"What was that for?!" Sky hissed as they stopped in an alleyway, gasping for breath. Darius was crouched down beside him, panting for breath as he hugged himself. Cerra's cheeks were flushed from running but he wasn't breathing as hard as them.

"It doesn't matter. Someone who shouldn't have seen us came in." He muttered. Sky glared at him before he paused. Cerra's eyes held a certain sadness that Sky knew too well. A certain sadness that was carried by regret. But before he could ask about it, Cerra turned his head towards the entrance of the alleyway as they heard a loud voice.

"COME GET YA HOTDOGS! COME ON, ONLY TWO DOLLARS A DOG, THREE IF YOU WANNA BUN!"

His eyes brightened and the sadness was gone. "Hey, since we skipped out on our tab, let's get some hotdogs!"

"Some what?" Sky asked, though it sounded more like a statement, distastefully.

"I can't believe we didn't pay!" Darius whined. "I feel so bad, that poor waitress!" Cerra rolled his eyes.

"Oh, don't worry, they'll just give someone else the food and add it to their tab." Darius's eyes widened.

"W... What? They can do that?!"
"Well, they're certainly not allowed, but they do it away."
"Do you think they did that to me?!"
"There's a fifty percent chance!"

Darius looked both horrified and crushed. Sky felt sorry for both of them as he wondered if his beer had been warm because it had belonged to someone else.

"Darius, here's ten bucks. Go get us some hotdogs! Get a plain for Sky, get me ketchup and mustard and radish, and get yourself whatever! Tell 'em you're a friend of Cerra, and he'll give you the toppin's for free!" Cerra shoved ten dollars into Darius's hands, who shuffled off, still looking crushed from what Cerra had told him.

"What in the world is a hotdog? And why would he give you free toppings?" Sky asked, leaning back against the brick wall behind him. Cerra grinned.

"You'll see what a hotdog is soon, and he gives me free toppin's because I saved him from getting robbed once." Sky raised an eyebrow.

"I suppose he gives all of the BladeDancers free toppings then." Cerra rolled his eyes.

"No, man. I didn't do it because of that, I did it out of the kindness of my own heart. I did it before I was even a BladeDancer, I was just fourteen! That's when I was still doing those knife fights!" Sky's eyes softened. "Besides, BladeDancers don't have control here. This block and the area around it is under control of the Russo mob." Sky stared at him. "But if I get seen and word gets around that I'm still here, then the BladeDancers are gonna run in her, territory lines forgotten. I don't wanna give trouble to poor Matteo, he's got enough with the election coming up."

"Matteo?"
"Oh, he's the Don, y'know, the boss, of the Russo mob. He started it all! If ya happen to run into him though, you don't wanna call him by his first name. Mr. Russo works. Others call him Iceman, but never to his face."
"You're calling him Matteo, though."
"I'm allowed to! Could even call him Iceman if I wanted to, just to tease him. We're tight."

Sky stared at Cerra before Darius suddenly came back, struggling to hold three hotdogs. "Got them!" He said, a bit more cheerful then he had been when he left. He held a plain one out to Sky, then Cerra's loaded one as the teen's stomach growled loudly in excitement. He held one that had mustard on it himself. Cerra took a bite and sighed happily.

"That's the good stuff." He proclaimed, hopping up onto a dumpster lid. He crouched down and began to scarf down the hotdog. Darius bit into his happily before he looked at Sky and stopped.

"Sky? What's the matter?" The man was staring down at the hotdog with a face twisted in disgust, golden eyes glowing.

"What," he growled, "the hell is this?" Cerra rolled his eyes.

"A hotdog! If you don't eat it, I will!"
"Oh, try it Sky! It's not that bad! Besides, you need something in your stomach before we go out!"

Sky shook his head roughly before he held his hotdog out to Cerra, whose eyes brightened as he shoved the last bite of his into his mouth to take it. "I am not eating that." He growled. "It looks like a cooked disease."

"The best diseases come deep-fried." Cerra grinned. Sky watched him and Darius eat before the corner of his mouth twitched up.

After learning about Cerra, it was nice to see him smiling and eating. He watched them before something dawned on him and he looked at Cerra with furrowed eyebrows.

"Wait- why do they call Mr. Russo 'Iceman?'" Cerra swallowed his current bite.

"Oh, that's because," He took another bite and chewed quickly before he swallowed, “because there's a rumor that he freezes the bodies of his victims, so he can sell their parts off to the black market!" Darius choked on his hotdog and Sky wished he hadn't asked.