a lot of different things.
First off there is the anxiety, she walks with her shoulders hunched around the house, during the little time she has in the house. The little time she has to make me food and ask me about my day, just before begging me for forgiveness, for being a quote on quote bad mother I'd assume, she does that a lot, whenever her hand trails in my growing hair with a mix of guilt and joy of seeing her son growing up every day. Said fingers of her shakes a lot when they touch my scalp, a constant slow tremble that makes me guess she'd make a bad surgeon.
Then there's the bruises, from my father, who doesn't hit her much to be honest. Well. That's because he's busy drinking with horsey and steady-hands, and my mother makes sure to carefully check when he's back home. If he was here, she would have been subtle with her habits, just like me, staying on the corner of the room with the flow covering my body, covering the room, the house, everything.
I said.
Everything.
Her body needs extra sleep to take care of the injuries and the anxiety, then there's probably the self identity that's taking a hit, or a depressive episode from what happens during the night, but, where am I going with that?
Everything needs it's time. The night is at the end of the day, so let's wait until the end of the day to talk about the night.
What one needs to know for sure is that my mother doesn't start the day at a precise hour. It's close, really close, but there's variety nonetheless.
Usually it's late when she wakes up, still dark, just like when she goes to sleep, it's dark, lack of sleep added to the why she struggles to get the energy to wake up
I've been seeing a lot of this those last few days.
From climbing out of the bed without doing any noise when she's in her best form, to staying in bed and staring at the ceiling for some minutes while ignoring the man that slapped her and bent her over for the privilege of staying in his house one more day.
The energy level varies.
After my mother wakes up, she comes out, go to the bathroom for twenty good minutes to do her business, and mask any trace of the injuries she got the past day as best as she can.
Then, she goes out, look at my door for five good seconds.
Get closer. Look at my door. Stay there, lifts her hand, almost kill herself with my trap, then, again, drops down her head and don't open the door.
She does that quite a lot. Sometimes she doesn't, but every day or so, she does. She just stay there, build up the courage to get in, don't manage, then leave.
I may need to be careful with my trap.
When she's done, in a outfit that isn't truly respectable for a mother to wear, and a single umbrella to protect her from the rain, she leaves.
During the week, when she gets enough money, she knows the perfect place for cheap food. Not good food, but cheap food, the kind she usually leaves me in cupboards, clearly not enough for a baby like me.
Thankfully, I'm filthy rich and invisible now.
After the shopping trip -when it exists- she passes in a secluded spot pretty far away from any shop or business in the rich district. Then, she stops, knocks on a door of a house. Wait for some seconds. And a man comes out.
The man is slightly taller than her, he's twenty three years old, named Youta, and has a kind charming smile that you usually plaster on to talk to your grandparents.
They don't talk much, but my mom enters with this Youta.
The first day of my...investigation. This was kind of a problem, I found myself in the middle of the rain with my target out of view.
When I started to move around and search for something interesting, searching for more to find, for an entry, an open window, anything, something else happened.
Another girl came. She knocked. Youta opened the door, and came in.
This gave me an idea. So with my back against the wall, and my right foot tapping against the ground in a rythming pattern that agreed with the flow infusing me and the street around me, I waited.
Not for too long though, another girl passes in front of the door, knock, and Youta answers her.
With my head just behind her back, I follow her as she enters the house. Which is that, a house.
I expected a brothel truly, or something a bit different than a cozy home with a fireplace drying the water on my coat.
Passing by Youta and the girl who's under his arm, my eyes scan, searching for my mother. But the only thing I do find are rooms, empty rooms, and another man, a bigger man entering from the backdoor.
He has an umbrella instead of a cloak too, probably to show off his...intimidating size. Bigger than youta. Or the guy my father fought. Keima. The biggest man I've ever seen in my entire life, in this life, and the reason it's the biggest even in my past life is because I don't consider social media seen as 'seen'
So pretty damn big.
When he comes back, he directly sees the girl. Gave her a nod, that she answered, and both of them left.
Just like that.
Well.
Looks like I'm following the bear and the lady.
The bear and the lady walked out. Continued their way in the rich district before finally reaching it.
The poor district.
The distinction between the poor and rich district is quite clear to see. The houses start falling randomly, just like that, in the middle of the street. It kinds of reminds me of the library, no sounds can be heard for a while, the woman with the bear don't seems that worried.
Understandable considering hulk himself was her bodyguard.
They kept on going, turned to the right, forward, another right, another left. Until they, we, me included, even if I was behind them. We were so deep in the poor district I could see villagers around.
Most were men. Ugly, hungry men, short, some with disabilities, and other too old to do shit.
No one tried anything. They just looked at the girl and the bear passing as if this was a normal occurrence.
The closer we were to the destination, the more the people around didn't even reacted.
What's the destination you ask?
Oh, it's this thing.
This big building that only has a place in the poor district, it's pretty easy to see because there's nothing but ruins around it. They're ruins because they served as materials, it makes sense considering all the different type of wood this building is made of. There's wood. Wood. Wood. And wood. But different colors of wood, different sources of wood, different treated wood, the walls aren't smooth, and they're sticking together with the kind of engineering only cunning poor people can make, it's definetly a hub of popularity in the poor district.
Attracts more people than most business in the rich district.
Attracts more people that EVERY business in the rich district.
This is the biggest accumulation of people I've ever seen around a building in this life, it looks like something I could see in my previous life, in a city, a genuine city with cars, and a WAY bigger density of people.
The reason for this attraction? There's more people in the poor district than the rich district, so the point of popularity here is simply larger.
Dozens of people outside, more inside. The outside is lightened up with some sort of lamp on each sides of the huge double doors that look like they've been plucked from another building and been put there cause it was efficient. An orange light emanates from the inside of the building too.
Nobody reacts at the bear and the woman.
But they enter through the open doors, two men, smaller than the bear, and cleaner than most people around the building nod at him and let the prostitute enter, the bear leaves, pass me by, and leave me alone to stare at this.
Dozen of people around a building, in ruins of previous houses that have been destroyed and fed to said building. Most doing nothing, just observing and doing daily activities here like cleaning their clothes with a bit of company...or...security?
Maybe security. Because the two clean guards on the sides of the wide open entrance who's hinting at a warm place with this low orange light, have daggers at their hips. And they don't seem to care much about the poor people outside.
They just don't. They don't hurt them, or insults them, which is better than what I saw last time.
Some of the homeless even go in, and they're not thrown away, they're just...let in. The guards nod at them and all.
Every monday, my mother gets up, go there.
Every Tuesday, my mother gets up, go there.
Every Wednesday, my mother gets up, go there.
Every day of the week. She goes.
I'm sure of that, she goes to other places sometimes. But everytime. It's Youta, there, then somewhere else.
Always.
And I've been...struggling.
For an entire fucking week.
Because I'm kind of stuck there. Those sharp eyed guards are really annoying.
How do I infiltrate a brothel?