...
...
...
[ Location: Living Room. ]
Time in the living room had lost all meaning. Like, literally, it has be entirely forgotten.
By normal means, this particular Battle Royale match had dragged on well beyond the typical twenty-minute lifespan.
However, the digital clock in the corner of the television screen was the last thing on anyone's mind.
The very last.
Because right about now, Cassius was currently conducting a masterclass in virtual homicide.
His avatar on the screen, or "Skin", was still a neon-yellow banana, who was sporting a unblinking smile. Yet, the way he navigated the chaotic digital battlefield was nothing short of sweaty.
As if he was in some FNCS match against try-hards.
tikTIKtikTIKtik~!!
His thumbs danced across the surface of the DualSense controller in a frantic, practiced blur, the sound of joysticks hitting there limit of move-ability booming.
He wasn't simply defeating the other players. No, no, no. He was spanking their ass's both physically and psychologically.
The sound of builds being edited constantly roared through the TV.
He edited his way through reinforced brick structures before his opponents even realized they were under attack, rapidly threw down ramps to trap panicking teenagers into inescapable wooden cubes, before finalizing the encounters with cocky pump blasts that sent their avatars dissolving into shimmering digital dust.
"Yeaaaaah!!" Daemon howled from the sofa, bouncing with such hypo energy that the throw pillows threatened to vibrate right off the upholstery.
"Another duo is rotating in from the left, Cass."
The one who calmly informed Cassius was Hazel. Her eyes flickering in all directions for signs of players.
"Yeah, I see 'em," Cassius murmured a response.
He leaned further in, elbows resting heavily on his knees. His posture that of what gamers call "Locking in".
As he shifted, the crinkling sound of the plastic bag tightly secured over his scalp filled the brief silence. In a mere millisecond, he opened an edited window in his wall, fired a lethal sniper shot, reset the edit then reloaded, and repeated, killing the duo without them knowing where it came from.
Saggyright_Nut_ Eliminated Trixie_ With A Sniper. (91M)
Saggyright_Nut_ Eliminated 2_hundred With A Sniper (88M)
Two more eliminations lit up the kill feed.
Which made Cassius's kill count seat at a comfortable: Twenty-three.
"Seriously, what is going on right now?"
Luna's voice broke through the television's speakers, a chaotic mix of growing awe and panic. "Are you some pro player using an ALT account? Becasue what the helly! I haven't even pulled my trigger in over ten minutes! All I'm doing is running behind you and scooping up loot!"
"Hehe~! Just stay behind the banana, Luna." Was all Cassius said, his tone a slow, confident drawl as he watched the safe zone shrink on the mini-map.
The counter at the top right of the screen ticked down. 0:30... 0:26... 0:16...
As for the remaining players, that number went down to a solid five.
Once the storm countdown hit 0:00, it started closing in, forcing the surviving players to funnel down into a steep, rocky ravine.
Cassius's sharp eyes caught a squad of three severely mismanaging their rotation. Without a pause to strategize. He launched his banana skin off a nearby zipline, caught his own momentum with a flawlessly timed floor piece, and systematically shited on all three enemies with the power of "Aim Assist".
"Now its just two left," he announced, his voice sliding through the mic smoothly.
"It's a fair fight now. Two on two." He added.
Except the remaining duo clearly knew what they were doing.
They had already claimed the high ground on the ridge, boxing themselves into two metal boxes, utterly refusing to expose themselves to sniper fire.
Cassius pushed the offensive, rapidly building flawless 90s upwards to challenge their altitude.
But, because this is fortnite after all, the game's mechanics had a different agenda.
The lethal purple wall of the storm surged forward with alarming speed, instantly engulfing Cassius and the two other players.
"You stupid fuckin' storm!" With an annoyed grunted from Cassius, he quickly moved from offense back to where Luna was positioned.
Before throwing up a quick brick box, now sheltered at the absolute bottom of the ravine, also trapping himself and Luna inside. "They aren't coming down anytime soon, so, what's your inventory looking like? You have heals?"
For the entire duration of the match, he had been teasing her about her abysmal loot management.
Why? Simple. Because she hadn't picked up a single gun other than a assault rifle.
