Chapter 26: Chapter Twenty Five

[A/N]  Okay second chapter.... ｡｡゛(ﾉ '   ')ﾉ'

I almost entirely forgot to post this. Fan art! It's by @nky_.art on Instagram, and it looks prettu fantastic. Pretty sure most people know what scene this is of... ~

When I got back everyone was already eating in the dining room. There was a warm light inside and an active conversation that quietened down when I opened the door.

Normally I would drop my backpack here, take my phone with me to hand in for the night and leave my shoes on the shoe rack, but I was a stranger here, this wasn't my home, I realised that now, and so the prospect of leaving my things around this place felt foreign and uncomfortable to me.

I headed into the dining room, the smell of roasted vegetables and potatoes topped with chicken stretched into the hallway.

Irene immediately turned her neck as fully as she could to look at me, straining like an owl to make it the full way around.

Blurry faces.

Colby smiled awkwardly at me. "Hey bro."

My father sighed and leaned back in his chair, looking me over. "You really never want to come back on time huh?"

I smiled at him. "You know, walking takes a lot of time, if your wife drove me home like she does her son I'd probably get back in time."

There was an immediate pink tinge and a blast of quiet in the room. I always had to be careful with how I spoke about Irene in front of him, not to make it too obvious that I didn't consider her my mother, or even Colby my brother, not really, and also not to try too hard to pretend she was, because I was pretty sure that made us all uncomfortable.

"She's your mother..." His voice took a low and dangerous turn. "Not just my wife. Your mother. You want to disrespect her in front of me? And all the work she puts into this family? You think she isn't trying?!"

I walked past them and headed for the kitchen, my place had a napkin and a glass, but no plate or cutlery.

"Right, my mother." I looked back at Irene who was rubbing her husbands shoulder sympathetically.

I smiled suddenly, just to myself, facing mostly away from them, and then tucked it away and turned and took a step back toward them, to face her.

"I'm sorry mom. I didn't mean to insult you." I pressed my lips together. "You do a really good job, and I'm grateful you take care of us."

She stared at me.

This time the silence was different. Not the purposeful, passive aggressive intentional awkwardness of before, but genuine shock, discomfort, and a loss of all available words.

Colby stared at me like I'd just shot my foot in front of him.

I smiled wider. "I'm going to get a plate." I nodded at them one by one. "Mom, dad, Colby."

I turned and got my plate, knife and fork and joined the meal.

Was it overly paranoid for me to have thought quietly to myself that they had clearly planned on sending me up to my room without dinner? I suspected it not because of the missing plate, which was occasionally the case, but because when Irene expected me to sit with them there was usually some premeditated gifting of food to the others.

Occasionally before me sitting down, or even arriving, she would seemingly pile the food onto her husband and sons plates ahead of me sitting down, not everything, but enough for it to get the message across. The meat always went first, if there was meat, and the gravy or sauce if there was gravy or sauce.

A quiet jab I could never complain about without sounding like a selfish hoarding prick.

Tonight there was plenty of chicken left, and I took more of it than I really needed.

Irene watched me like a hawk.

"Do you need to-"

I shoved a piece in my mouth and made an appreciative noise. "Your cooking is the best mom."

She snapped her mouth together and blinked at me, her lips curled slightly in a way that suggested the ick, and I smiled inwardly at the sight of it.

I ate and eventually held up my plate toward her. "Some more vegetables please mom? Thanks."

She looked extremely uncomfortable as she wordlessly served me some more vegetables and my father sat equally mute at the other end of the table, eating but otherwise spending the entire time exchanging glances with his wife.

When we headed up to our private rooms Colby stopped me on the way with a hand on my shoulder a moment before I was going to my room.

"I hope you-"

The cat on the other side of the door let out a long and loud meow and I heard its long vicious claws scratching on the door.

Colby glanced at the door as I did and then laughed back at me. "Mom doesn't dare to go near your room because of it. When she tries the cat sticks its paw under the door and tries to scratch her..."

"Why is she trying to get inside my room?" I asked coldly.

He scratched the back of his neck. "To clean it, I think?"

"She never cleans our rooms."

"Yes she does?" He looked puzzled.

I pressed my lips together and glanced in the direction of his room. Strangers in one household.

"Uh, anyway..." He looked me up and down for a moment. "You're okay right? If you want, you can come with me and mom to school... I'm strong enough to protect myself and... the people in my class really respect me so..."

I stared at him, and turned the handle, and he inched backwards quickly.

"Um, anyway, the options there... Just... I know you guys don't get along but... don't mess with-... don't make things hard on mom, okay? She's doing her best. I know it's cliché and all, and they've always said it a lot, but she really is."

I smiled thinly as he walked back to his room.

What a remarkable act of charity, Irene would be so impressed by his selflessness.

I opened the door and Akuma greeted me with a long disgruntled meow.

I picked her up and cut it short and she gave me a startled yip and I pressed her against my face and hugged her black furry belly, her paws scrambling for a foothold on my ears, head and shoulders.

I cleared up the room and opened the windows wide before leaving that night with the fresh copies of the missing posters for Milk.

I had to keep reminding myself that it hadn't been so long since he'd been missing, just a couple weeks...

I gave the stack of a4 posters a hollow stair. A couple of weeks...

I took zip ties from dads shed to tie them to poles and bought a cat lead for Akuma. At this point it was no mystery it was with me so there was no reason to trap him inside.

