"Fortunately I am." He turned his head to side and swept the air around his nose.
"You Victors and your rich ass tales of family glory. Done manipulating my innocent wife and daughter with your tales?" His face was a burning red color.
Ethan hid his face in his shoulder and snorted before turning his focus back on the apprehensive family environment.
"Daddy! Big bro took us to the park today!" She ran over to him and with a smile, he patted her on the head, "Then! Then! He got us ice cream tooo!"
"Is that so?" He gave Ethan a mocking glare, "Sweetie, you go play in the bedroom with Anis alright? I bought you that new toy you wanted."
"Which one! Which one! Pleaseee tell meeee!"
"Now, now. You ought to see that for yourselves sweetie, go on in and have fun."
Gleefully, she ran off into the bedroom and Anis, with a concerned look on his face beneath which he had a subtle face of excitement, followed her.
"Dear. Why are you drinking on a Sunday afternoon?" The voice had a poisonous edge to it.
He shrugged, "A man's got to drink when he wants to. Do I ask you why you burn my pocket going to the market?"
Ethan's eyes darted between the two of them, he was still burying his face in his sleeve.
"That's completely different now isn't it? When I go there I come back with something of value, I feed all of you because of what I get from there. Drinking all day is not doing the same is it now, dear?"
"You got a pretty sharp tongue there. Learn that from the Victors as well?" He clicked his tongue, "Victors my ass, pettifoggers all of you and you listening to me you damn brute? Ain't long before they take all of us out of here and you're going to be the reason for it."
"Dear! He's a guest!" She yelped.
"Don't fall for his tricks Amorette! You know these people! They'll help you one day then throw you to the wolves the next and I don'want my family to slide right into their tricks!"
"I'm sorry but I don't remember saying anything. Why are you even bashing my family in the first place? What did we do to any of you?"
"What you did?" He scoffed loudly, "Now, what you did was show your damn face in my house, after running to that dang rich ass bullshit place your father calls his home. That ain't no home, it's a trap and I sure as hell don't want to be caught in it."
"My father has done nothing wrong! He's been helping you out treating you like a close friend and you're saying this shit about him?"
"Ethan, honey. It's fine, he is just not in the right mind right now."
"No. I'm fine as I'll ever be in my life, but you shoelicking pillocks are just that! Dogs!"
Footsteps that led to loud creaking of the floors got louder and they stopped as Remi stood in front of her father with a brown toy horse in her hands.
"Dadd!" She frowned, "It's broken againnn! I asked you not to buy these toys! They break so quickly and sometimes they break without even me touching themm! Can't you bring something like big bro does?"
Those words penetrated his heart in a manner he didn't know words could. He could've felt triumph at that moment, to be proven superior by this man's own daughter. Yet, the only thing he felt was sudden hollowness, no. That wasn't the only thing he found.
He also saw the face of a father rueful and forlorn, his eyes dropped to the floor, seconds later he gave Remi a wide smile and with his daughter's hand in his, he made his way to the bedroom.
Everything that Ethan's family had done felt distant at that moment. The times they'd give them Ethan and Reina's hand me downs, washed and barely worn as if they were brand new.
What they thought was niceness and basic courtesy was an act of forced entitlement upon someone else's children. And those children spoke words that hurt those very parents that couldn't do anything about it.
Ethan covered his face using his shirt and gave a snout that was too loud to be ignored.
"Honey, are you fine, do you need more tea?" She managed, clutching the dull tablecloth.
He nodded and sat in silence for a few minutes, "He isn't a bad man." She said, her words were almost a whisper.
"He just gets grumpy sometimes, I do too, we all do. So, don't hold that against him. He cares about you too. He's just, not in the best state right now."
"Yeah. I'm sorry for lashing out as well." He apologized.
"No! No! It's not your fault honey. It would've been weird you didn't get angry." She chuckled
Her words did not comfort him, instead they felt strange to him, alien even.
"Here's some of the sugarcane candy your mother loves! It's a bit less than usual, money's a bit tight but, tell me how it tasted alright?" She gave a low smile.
"Mrs. Amorette" He called out, "I think, my family could help a little more."
Her eyes widened and she flapped her palms from one side to another, "No! Honey! Your family's already doing so much! We possibly couldn't!"
"I didn't mean it like that Mrs. Amorette. I meant, you could work a few hours at the house and help with the chores! Mum's been brooding on it for a well and recently, dad has been really busy to help her so, if you could they'd love your company as well."
She blankly stared at him for a while and when she opened her mouth no words escaped from for her some time. Eventually she mustered,
"Honey. You are really serious about this aren't you?" Her lips slowly curved into a warm smile.
"Yeah. If you do end up considering it just come to the house, you're welcome anyday! You can bring Anis and Remi if they are off school as well! Really! I'm not joking Mrs. Amorette! Consider it, really!"
"Ok! Ok! Calm down now." She contemplated on what to do. Taking up the responsibility of another house while maintaining her own wouldn't be easy, but if it could help her than maybe it wasn't a bad idea.