Yes, and like the adorable Noob she was, she had ignored every shotgun, SMG, and lacked any sort of mobility item. Not once picking any of them up off the ground.
Very Noob like, huh~?
What she had done, instead, was hoard medical supplies with the fervor of a doomsday prepper.
"Uhh," Luna hesitated for a second, before the wince in her voice was palpable through the party chat. "I've got, um, nine medkits because I dropped the rifle. Four of those blue fishes. A couple of those bright blue soda can thingy's."
"Eh~?"
"Whaaa?"
"H-holy shit."
Cassius had lifted his thumbs from his joysticks, the siblings watching as the banana skin went still on the screen.
Daemon's own brain did a tiny lean at the words spoken from the girl on their TV.
Hazel slowly lowered the pillow she'd been clutching up too her face, staring at the television screen as if the heavens had just parted.
Cassius the first to come back from his confusion, his thumbs landing back onto the joysticks.
"Luna," Cassius breathed out, his voice now thick with a profound, almost spiritual respect he never thought he'd harbor for virtual shit.
"I retract every single insult I threw at your loot tonight. You aren't a liability. You're a Noob. A beautiful Noob!"
The storm circle vanished entirely. The screen was flooded with purple fog, and both their health bars began to plummet at the ten tick.
Cassius, whose entire healing inventory consisted of a few negligible mini-shields and a pathetic bandage, consumed his item but was still immediately knocked by the storm, his grinning banana exploding into a shower of high-tier loot five seconds after.
"Annnd~ I'm dead," Cassius narrated smoothly. "One of the guys up top just died to the storm too,"
"Its only a one Vs one now, Luna. You have to out-heal him. You must! You didn't pick up that loot for shit! Shove those damn fish down your throat like it's an eating competition! Now, Luna! Do it!"
"I am! I am! I am! I'm eating them!" Luna shrieked in panic, her on-screen skin glowing with a blue light as she rapidly consumed her ridiculous stockpile of items.
"Smash that damn button, women! Abuse that poor bastard, Luna!"
"GO, LUNA!"
"COME ON, COME ON, COME ON!!"
"CAN YOU GUYS SHUT THE FUCK UP! I'M SMASHING IT GODDAMMIT! AHHHH~!"
It was a battle of pure adrenaline and a contest on who can abuse their poor controller the fastest.
High up in the metal fortress, the final opponent must have realized he was going to run out of meds first. Desperate, he began firing his assault rifle blindly down into the purple haze, the digital bullets loudly ricocheting off the brick and tearing up the dirt around Luna's avatar.
"OH MY GOD, WHY THE HELL IS HE SHOOTING! KYAAA~! I'M GONNA DIEEE!" she screamed, mashing her controller in a blind panic.
Her avatar suddenly summoned a totally useless, flimsy wooden wall directly in front of her own nose. But it was enough. The enemy's final, desperate sniper bullet embedded itself harmlessly into the pine boards.
A milli of a second later, a brilliant white light washed over her character model as the final medkit applied.
High above, the enemy player's health depleted to zero.
The screen slow mode, then erupted in massive, bold letters: #1 VICTORY ROYALE.
"LESSH GOOOOOO!!!"
Pandemonium claimed the living room.
Daemon exploded off the couch with a sudden bounce, sprinting laps around the wooden coffee table and knocking a stack of comic books onto the rug.
Hazel unleashed her throw pillow with the speed of a fastball, catching a poor Cassius right in the side of his head. From the TV, the sound of Luna's breathless, hysterical laughter echoed into the room.
"Hahahahaha! I did it~!! Yes, yes, yes! Uh huuuh, mm~mm~mm! Go Luuuna, go Luuuna!"
From her side of the screen, she had sprung up to her feet, and did a little sway of her hips repeatedly as her done her victory dance.
Even Cassius let out a sharp, genuine sound of laughter, a broad smile breaking through his normally mischief expression, the plastic bag on his head crinkling with the movement.
As the post-game lobby materialized on screen, a small icon chimed in the upper right quadrant.
Friend Request Received: xX_Lunagurl_Xx
Soon followed by Luna's excited voice, "That was the craziest thing I've ever experienced! Can we play again? Pleaseeee tell me we can play again?!"
"WE HAVE TO PLAY AGAIN! WE SO DO!" Daemon demanded, slapping his hands against the couch cushions in a steady, rhythmic beat.
