Barcrow's: Codename K9

Chapter four - A new home

They stood outside room 243.

Conan heard heavy footsteps approach the door, the lock clicked and the door swung open.

A tall man in his late 40s opened the door. He had a brown mustache and Conan assumed that he was Kal's father.

'Kal! What did you bring? Chinese or Mexican?'

'Uh, Chinese, b-but that's not that important, this is Conan, he'll be staying with us this week, and hopefully even longer.'

As Kal tried to explain they went inside and Kal's dad closed the door.

'What? A week long sleepover?'

'No, it isn't a sleepover, he's... He's a new recruit.'

'Oh, well then that's different... Anyway I have to get going soon.' He packed the Chinese food into his bag.

'Hello Conan, nice to meet you. I'm Fred.' He shook Conan's hand.

'H-hello.'

'Kal, Ali said he'll be coming home tomorrow. I'll be back by morning. We'll talk later, get to bed by nine. Bye boys.' He left.

Kal decided it was time to show him around the room.

'Your bed's the top bunk of that one, I sleep on the bottom bunk 'cause I'm a tiny bit scared of heights, it's not that bad but I still prefer sleeping near the floor. Dad and Ali sleep on the other bunk bed. That's the bathroom and there's the balcony, the view is really amazing from up here I'll show you later on. We only have one closet but most of our clothes are organised in the cardboard boxes at the bottom. If you have any other stuff you've got the shelf above your bed (it's much bigger than it looks) and you can hang things at the end of your bed. Weapons go on the top shelf of the closet.'

Conan looked around as he was shown around the tiny room. To the left of the door stood the bunk bed introduced as Fred and Ali's, to the right was the door to the bathroom. Past the bathroom door stood the second bed and past that was a smallish table with two chairs. Opposite the table was the closet and straight in front of the entrance was the balcony door.

'We should get ready for bed, I'll give you one of my pajamas, since we're about the same size, and you can have the spare toothbrush.'

After they were both clean, Conan started to settle into his new life. He sighed.

'You alright?' Kal asked from the bed under him.

'Yeah, it's just that, yesterday I was still a normal kid, more or less, and now I'm here, in the same building as most of the country's criminals (no offense).'

'Actually there are missions that go beyond this country... and there are hero wannabes and vigilantes too.'

'You know what I mean...'

'Yeah... Although I don't actually remember being normal.'

'Oh, sorry I didn't mean it like that.'

'It's ok, I'm just saying, I've been living this life for as long as I can remember. Tell me about your life. Did you have any siblings? Any pets? Which school did you go to? I wanna know everything.'

'Wait, what? That's gonna take quite some time, you sure you want to hear everything?'

'We have the whole night ahead of us; I'm sure.'

'And you're gonna have to tell me about your life too ya know?'

'Sure'

'Well, alright then, I'll tell you all you want.'