"I'll consider it."
"Please do!" Ethan was getting up from his seat now, he persuaded her a bit more to which she had laughed,
"How are you going to go home? By car?"
"Um...about that. I'm gonna have to take the bus today. Mom didn't let me take the car."
She sighed and saw him out the door, making sure he hid the bag of candy in his pocket because according to her, "The gods here are ruthless." And being caught amidst them, worst to worst case he'd have to desert the candy and run for his life, which would obviously be problematic.
With pensiveness taking over him and his pocket filled with home made candy, he was off to the bus station, he smelled himself once.
"What is with that smell....I literally cannot bear it."
Navigating through the crowds of people enjoying their weekends, he found a clearing and made his way to a less popular area of the city.
He spotted the bright red payphone that did not hold any person in it for the time being.
Ethan made his way up the street and near the payphone, when he was about an arm's distance away—An arm that was ten meters long apparently—He twisted and turned left to enter a thrift shop adjacent to it.
"Aye, Welcom-! Oh it's you." Remarked the cranky voice of a middle aged man whom Ethan found scornful yet strangely endearing.
He took to the middle stool of the empty shop, with its grey walls and soulless items on sale, it looked less like a thrift shop and more like a dull man's wet dream with its large counter and a small television screen that had been screwed to the top of the corner with the help of God's grace and numerous anger medications.
"So what's gotten the great Ethan back here? Suffering from scoldings much or nay?"
"Nah. It's nothing serious" He said dismissivele.
The shop owner narrowed his eyes.
"Whenever ye make that face something's bad happening. Me establishment's a lively place and no chance to ruin it with your face."
"The place is still empty as hell, not making enough sales or something?"
The man mocked Ethan by nodding aggressively, "Someone knows the the in and outs of running an establishment aye?"
Ethan rolled his eyes and picked up the weekly magazines lying on the countertop, he shuffled through them with haste, rummaging through all the present volumes then he looked around confused as if he forgot something.
He gestured at the magazines to the man, who was instantly irritated.
"Grow up will ye? None wants a nilly willy son meandering in random shops."
"Enough about me already." he winced, "Don't you have a family of your own to manage, fern?"
He solemnly shook his head and retreated to the back of the shop. When he emerged he let go of bright magazines from his table and onto the counter with a loud thud. They had yellow borders and featured beautiful white women that wore minimal clothing—sometimes none—with accentuated figures in suggestive postures.
A sulking Ethan though, had his desire of mindless flipping through these magazines already killed and he sat staring the at the cover then turning them upside down. To his dismay, both sides suffered from the same condition of catering to the male gaze and he ultimately set the magazines down at an arm length distance away from himself, the distance was of a normal sized arm this time.
"Ye know boy? Lots' of people got something to expect from ye. So why waste time here?" He advised him, genuinely concerned for Ethan, to which he was met with scorn. Ethan attempted to shift the topic and asked about his family, Fern quickly got interested and began telling him about his own small family of three,
"Me and me wife arguing over who me daughter took from, she's one beautiful girl lemme tell ye."
"First time I agree with you."
"Right? Do ye actually got some good tas- What?"
"What?"
"Aye little prick ye listen here, you staying away from her, five hundred yards at the minimum."
Ethan ridiculed him, "Aw shucks! I lost my chance huh?"
He didn't find the conversation funny at all, "Ye ain't gonna like what I plan to do boy."
Ethan was about to press further but he saw the fury in Fern's eyes which wasn't enough to make him back off on his own but it was the creepy smile that was forming on his face that concerned him.
"You wouldn't! You don't even have their number!"
"Ye don't think looking at ye all pathetic every time ye decide to turn the corner and smash numbers into that silly machine outside wouldn't be enough?" He grunted, "Planning to call em' and tell all about yer son reading porn mags and shitting on daddy's money."
He shot up and got really defensive, "It's my own! I worked myself to the bone to get this money back in university! Not beg for it from my father!"
Fern repeated his words mockingly.
"Well who do ye have to thank for going to college?"
"I was the one who passed the exam!"
"And whose house has ye been living all this tim-?"
"SHUT UP! JUST SHUT UP! YOU DON'T KNOW ANYTHING!" He sprang up from the stool and in a fit of rage, smashed the counter with his hands, glaring at the man with all his intensity. Until he suddenly came to a realization of what he was doing and turned his head away from him and sat back down with no intention of apologizing.
He slid the magazines back to him and decided it was best to just sit there and not comment further.
After all, all this time Fern hadn't been looking at him with confusion or fear, nor was he about to rip his head out. He just eyed him with an unchanging expression, the mouth not moving, eyes not leaving his and his hands on the counter waiting for him to finish.
He looked...disappointed.
"Sorry." came the whimper.
Fern didn't reply, he went back to sorting the shelves deciding it in his best interest to just ignore him.