Cassius casually raised a single finger, and both children instantly silenced themselves. Excitement bubbling in their eyes, as their fingers crossed in hopes of their brothers mercy. Since knowing him, he'll wanna ruin their excitement, so they silently prayed.
He leaned in close to the microphone on his headset.
"Yeah, we can run a few more," Cassius said, his voice dropping back into that usual smooth tone. "I've just got some... real-world thu gs to sort out first. Give me five minutes?"
"Okay, okay! Take all the time you need, as long as we can play I can wait awhile. I'll just be here. Right here. I'm not going nowhere."
Cassius muted the microphone with a soft click.
He placed the DualSense controller deliberately on the coffee table and pivoted to face his younger siblings.
The warm, affectionate older-brother smile melted away, replaced a razor-sharp smirk.
'Hustling time~.'
Tomorrow was Saturday.
That meant one thing.
He, our protagonist, possessed total control over exactly when, where, and how Ah-Rin was going to witness the transformation currently processing underneath the plastic bag on his head.
And because Cassius operated strictly on the philosophy that a good opportunity should never be wasted, he had every intention of monetizing the upcoming reveal.
As he had planned.
"My dear siblings... do yous wish to indulge in the art form called; Gambling~?" Cassius murmured, leaning forward to absorb their full attention.
Daemon was the first to freeze with confusion taking over his mind. Only to have his eyes narrow with suspicion. Hazel leaned back against the couch, folding her arms as she bore those eyes of her at Cassius.
Seeing them not answering, he took it as them willing and are listening.
"Seems that's a yes. Okay. Tomorrow morning," Cassius smoothly began, tapping a finger against the crinkling plastic on his skull, "Ah-Rin is going to see the new hair. I am officially opening the floor for bets on what her immediate reaction is going to be."
"What are the stakes?" Hazel demanded, completely bypassing the setup to get straight to the point.
"Winner takes the pot," Cassius proposed, holding his hands out in a gesture of fairness. "Daemon risks the Omnitrix. You risks the Dunks. If either of you predicts it accurately, I will grant you unlimited access to the PS5 for an entire two weeks. Plus, I will do both of your chore lists until the first of next month."
It was a brutally unbalanced wager. But he wasn't worried. Beause he'll soon introduce them to what gaslighting is, and take more from their little hands.
He was putting up mere labor and console time against high-value goods. That was easy.
But to a nine and a ten-year-old, a two whole week of unregulated video gaming was practically a religious experience.
The two siblings exchanged a heavy, silent glance. A sibling eye communication going on right infront of Cassius.
"She is absolutely going to pass out."
Daemon was the first to speak, punching his palm for emphasis. "Or she's going to scream at the top of her lungs. In all of Grandma's dramas, the girl always screams when the bad boy shows up looking different."
"Incorrect," Hazel said flatly. "She is going to freeze. Total system failure. No talking, no blinking. It'll take her at least ten seconds to process the "happened" before she makes a sound."
Listening to their answers, Cassius nodded in approval.
"Cute answers," he said, his blue eyes catching the glare of the TV. "My official prediction? Her face is going to turn red, she's then going to try an physically assault me with her puppy slaps, and then she's going to kiss me before her brain realizes what she's doing."
The two siblings hummed as they listened.
They spent the next three minutes debating the legal definition of a "reaction," argued over the exact duration of Hazel's ten-second timer, and Hazel forced Cassius to throw in a king-sized chocolate bar as a signing bonus.
This was a free for all, after all. If one wins, the others have to give the winner what they wanted.
So Hazel and Daemon negotiated their winner picks, both arguing again after one didn't wanna give the other what they asked for.
They interrupted each other, they rage baited each other, they even almost fought but thanks to Cassius that didn't happen.
That lasted another three minutes before they came to a firm deal, finally settling the betting pool bets.
Cassius extended his hand. Daemon and Hazel each gripped two of his fingers and shook, legally binding themselves to the "contract" that ever happened in this apartment.
Smug with his impending victory, Cassius retrieved the controller and flicked the mute button off.
He brought the mic up, tossing the controller directly into Daemon's lap, before saying, "The gremlins are taking the wheel, Luna. May God have mercy on your soul when they force you to drop into a hot zone with fifty other players."
