Tino Terriel

 The first time I met Tino was years ago: when I was still visiting Brya Aima as a guest and not a citizen.

He was chattering with Jojo's subordinates. More like an old friend they knew than a little child who was chatting with the grown-ups. The hoodlums give in to his roleplay and play along as his right hand man. And that young boy was smirking proudly as they followed his directions.

Jojo told me that another young boy brought him to his door. Begging for him to help the dying boy. Blood was everywhere and his body was already cold from the rain. He was on the brink of death.

"He redone the bandage that I did." Jojo shrugged, "Tighter and tidier. Makes me wonder if he is used to wrapping his own wounds"

Tino grew up under Jojo's wings. Influenced by the hoodlums, he didn't take much from Jojo's reserved, lawful personality. Lots of times, Jojo frustratingly complained about it. But both of us know he would never give up on the young boy no matter how much frustration he had brought him.

The boy seems to share the same sentiment towards his foster parent. Every year, without a miss, he jokingly told Jojo during his birthday, "Congratulations on completing another year in your life". And Jojo, while saying "There is no need to celebrate things like this," would smile at that sentence nevertheless.

The news about Tino's weird appearance had been heard by our city mayor. He called the young boy in a private conversation that went for two hours. The only thing Tino had ever uttered about that meeting was, "What a snake" that he said loud enough to be heard from the mayor's thick wooden door.

There didn't seem to be any difference before and after that meeting.

When Tino gets old enough, he moves out from Jojo's house. Just around the city's train station and 40 minutes away from Jojo's. Tino said, "I want to laugh out loud at the faces of people who got lost here" which seems to be likely for his personality, but Jojo doesn't seem to like the decision.

They still hang out often. And the child who seems to grow up not trusting anyone completely showed an obvious favor to his foster parent. There must be a lot of things Jojo knows about Tino that no one would ever know. But even then, Jojo often looked at the boy's back in a painful stare. As if loneliness caught onto him for his inability to completely figure out the boy.

Despite his ability to get along with people immediately, Tino looks rather lonely at times. He often goes quiet in a cheerful moment that he spends with other people, and often only stares from the middle of the room at the chaos that was made.

A couple years after he moved out from Jojo's house, he introduced Kadan, his new housekeeper, to us. He was a poor young boy who got lost in the Brya Aima train station and Tino took advantage of his circumstances. We didn't object.

After Kadan, a lot of people appeared in his life. Like Libon, a boy around Tino's age that got caught in the mirror genie incident, or Brime, another lost boy who had spent his time in Brya Aima orphanage and made it his monthly routine afterwards. He gets along well with Kaoru for their likeminds and eventually with Suis after he rescued her from an assassination attempt. He also gets along with Jojo's partners in the police department, Sotoj and Theodeour, the former seem to share Jojo's opinion on how hard it is to handle Tino while the latter often become one of his prank victims. Another person that he knows but doesn't get along with is the Nina-Dudu cousins who seem to have a conflicting opinion about Tino.

And just like that, Tino's surroundings become more and more lively.

And we thought Tino's lonely phases would finally put an end.

Then one day, Kadan came to our office with a terrified face.

"Tino has gone missing," he told us. Everything he used to own disappeared from his home. Photos, documents, everything. As if it was not even his home to begin with.

When he heard that, Jojo's face immediately turned pale. He looked through his own documents only to find out the same thing happened to his files. And to the database. And every paperworks. And everything.

As if Tino Terriel is but a fleeting dream we collectively had.

Tino Terriel disappeared without a trace. Without leaving any evidence that he once was alive. Evidence that he once shared a memory with any of us.

He turned into a questionable existence. One everyone remembers but has no evidence that he ever existed.

The security cameras were hijacked the day he was gone. And the older videos were edited in places where we remembered to have seen him in.

We gave up on the search.

Until one day, a handwritten letter was delivered to Jojo's doorstep when I came to give him a quick birthday greeting.

I was there when Jojo came back to the living room after the mailman left the door, opened up the envelope, and unfolded the letter.

Jojo read the letter in silence. When his eyes reached the end of the letter, he looked at me just as silent as when he read it.

And then,

His tears dropped.

I immediately jumped from my seat and tried to comfort him.

Fleetingly, I saw the first few words in the letter,

Dear Jojo,

Congratulations for completing another year in your life.