Bandages and Salt (PJO X BSD AU)

Chapter Three

Three days later, I stepped off the plane in Yokohama, Japan. Zeus had, surprisingly, kept his word and let me fly freely to the country of my choice. There wasn't even any turbulence. Luggage check-in was a waste of time, since everything I own fits in a carry-on sized backpack. But, there was one place I needed to stop by before leaving the airport.

The ATM transaction was simple enough that even someone with my seaweed brain could comprehend it. The only problem was how time consuming it was. Each machine could only give you so much Yen in exchange for American Dollars, so I had to go to several in the airport, my ADHD making it harder and harder to keep focused on such a repetitive task.

I left the airport and just started walking. I had no plans and no idea where I was or where I was going. I didn't mind that though, this was the first taste of true freedom that I've ever gotten in the fourteen years I've been alive. The rest of my life has been filled with Smelly Gabe, gods, and monsters dictating how my life would be run. Taking away my choices. All I needed right now was a library or a bookshop. I've gotten okay at reading and writing Japanese, but learning it from a book is different from truly speaking it or reading it.

I managed to stumble across a small bookshop, tucked neatly between a shoe and a clothing store. When I walked in, the woman at the front desk, most likely the owner, looked at me with tourist eyes. It was a look that those of us who live in New York and other often visited tourist destinations shared, no matter the city or country. I looked down at my shirt, feeling slightly ashamed for receiving such a look. I was wearing my camp shirt: Camp Half-Blood * Long Island Sound. She wasn't wrong to assume, most people wearing English shirts are tourists. But I didn't really qualify for that position anymore. Tourist are temporary visitors, I was a runaway teen wanted for murder back home and here to stay

Ignoring the woman and her piercing gaze, I walked over to the novel section of the store. Most of the books were simple paperbacks with familiar covers or overdone tropes, but one strangely caught my eye. I remember a song that the Stoll brothers used to sing until Chiron banned it from camp, something about all the dumb ways to die. Though the brothers must have modified it to fit demigods since whichever mortal that wrote it wouldn't have thought to add mintators or "challenge an Olympian god" to their list.

The book was titled The Complete Guide to Suicide. A crude title to put simply but who was I to judge. Without thinking too much on it, I picked up the book and leafed through it, surprised to find just how many things I have done in my life that have made it into this book. Demigod life is weird. I bought the book, receiving a worried look from the store owner. But her pity was useless, I wasn't planning on killing myself, not really, I just wanted to get a good laugh out of the strange book. It's not like I would ever use it seriously.

—

I'd been in Japan for a few months now, long enough that I didn't think of camp all that much anymore. After sleeping on the streets for a few days, I moved to Yokohama's slums, Suribachi City. It was a strange city built into a crater left behind by an explosion seven years ago. The city was deep enough that depending on where you were, the sunlight might never reach you. The sea, which could be seen from almost everywhere in this part of japan, could never be gazed upon from within Suribachi City. it was its own little world. The slums were not the cleanest of places, but they were warm. Nights were getting colder as winter drew closer, fall already almost done with. At least in the slums, there were always fires burning.

Food was scarce in the slums, but that wasn't anything new to me. Any fat or muscle I'd managed to put on since Smelly Gabe's death was gone in no time. I felt weak in a way that I hadn't since I was in elementary school. Even so, being here was better than any jail cell that the police would have thrown me in back in New York. The people here were more aware of everything, always watching their step to avoid crossing any of the organized crime syndicates that roamed the area. Pickpocketing here wouldn't work, at least not the way that I did it back in the city.