He took off the headset, threw it to Hazel and flopped backwards into the couch.
"Hey! Why does she get the headset? I'm playing, not her"
"Shut it, Daemon. As if Ms. Luna wants to have a loud mouth like you in her ears."
"I aint loud! Now give it! Urgh!"
"Whoa! Hey! You Idiot! Don't pull the headset! Your gonna break it!"
"Give it!"
"No!"
The living room instantly slipped into a chaotic wave to sibling banter.
Daemon and Hazel began physically wrestling for dominance over the thumbsticks, the headset halfway off of Hazel's head as the game kicked off.
Which was another disaster of screaming out terrible locations and planning utterly absurd strategies that involved hiding in bushes and dancing.
They were die hard fans of the "Meme" king, so it was only naturally they act like this.
Poor Luna...
As for Cassius? He sank further back into the plush depths of the sofa, letting the chaotic noise wash over him.
He pulled his smartphone from his pocket and opened Instagram again.
Ah-Rin had finally responded to his barrage of texts from ages ago.
Ah-Rin: { Are you still on that? Come on, Cass. Leave me and my embarrassment alone! }
Ah-Rin: { Also, wyd? I missed youuuu~🤗😘 }
A slow grin spread across his face.
Seeing that she was online and probably scrolling through reels right about now, he pulled the keyboard up and typed out a reply that was masterfully vague, entirely stripped of context, and guaranteed to drive her into a craving of wanting to "know" the mystery.
Cassius: { Also, I'm currently watching a very entertaining match go on right now. That's what I'm doing. }
Cassius: { And, I miss ya cute ass just as much as you do meee! 🤪 }
THUMP~!
The loud sound made him pull his gaze away for a second, only too watch his siblings attempt a dance sync with Luna, the sound that pulled him being a pillow that fell on the ground.
Tomorrow was going to be an absolute fever dream.
'Mannn~, I can't wait to see her face,' he thought.
Bizzz~Bizzz~
His gaze was pulled back towards the vibration of his phone.
Only to chuckle lightly at Ah-Rin's DM.
"Cutie~." He muttered to himself.
...
...
...
[ Fifty Minutes Later. ]
The sharp, unrelenting shriek of the digital timer cut straight through the muffled sounds of virtual gunfire leaking down the hallway.
Rachel was currently keeping her eyes focused onto the bubbling pot in front of her, simply reaching out with a flour-streaked hand to depress the cancel button.
Exactly on fifty minutes.
The kimchi jjigae was reaching its peak, a rolling, vibrant red sea of broth, loaded with thick, marbled slices of pork belly and the ridiculously expensive artisanal tofu her grandson had somehow smuggled into the house.
"Time to wash this garbage out of my hair," Cassius's voice boomed from the living room.
Rachel unconsciously listened to the sounds: the crinkle of a plastic bag, the heavy groan of the couch springs releasing his weight, the scuff of his slides against the hardwood.
His heavy footsteps retreated down the narrow hall, followed by the firm click of the bathroom door locking into place.
Turning her attention to the counter, Rachel began portioning perfectly steamed white rice into four matching ceramic bowls.
"What do think..."
"... Knowing her, she'll be shocked..."
"You reckon...."
Even from her position, Rachel could just make out the distinct, hushed murmurs floating from the living room.
Daemon and Hazel were whispering furiously, plotting something with the intense focus of tiny criminals.
She elected to ignore it. Knowing those two well enough to know they won't rob a store or something.
Plus, children thrived on having secrets, and it was significantly less exhausting to let them scheme than to drag the truth out of them. It won't exactly be difficult for her too do that.
A few minutes later,
Click~!
The bathroom lock clicked open.
The heavy footsteps came to life again, padding back down the hallway, slowly drawing closer to the kitchen doorway.
As Rachel heard the final heavy footstep at the door right behind her, she turned, ready to instruct him to fetch the silverware, "Son~son can you get me the...??"
But all the words she was gonna say halted, then died in her throat. Suddenly, the ceramic bowls in her hands felt as heavy as lead blocks.
She finally got to see what was making that plastic crinkling noise moments ago.
It was from Cassius's own head.