Ethan lay his head down again and groaned internally. Soon enough, he got up and moved languidly to one of the shelves himself, scanning through it with disinterest.
Used and half punctured golf balls, some fake gold and silver jewelry, large fish mounts nail to a wooden base that was carved with the words, "Old Magshire for life", all of this scattered or decked neatly according to him, on a large wooden shelf that was fixed to the wall and was replaced every five years or so just because the sheer weight of all these times often had its toll on the poor shelf.
The only thing that caught his eye was a sleek rectangular box that had light grey buttons at one end and a thin black wheel on the other with a glass frame encasing it.
He picked it up and whiffed the dirt away, "What's this."
"That's a cassette player, some rich old folk donated his to the shop."
Ethan pressed one of the buttons that had a sideways triangle carved into it and it began to play a strange sound which startled him, until Fern yelled at him to not be clumsy and to listen properly. When he did, he could make out a melody and some notes being played, and all this sound was coming from this box.
"This is pretty cool! Never seen one of these in real life. What does the button with the mic do though?"
"Press the button then sweet talk that thing."
And so Ethan did, he pressed the button lightly, which didn't work so he applied more pressure until it clicked and he said all that he could to the cassette player, all that he wished he could say to a girl.
Fern turned and looked at him with astonishment, "You poor soul."
When the wheel of the player began to move in the opposite direction, another strange sound began to play, though this one was much more coarse than the last.
He listened carefully and found the same words he had spoken being repeated word to word.
"Woah." He inspected it more closely, "How much does this cost?"
"Standalone? It has no use so it got no value. With the songs? That's gonne be more than ye can afford."
"Just say it."
He sighed, "30 Pearils, after I give ye a discount."
Ethan gave the cassette player one long look before settling the matter and buying it with the excuse that he wanted to surprise his mother with it, which wasn't untrue but the way in which he wanted to surprise his mother was less than, 'favorable'.
He fidgeted around with the player a little more, all the while Fern, who was really starting to get pissed off at him now, placed down a large black radio on the counter. It was just a static noise emitter currently, to which Fern scratched his head.
Now was his chance, he picked it up and fiddled with its adjustment a little until the static slowly faded out and comprehensible words could be herd coming from the radio.
He set it down and gave Fern a triumphant grin, who flicked Ethan's forehead in return.
"Precisely! I asked him what he wanted to hear from the likes of a man such as me, yet I do agree that I was having a lot of, 'fun' I still had to be professional, so I went ahead and bought him that cycle to which he uses to this day. I repeat to all of you that I have no desire to be boastful, it is simply what I did that put a smile on that girl's face."
The scratchy voice of the radio didn't make it ideal for him to hear it properly, yet he didn't want to appear more like a douchebag than he already was so he pretended to pay attention.
"Is that so? Well what I wanna ask ya is how do ya cope with doin' so many terrible things in the name of good? Do ya never feel ashamed or somthin?"
"What?" The man sounded really confused from what Ethan could tell, "I'm afraid I don't quite understand your question. I certainly do not remember committing any actions that could objectively be considered, 'evil', all my actions have had a real purpose and vision behind them, that being the service of my nation."
"Is that what ya believe? Well many different complaints to the government are sayin' otherwise. Many of these people be calling ya many things like 'son of a thousand fathers' yada yada yada, ya get the gist."
A weird sound came from the radio, "Is he laughing or what?" Asked Fern.
"I don't know, we'll just have to believe that I guess."
"I have no plans to make my replies to these comments, after all, I have no reason to concern myself with those who hold no political power or even meagre knowledge of what we do, it would be the same as yelling at a wall. Meaningless, yet in this scenario the wall must be made of paper due to how fragile it is."
Ethan was already yawning at all the barely audible nonsense that was entering his ears, so as to not piss Fern off even more, he got up and with another unsuccessful attempt at getting through to him and apologizing.
No matter how he spoke to Fern, in reality he felt a unique peace here that he had not felt anywhere else. Each place for him held a different classification of peace. Like in the university classes, he would describe it as an explosive peace, a sense of comfort for being surrounded by others and trying to stand out amongst all of them, uncaring of the world other than that.
Another was the warm peace he got at home, he had been experiencing this much lesser now, although at all the instances it had been some of the most profound moments of that day.
And as for the shop well, it held its own place for Ethan. Somewhere he could find a part of himself he rarely expressed. So, cherishing that thought, he aimed for the door but was stopped by the loud cough that was often made by performers to catch the audience's attention.
"Aye. Don't think too much about it. I ain't mad at you."
"Damn tsundere."
"A what?"
"Nothing! See you later Fern!"
Fern closed his eyes and nodded.
Ethan had already left and he stood in front of the payphone again.
With a deep breath, he mustered the courage to enter the booth and he chucked in two coins and punched in several numbers, the phone was picked up almost instantly.
"Geez! Where are you! Why did it take you so late to call?"
"Mum! There was just too much of a crowd at the park, I almost lost track of Anis and Remi!"