I wasn't familiar with cats and didn't know if she'd like it, so half expected her to crawl into my backpack but the lead didn't seem to bother her and she was surprisingly doggish and walked confidently ahead of me even in the dark, occasionally looking back at me as if to ask why I was taking so long.

My posters were going missing. I put them up and someone took them right back down again. There were still some here and there but something dark shifted inside me when I saw the fact that my second poster up on the streetlamp down town had been removed.

I stubbornly zip tied a third down.

If I ever saw the person that did that... I blinked. What would I do? Punch him? I'm not strong enough to punch anyone without turning up swollen and toothless to deaths bachelor party.

This line of questioning prompted me to look to my right, where, emblazoned in big neon lights, the sign; '24 HR GYM' hung one floor above a dry cleaners.

Akuma meowed up at me for being slow. I exhaled, and kept walking.

[Arran's POV]

Bam bam, bam bam, bam bam, bam bam.

The sound the impact my fists made on the punching bad was delicious, a loud resonant smack, topped with the stinging in my knuckles. I'd bandaged them up but I could still feel the sting of my skin breaking a little on the prominent knuckles.

I could see the wear marks from my fists. It was why Bagher always wanted me to wear boxing gloves, but I promised to pay for a new one when it needed replacing, he knew he could bill the card connected with my account.

He sat in the corner, relaxing between reps on the chair beside the swat rack, watching me as he wiped down his face.

We never spoke much with one another, but we got along pretty well, maybe because we didn't speak much. When I trained at the gym I trained in relative silence. Occasionally he took my water bottle and refilled it wordlessly and once I was done helped clean up.

I didn't know much about him but I knew he'd left behind a past that had left him with a scar under his eye and one straight up from his chin over his lip. I also knew he had a wife and girl and that they decorated his office with paper flowers about four years ago that he never took down.

I nodded to him as he gestured toward the clock and finished up the same as he did, cleaned up the space and ran the equipment down with an alcohol wipe, unbandaged and rinsed my hands off and headed out.

"Hey." Bagher followed me to the stairs, opening the door after me.

I looked back, a brow raised.

He squinted at me and tilted his head slightly. "Your energy is better today."

I watched him from the edge of the stairs, shrugging the gym bag over my shoulder, momentarily quiet. "Thanks."

He looked me over. "Keep it up kid." He went quiet, stepped back through the door, and shut it wordlessly.

I left the building.

I felt the sweat turn cold on my back as I headed back through the cool breeze of the night down the city streets.

I did have more energy. If the so called twenty-four hour gym didn't actually close at eleven I would have kept going, and if there wasn't a clock on the wall I don't know how long I would have gone on for.

Something was zinging through my finger tips, something that felt mildly good, electricity.

I saw my breath in the air as I exhaled.

I upped my pace. I'd spent too much time in there already. I lost track of time too easily when I was focussed like that.

With Akuma this wouldn't have mattered... I thought about her angry little snarl as I approached her, and the way that I would hear her feet just barely padding across the bed, a soft warm belly sitting on my neck, getting comfy for her nap.

If I woke up, or she perceived me as having woken up, I would feel a swift scratch to my face or arms and have to chuck the little demon off.

The bus rolled on by toward the bus stop just up ahead and I decided not to walk.

When I made it back the street lamp outside my house was flickering.

Akuma would be fine left alone.

A loud howl let loose as I walked up to my door and an even louder one followed as I put the keys in the lock.

The white furry mess of dog nearly threw me over as I tried to get in through the door and suddenly his tongue was all over my face and hair as I was slowly toppled onto my knees on top of the welcome mat.

"Get off..." I growled. "Get off." I managed to get up but the dog still looked up at me with big happy, enthusiastic eyes and licked at my knees and walked in circles around me as I tried to close the door.

I exhaled, pressed a finger to my temple.

Whatever fear the massive fluffy white thing had initially had for me was gone, as well as any amount of respect, it now perceived me as the bringer of gifts and tried to groom me like I was a puppy.

I bought in extra meat because half of my meal went to him and rarely came back without some new trash I found at the pet store to see what the abominable snowman would do with it.

Of course just cooking regular food and splitting the portion was simpler than buying something extra for him that he wouldn't eat. And the toys were just a matter of curiosity.

He strutted along ahead of me as I walked straight towards the kitchen and sat there beside me, surprisingly patient for an over energized dog as he watched me with those big eyes.

I reluctantly petted the dogs head and he let me, his tail wagging rhythmically behind him, like he was intentionally sweeping the floor with it.

I stared with laser focus at the piece of meat I grabbed from the fridge. The new hum of electricity that felt so interesting... A similar feeling to one I got when we all sat down together and decided what needed to be done. An invigorating sense of purpose.

But I could place the exact moment it sparked into life.

The moment that boy slapped me in the face.

He'd given me such an interesting look. He was shorter than me but seemingly tried to look down at me, with an unblinking stare that travelled over every inch of my face, that made me want to pin him down for some reason. Sharp eyes, nice lips...

I shook my head slightly, my brow raising.

Milk looked up at me with that oddly penetrative stare, and then shuffled to stretch out and sit down on my feet.

I'd have to tell him soon.

How much was a dog worth these days?

[A/N]  Okay! Again I wrote chapter 26 along with this one so it will definitely be updated on Friday!

Thank you again to the WPC who have prioritised me writing a good book over a fast one. And my patrons... (•‾⌣‾•)♡