And, his hair wasn't black anymore.
It wasn't a muted, natural brown or a subtle highlight, either.
It was a blinding, electric gold. It looked like it had been ripped straight from the frame of an absurdly stylized anime.
Or, in Rachel's case, a gold coin.
The strands were still damp from the towel, standing up in messy, harsh, chaotic spikes. Paired with his naturally pale complexion and those startlingly bright blue eyes, the color completely rewrote his face.
For the third time her life, Rachel couldn't find her voice.
She just could only stare.
And as she did,
The memories rushed forward unbidden.
The very first time she had laid eyes on Cassius, exactly four years ago, he had looked precisely like this.
He had been a fourteen-year-old child standing on her front porch, sporting that same blinding gold hair. However, within twenty-four hours of arriving, he had locked himself in her bathroom, dyed his hair a pitch black, and refused to ever speak of it again.
And now, the gold had returned.
"Why..." Said Rachel, her voice barely a whisper against the gentle hiss of the simmering stew. "Why did you make it blond again~?"
Cassius stood in the doorway, before leaning his weight casually against it. That signature, playful smirk slowly curling his lips.
"Just felt a little nostalgic," he replied, his tone dripping with not so believable 'innocence'. "It definitely~ has nothing to do with the fact that it increases my already staggering good looks. Not at all. You know me, Grandma. I'm an icon of humbleness~!"
Rachel's eyes narrowed into slits, an eyebrow rising to complete the look. (The "rock" style.)
Humble? Him? What an uncreative joke.
Her Grandson possessed an ego that possessed its own gravitational pull.
If humble was ever a person, he'll never be close or even mentioned as that person. Never.
But she wasn't foolish, aswell. She knew her Grandson far too well. Over the four years of living with the idiot, she naturally caught onto his habits and stuff.
He didn't have random impulses unless it had a very solid reason to it. If he was willingly stripping away the dark hair he had worn for the last four years, it meant a shift had occurred deep within that heavily fortified heart of his.
With a sigh and a head shake, she decided not to pull the words of "why" he did it out of his mouth. "Humble has no right coming from your mouth, Son~son,"
"Now, can you please be a dear and set the table," she added softly, turning her back to him to focus back onto the stove.
As she dragged the heavy ladle through the rich, spicy broth, the sharp aroma of garlic and fermented chili flakes enveloped her, dragging her mind firmly back into the past.
Four years.
But to Rachel, it felt like a complete different lifetime. One filled with so much regret and grief.
Let's start with the obvious:
Her beautiful, lively daughter; Eun-ji, and her son-in-law, Marcus, had only been taken from the world a mere five months apart.
Eun-ji had been the one to be lost first, one more pure soul a victim of a catastrophic highway collision that made no sense.
Like, literally. The laws of logic simply never existed that day.
From what Rachel had seen in the reports from the police officers and detectives that fateful day, was that her daughter's passing was... weird.
There was no suspects.
None.
The "Driver" of the Black Mazda, the one which crashed into her daughter's Toyota, was mysteriously... gone. Leaving not one trace. Only airbags deployed, and tragedy in its wake.
As if a ghost drove the car itself...
Marcus, her energetic son in law, had followed shortly after; a man whose heart simply shattered under the unbearable weight of grief, and a steel bullet taking him away.
The most regretful thing was: Rachel couldn't stretch out her own hand to help him.
Believe her when she says that she tried.
She wanted to help him. With all her heart, she wanted to help her daughter's husband.
But Marcus didn't return his own hand for that help. He didn't want help. Or, more precisely, he couldn't bring himself to be helped.
That was her daughter, and him leaning onto his mother in laws shoulders, just did not seat right with him.
Rachel had found herself stranded in a suffocatingly quiet home, then suddenly the sole guardian of five-year-old Daemon and four-year-old Hazel.
Rachel could remember that day. The day her grandchildren came to be hers.
And on that same day, her biological grandchildren had been reduced to dolls.
With the death of their father just four hours later, the two siblings couldn't even feeling anything.
They rarely ate, never played, and had entirely stopped speaking.
There was no laughter in her home, no banter, no crying, just the sole absence of noise. That's all.
Though, that changed when some state workers intervened.
The day her whole world brightened with colors again.
They arrived with Cassius.
