North-West Borough, Carrath City
The morning did not ask permission.
Light came through the window in a single clean shaft, not the gentle, gradual kind that eases a person into consciousness, but the direct, unambiguous kind that lands on a face like a mild accusation. Aarav's eyes opened. He shut them immediately. Opened them again. The light was still there, entirely unbothered by his objection to it.
Are you serious.
He lay still for a moment, blinking at the ceiling with the particular resentment of a person who had been woken up by something that could not be argued with. In his entire life he had never once willingly woken up to natural light. There was an alarm for that. There was a phone, with a screen, with a carefully selected tone that started quiet and built gradually, like a negotiation rather than an ambush. There was a system.
The system was in another world.
He sat up slowly, jaw tight, and looked at the window with the expression of a man filing a complaint that would never be processed.
His body had improved. The deep aching from the previous days had pulled back to something manageable, a dull stiffness in the shoulders, a slight heaviness in the legs, the reasonable complaints of a body that had slept on a wooden floor and found it acceptable but not preferable. There was, underneath all of that, something that felt almost like rest. Actual rest. The kind that came from having stopped moving for long enough.
Small mercies.
He looked to his left. Rajan was on his side, one arm folded under his bag, breathing in the long even rhythm of someone still fully under. He looked to his right. Veer was flat on his back, mouth slightly open, with the particular abandon of a person who had been tired enough that even an unfamiliar floor hadn't been able to argue with him.
Both of them completely, peacefully, unreasonably asleep.
How, Aarav thought, with genuine curiosity. How are you two still sleeping through this light.
He got up quietly and went to the washroom.
---
He used the toilet first, then stood at the basin and ran cold water over his face until the last of the irritation cleared, or most of it. The small mirror above the basin returned a version of him that looked functional, if not exactly rested. Adequately human. He dried his face on the sleeve of his shirt. The gamcha was not available for this purpose anymore, and probably never would be again.
He picked up the Magic Translator from the edge of the basin where he'd set it the night before and put it on.
This feels like a dog wearing a collar.
He held the thought for exactly as long as it deserved, which was not long, and walked back out through the living room. Rajan and Veer had not moved.
He crossed to the front door and opened it.
---
The morning hit him all at once.
Golden light lay across the streets of the North-West Borough in long uneven strips, catching rooftops, pooling in the gaps between buildings, throwing long shadows down the narrow roads where it hadn't quite reached yet. The sky above was clear and pale, the kind of early morning colour that hadn't committed to blue yet. Two moons, both faded now, still hung at the edge of the horizon like they hadn't gotten the message that the night was over.
The street below was waking up.
People moved along the pavement with the particular purposefulness of people who had somewhere to be and not quite enough time to get there comfortably. A woman carried a large cloth bundle on her back. Two men walked in silence, heads down, lunch pails swinging at their sides. A cart horse stood at the far end of the road, patient and unimpressed, while its owner loaded crates onto the back.
The streets were dirty. Not the dramatic dirt of a place that had given up, just the accumulated grime of a borough that didn't have anyone paid to clean it regularly, and had long since made its peace with that fact. The buildings pressed close together, the walls darkened by soot and weather, the windows small and practical. The people wore what they could afford, which was not much, plain cloth, mended seams, colours that had faded past the point of being colours and settled into something more neutral. Everything here had the texture of a place where things were used until they couldn't be used anymore, and then used a little longer after that.
So this is what the North-West Borough looks like in daylight.
He was still taking it in when he heard the click of a lock from the next door.
---
The young man who stepped out was wearing the minimum that the morning required, plain but noticeably well-kept clothes, a small bag slung across one shoulder with the strap adjusted to exactly the right length. No beard. Black eyes that moved with the quick, habitual alertness of someone accustomed to early mornings and full days. He pulled his door shut behind him , checked the lock once, then checked it again, turned, and his eyes met Aarav's.
A brief pause, the natural hesitation of two people unexpectedly occupying the same narrow landing.
"Are you new here?" the man asked.
"Yes," Aarav said. "Just moved in last night."
The man's expression shifted into something warmer , "Oh. So you're my new neighbour then." He extended a hand. "Good morning. I'm Sean."
"Good morning." Aarav took it. "Arlan. Nice to meet you."
