The Auction Block
The basement reeked of candle wax and desperation, a combination Boruto had come to know the way other men knew the scent of their mother's perfume. Except his mother's perfume smelled like arsenic wrapped in silk, and this place, this rotting cathedral beneath a defunct textile warehouse, smelled almost honest by comparison. At least here the ugliness wore no mask.
He sat in the back row on a folding chair that creaked every time he shifted his weight, a cigarette burning low between two fingers, another already waiting behind his ear for when this one died. The smoke curled up toward the exposed pipes overhead, joining the haze that had settled over the room like a second ceiling, gray and permanent. Around him, men in tailored suits and women in furs too warm for the room's stale heat murmured to each other, appraising the merchandise with the same flat interest they might give a used car or a plot of land. Nobody looked twit him. Nobody ever did. That was the advantage of being an Uzumaki — people learned quickly not to stare too long in his direction, as if his family's name might be contagious.
He took a drag, held it until it burned, then let the smoke bleed out slow…