He was Eun-ji's stepson from Marcus's first marriage, is what she was told.
The state workers told Rachel that since his mother passed away a month after Marcus's death, he basically had no relatives to go to.
There was no biological connection between him and Rachel. In the wake of his mother's death, the teenager had been passed around between distant homes who rapidly discarded him, labeling him "too quiet," "deeply unsettling," or complaining about his "weird energy."
Rachel had been running on fumes alone, drowning in her own sorrow while desperately trying to keep two toddlers alive.
When she looked through her screen door at the silent boy clutching a single, battered duffel bag holding his entire life, the word 'no' was right on her tongue.
She assumed he would be the final weight that would break her already collapsing household.
But the caseworker had looked so profoundly exhausted, and Rachel's pragmatic heart simply couldn't turn away a child who had run out of doors to knock on.
So she took him in.
And unlike what she was told, they, the people before her, had been so incredibly wrong about him.
During his first week in the apartment, Cassius made no attempt to coddle the toddlers.
He didn't speak in soft tones or try to offer the gentle, maternal comforts Rachel was desperately trying to provide. Instead, he simply walked into the center of the living room, dropped onto the carpet next to a unresponsive Daemon, and let out a heavy sigh.
Rachel had watched this from her kitchen, eyes wide with thick shock.
"Not to disrupt the whole "emo" aura or nothing, but are you just going to sit there staring at the wall until you mold, oooor~! Do you wanna watch some people getting their ass kicked~?"
But even though he asked, he didn't wait for the answer.
He just grabbed the remote, switched the channel to a bloody, heavy-weight boxing match, and sat there. He demanded nothing. He offered no pity. He just provided an immense, grounding presence.
And that seemed to be enough.
Beacuse three days later, Rachel had walked in to find the teenager on his knees, holding his palms open while Daemon clumsily practiced throwing jabs and crosses into them.
That day was the day Daemon started smiling more~~~
The second week brought the miracle of Hazel's laughter. It was the first sound of joy since the funerals.
How it was done had always sat on Rachel's mind. All of it did, actually.
It starrted with Cassius sitting on the floor with a crinkling bag of chicken chips, the savory aroma filling the room.
He didn't offer them at first; he just ate them one by one until Hazel drifted closer, lured by the chicken scent.
"You want one~? You can have one. I don't mind. Plus, eating chips alone is quite depressing. C'monnn, don't be shy. Take one~." he nagged playfully, nudging the bag toward her until she finally reached in.
While she crunched, savoring the blissful taste of chicken, Cassius pulled out his phone. "Alright, since I have your attention now, listen to this. America has some top-tier music, so tell me what you think of them."
The upbeat, rhythmic pulse of Akon's "Clap Again" filled the air with bass.
Akon: { ... What means most too meee~! Can look back one day and knooow I share with you my~~ gift~~~!}
Akon: { I just wanna make you clap again~~! Clap again~! I just wanna make you clap again~! }
As the words of akon flew into both of their ears, Cassius watched as Hazel's head started to bob. "I like this one," she whispered, the very first words she has spoken in months.
Soon, the so-called "weird," teenager was leaning his head back against the edge of the couch, eyes closed in mock resignation as Hazel meticulously covered his forehead in glittery unicorn stickers.
Her tiny fingers worked through his dark hair, weaving messy, lopsided braids. When Hazel let out a sudden, bright giggle at a particularly weird looking braid, Rachel had to just flee. She had too.
She leaned over the stainless steel sink, her hands clamped over her mouth to muffle the raw, sobbing gasps of relief.
The third week was when the dam and absence of noise left this house.
Rachel was wiping the counter down, focused on her cleaning, when she suddenly saw Daemon approach Cassius of his own volition, his small fingers white-knuckled around a piece of crinkled paper.
The other sibling wasn't left out, either. Hazel was right on his heels, clutching her own drawing like a shield.
"Cassius?" Daemon's voice was small, still a bit shy, but it was all there. "Do you... do you wanna see my dinosaur drawing~?"
Rachel observed how Cassius leaned back, his eyes moving from the TV to the boy. "A dinosaur drawing? Aight, show me. But its gotta be a T-Rex, Daemon. Those are the only ones that are actually dope."