Sean's eyes dropped briefly to the collar at Aarav's throat, the Magic Translator, sitting there exactly as conspicuously as Aarav had decided not to think about. Something changed in his expression. "Are you perhaps a Silva refugee?"
"Yes," Aarav said.
Sean's expression opened slightly. "Really. I'm also a Silva refugee."
"Oh," Aarav said, and meant it.
"How many years has it been? Since you came to Eloria?"
"Not very many," Aarav said, with the careful honesty of someone navigating the edges of an answer. "Only a few days."
Sean looked at him. Then he looked at the door of apartment 21C. Then back at Aarav.
"Only a few days," he repeated. "And you got a house."
"Yes," Aarav said, registering the shift in Sean's tone and becoming marginally more attentive. "Is there a problem?"
"No, not really." Sean shook his head, though something in his expression had settled into something more careful, the way a person's face settles when they are recalibrating what they expected to find. "You must have been very lucky. To afford the rent this quickly." A pause, and then something that wanted to be casual but wasn't quite. "When I came to Eloria, it took me two years. Two years of work before I could afford a place to stay. A place to call home." He said it without self-pity, just the flat statement of a fact that had cost him something. "It's been six months since I've been living here. This borough isn't much, but it's better than where I started."
He said the last part with the particular emphasis of someone who wanted it noted.
"We were lucky," Aarav said. "We found work. It paid us well."
Sean nodded slowly. "What kind of work?"
"Labour. Moving things, cleaning. Whatever was available."
"Hmm." Sean adjusted his bag strap which was already perfectly adjusted, but adjusted again anyway. "Well. It's good that you found something quickly. Not everyone manages that." A beat. "I found work within the first week myself. It wasn't easy, but I knew how to handle myself."
Good for you, Aarav thought pleasantly.
"Do you have a steady job now?" Sean asked. The question was practical, but carried just enough of an edge to suggest the answer mattered for reasons beyond simple curiosity.
"No," Aarav said. "Not yet."
Sean looked at him for a moment, the look of a man who had done quick mental arithmetic and arrived at a result he wasn't sure how to communicate politely. Because only a particular kind of person paid rent on an apartment in a city they'd arrived in three days ago without securing a reliable income first, and it was too early in the acquaintance to say which kind that was.
Is he perhaps an idiot?, Sean thought.
"I work in a factory," Sean said, with the tone of a man placing something on the table he expected to be noticed. "Regular salary. It's steady work, although not just anyone gets a permanent position there. You have to prove yourself first." He paused, in case that had landed. "It's not much money, but it's reliable. I manage well enough."
"That's good," Aarav said.
"It is," Sean agreed. "Stability matters in a city like this. You'll learn that." He shouldered his bag and checked the angle of the light coming down the street with the practised efficiency of a man who kept to a schedule and was quietly proud of it. "Anyway. I have to go. It's almost eight, I don't like to be late." He moved toward the stairs, then paused briefly and looked back. "If you need anything, help with the borough, anything like that, you can ask your senior neighbour."
He said it with a small, genuine smile. Then he was gone, his footsteps quick and even on the staircase, fading below.
---
Aarav stood in the doorway for a moment.
Then he went back inside and picked up his wristwatch from beside his bag.
8:03
The watch is still keeping good time. Though I'll need to buy one from here eventually.
He set it down.
Factory worker.
He turned the word over quietly. Sean left at eight in the morning with a perfectly adjusted bag strap and the air of a man who had opinions about punctuality. Two years before he could afford a room. Six months in the North-West Borough. Regular salary, not just anyone gets a permanent position there. He manages well enough.
A constant salary. Unlike us, who don't even have that much at the moment.
He looked at Rajan and Veer, still asleep on the floor. Rajan had shifted slightly in the night. Veer hadn't moved at all, still flat on his back, still mouth slightly open, still completely unavailable to the morning.
Aarav looked at them for a moment.
Then he went to the kitchen, filled one of the polythene bags with cold water from the tap, and came back.
He stood over them.
Sorry, he thought, without particular remorse.
He upended it.
The water hit both of them at approximately the same moment. The sounds that followed were not dignified. Rajan came upright with a sharp inhale, disoriented, one hand already raised as though blocking something. Veer produced a noise that was difficult to describe and sat up blinking, his hair plastered flat on one side, looking at Aarav with the expression of someone who had been genuinely wronged.
"Good morning," Aarav said. "It's past eight. Get up. We have to work."