#and him and Pakunoda would defi go to a shooting range together

[thehomothings]

no but hear me out:

Instead of staying in the slums, young Kite picks a direction and at first walks, walks away from where he had brushed too close to death more times than he cared to count, and then breaks into a sprint when he still senses its shadow looming over his shoulder.

He runs, and the chance encounter with an eccentric ruins hunter never takes place.

He runs, yet never quite fast enough to outrun his past, and certainly not death who still breaths down his neck, reminding him of cold nights and hollow pains and how it always lurked just a few steps behind, too close for him to ever stop.

When he reaches Meteor city, he becomes certain of meeting his end right then and there, and yet a nagging voice in the back of his mind says not here, not like this, not yet.

And that is how some members of the newly formed Phantom Troupe meet him: Clutching a stolen knife and regarding his own crimson reflection on the blade, a cooling body by his feet. When his gaze meets theirs, the striking apathy and coldhearted indifference give them pause.

But of course, the spider reveres such qualities, encourages them.

He regrets many things, keeps count of every wrong decision and remembers them when sleep fails to take him, yet he will never regret yielding to the panicked instinct of reaching for a random weapon (any weapon, as long as it could help him to survive another day.) and closing his fingers around the handle of a knife.

That had been pure impulse, yet the decision to strike his opponent down had been entirely his own.

Abhorrent, he knows, but his new friends had been impressed, after all. And what's worse than dying? Nothing. Even almost-dying-but-not-quite would be better. He would do anything just to keep going.

And he does, with a spider sprawled upon his heart and perhaps a bit more blood on his hands than he would have wanted.

Kite may not have met his 'saviour' and his birthplace remains as unknown as ever, but he did find a safe place in the Phantom Troupe, which would later become the closest he would have to a family and a home.

And he would never regret living to finally find a place he could belong to.