The city office smells like old coffee, damp paper, and decisions made by people who've never met me.
Sister marches beside me like she's heading into battle. I carry a folder stuffed with documents that mean, apparently, I exist. Today I stop being "orphanage property" and become "the city's problem in a different column."
The building is gray stone and attitude. Inside, it's benches, ticket numbers, and people waiting to be told something they already know.
Sister takes a number. We sit.
I read the posters on the wall: "Tenant Rights and Duties," "Employment for Minors," "Public Order Code." Everything sounds like a threat written by a lawyer.
Our number flashes on an old screen. We walk to a cubicle where a woman with glasses and a worn-out face waits behind a computer.
She looks at me first. "Name?"
"Ryu," I say, giving the full one the orphanage registered.
Her fingers start tapping. "Age?"
"Nine."
"Current status?"
"Resident at Saint Verene Orphanage," Sister says. "Working part-time for Haim's Repairs in district seven."
The woman glances at the screen, finds the line, nods once.
"Workshop logged you as 'youth assistant,'" she says. "Paid, informal. No disciplinary reports. No outstanding infractions."
"Sorry to disappoint," I say.
Her tone doesn't change. "Good. You're being moved off institutional support," she says. "That means we register you as an independent resident. No guardian assigned. You're responsible for your own housing, income, and conduct."
"So no youth program?" Sister asks. "I was told he'd be placed under supervised lodging."
The woman snorts quietly. "That was before the last round of cuts," she says. "Youth housing block is full and half-defunded. Independent minors with work go straight into the regular tenant system now."
"Of course they do," Sister mutters.
The woman doesn't care enough to look guilty.
She slides a form toward me. "Sign here. This confirms you understand you're an independent resident. You must register an address within thirty days, pay your own rent, and obey city regulations. If you break the law, it's the guards you deal with, not social workers."
"Reassuring," I say. "Nice, clear chain of suffering."
She ignores that.
The form is long. I skim as fast as I can: clauses about address registration, fines, eviction rules, curfews in certain districts, "unsuitable premises" warnings. No one's holding my hand in any of it.
I sign anyway. In this world, not signing is the same as disappearing.
The stamp hits the paper with a heavy thunk.
"Congratulations," she says flatly. "You're now recorded as an independent city resident."
She stuffs a thin envelope into my hand.
"Temporary ID," she says. "Card comes later. Don't lose this. If the guards stop you without it, they assume you're lying."
"I'll tattoo it to my brain," I say.
"Brains are not valid identification," she says. "Next."
We're done.
Outside, the air tastes better just because it doesn't come with a number ticket.
I hold up the envelope. It feels too light for what it represents.
"So that's it?" I ask. "I'm official now?"
"You're registered," Sister says. "Official is… a big word."
"Registered sounds like a farm animal," I say.
"Some days that's how they see you," she says.
We walk back toward the tram stop. The city stretches ahead: market streets, narrow alleys, smoke from chimneys, the faint sound of trains.
I used to look at it like a far-off adventure background.
Today it looks more like a machine I'm about to get dropped into.
"You're thinking too loudly," Sister says.
"I'm calculating how long I can survive with what I have," I say. "Rent, food, clothes, random disasters… it adds up."
"You're better off than most who get pushed out," she says. "You have a job. Some savings. People who know your name."
"People who also know I'm short and breakable," I say.
"Short doesn't last forever," she says. "Breakable… you're working on."
The next day at the workshop, I tell Haim.
"I got my papers," I say, dropping my bag by the door.
He looks up from a half-dismantled pump. "So the city kicked you out of the nest?"
"More like shoved," I say. "I'm now an 'independent resident.' No guardian. No supervised housing. Just me and rent."
He wipes his hands on a rag.
"They're not even pretending anymore," he says. "Used to at least offer bunk beds in moldy dorms."
"Apparently that's too luxurious now," I say. "I'm supposed to find a room, pay on time, not die."
"You got somewhere lined up?" he asks.
"There's a cheap building near the lower market that rents small rooms month to month," I say. "Sister and the landlord know each other. I'll move in there once the paperwork's processed."
He grunts. "Walls thin. Roof leaks. But it's better than sleeping in a stairwell."
"I have low standards," I say. "It's fine."
He stares at me for a second.
"You'll keep working here," he says. Not a question.
"As long as you keep paying me," I say.
"I pay you because I need hands," he says. "Not because I feel sorry for you. Don't forget that."
"I'd be worried if you felt sorry for anyone," I say.
He snorts.
Then his face goes a little more serious.
"Listen," he says. "Now that you're on your own, people are going to test you more. Landlords. Street rats. Guys who sell things they shouldn't. You look young, but you're not under an institution anymore. That makes you… softer in one way, harder in another."
"How poetic," I say. "Translate?"
"Before, hurting you meant dealing with the home," he says. "Now, hurting you means maybe dealing with the guards if someone bothers to report it. Less paperwork. Some people like that."
"Good to know my risk profile improved for criminals," I say.
"You're smarter than most," he says. "Use that. And if something stinks, walk away. You're no use to me dead."
"That's the nicest thing you've ever said," I say.
"Shut up and hold that valve," he says.
That evening, I stand at the orphanage gate with a small bag over my shoulder and my entire life compressed into maybe ten kilos.
Sister hands me a cloth bundle.
"What's this?" I ask.
"Bread. A little dried meat," she says. "Enough so you're not starving while you sort out your routine. And this."
She slips me a folded paper.
"A letter of reference," she says. "If anyone needs proof you're not a complete disaster, show them this. Employers, landlords, whoever."
"So it says 'he's only half a disaster?'" I ask.
"Something like that," she says.
We stand there for a moment, not quite looking at each other.
"You know where we are," she says. "You can still come back. For food, for advice, for… noise."
"I know," I say. "I just won't have a bed here anymore."
She nods once.
"Don't be stupid," she says.
"No promises," I say. "But I'll try to be clever about it."
She huffs a tiny laugh, then turns back toward the building.
I watch her go. The door closes behind her with the familiar heavy sound I've heard a thousand times.
It hits different when you're on the wrong side of it.
The yard is quiet. The windows glow dull yellow. Kids' voices bleed faintly through the walls.
For a second, I feel very, very small.
Then I adjust the strap on my bag, shove my temporary ID deeper into my pocket, and start walking down the slope.
The city smells like oil, smoke, laundry, and too many people trying to make things work. Somewhere, a radio plays. Somewhere else, someone yells about prices.
All my training so far has been nested inside this orphanage: bodyweight exercises in the yard, lectures about contracts at old tables, cautious trips to the workshop and back.
Now the frame is gone.
It's just me, a rented room that isn't mine yet, a rough job with a grumpy mechanic, and the vague, far-off goal of one day standing in front of the Hunter Association without instantly dying.
I breathe in, slow, steady.
All right, I think. Prologue's over.
Let's see how much this so-called independence costs.