Spilled Water (4)

To Rivera, Hot Dog Man was a strange kind of person she had never once seen in this city.

Even now, the memory of their first meeting came back as vividly as though it had happened yesterday.

All the residents of Risk City lived with sharp spines tucked away in their hearts, like hedgehogs.

Piranhas swarmed through the city, biting without hesitation whenever they spotted an opening in someone else, and no one found anything strange about it. It was a dog-eat-dog world.

But.

- What did you come here to buy, kiddo? Running an errand for your mom?

He was an existence that did not fit in with this city.

A kind voice that came to her together with the grocery store's warm, cozy air.

It had not been an act or a pretense.

Through some experiment, Rivera had acquired senses dozens of times more sensitive than other people's, allowing her to recognize that fact...