At the words of his brother, Daemon scrambled closer, unfolding the paper with a sudden, frantic energy.
Fuurp~
On the piece of paper, was a crude drawing of a massive, funny-toothed T-Rex. And on its back were three stick figures: one tall and lanky with dark hair, and two smaller ones. With another figure at the bottom, observing the chaos. "It's us," Daemon whispered, pointing. "We're riding it. You're the one holding the reins so we don't fall off. This one, this is grandma with a look of confusion~."
Before Cassius could even utter a response, Hazel, who was right behind Daemon, thrust her paper into his lap.
And unlike her brother's drawing,
Her drawing was a riot of wax-crayon colors --- a vibrant, messy rainbow arching over a large golden pot.
Inside the pot, she had drawn four figures huddled together. "It's a pot of gold," she chirped, her voice brighter now. "It's you and me and Daemon and Grandma. Because... because you's are our gold."
Rachel held her breath, caught of guard by the mention of her.
'I... I'm there... aswell?'
She, understandably so, was expecting Cassius to make a joke or shrug it off with his usual teenage detachment.
That was how her own mind seen it.
Instead, he went very still.
He took the drawings with a strange, quiet reverence, his thumbs smoothing out the creases Daemon had made.
"A T-Rex squad and a pot of gold." Cassius murmured, a genuine, lopsided smile breaking through his expression.
He looked at the kids, his eyes uncharacteristically soft.
"You two got really good taste, y'know that? I've always said gold is the only thing worth having, and T-Rexes... well, they're the kings~"
As his smile grew, he added with promise, "these are going on my wall. Right above my bed~."
He held the drawings up as if they were masterpieces, nodding his approval. "Best things I've seen all year. Seriously."
Seeing their smiles, their joyous mood, and them getting a long, that had been the exact week Rachel finally managed to sleep through the night.
The suffocating grief hadn't magically vanished, but the home had ceased to feel like a broken home.
Cassius had filled the hollow spaces they three of them felt. Sure, sometimes he was loud and deeply annoying; sometimes he roamed for hours into the city. But he was always, invariably, there.
He always was.
When you needed him, he was there.
You call he's there.
To Rachel, he was like the foundation. The glue to their broken glass hearts.
A miracle gifted to her. And not just one... but three. Three miracles gifted to her.
Now, standing in her kitchen, she watched this impossibly tall, golden-haired boy casually reach across the dinner table and snatch a perfectly glazed sweet potato directly off Hazel's plate.
Rachel felt a profound tightness in her chest.
She had thought she was taking in a broken burden. But In reality, the universe had delivered a solution. Cassius was a deeply thoughtful child who had looked at a grieving old woman and two shattered toddlers and silently decided: I guess... these people belong to me now. So I will hold them together.
"Hey!" Hazel shrieked, violently slapping the back of his hand. "Why did you steal from my plate?! Go for Daemon's plate, not mine!"
"Gotta keep your guard up, sis," Cassius replied, chewing the stolen potato without a shred of remorse. "You should know by now. I. Am. A food thief~!"
"As for you, Daemon, gimme. Now. It's not fair if your sister has something taken and not you~."
"What?! No! Your not getting my food! Suck on toes, you giant idiot!" Daemon said, his chin glistening with red broth as he shielded his delicious plate. "And anyway, you should be worried about tomorrow, when Ah-Rin looks at your hair and she---!!"
Thud!!
Cassius viciously kicked his brother's shin beneath the wooden table.
Daemon let out a startled yelp, suddenly coughing on a piece of tofu. Hazel immediately shifted her gaze to the ceiling fixture, acting incredibly fascinated by the lightbulb to avoid incrimination.
Rachel buried her knowing smile behind the rim of her rice bowl.
A betting pool.
Of course he had orchestrated a gambling ring using his own family. Of course. It would be weird to her if he wasn't causing any kind of mischief.
She took a slow sip of her jjigae, pretending the auditory decline of old age was setting in. She just observed him over the rim of the ceramic.
This brilliantly cunning, mischief making, fiercely protective boy who shared not a single drop of her DNA, yet was more her own blood than anyone else left on earth.
...
...
...
An hour later, the inevitable sugar and carbohydrate crash claimed the younger siblings. Daemon and Hazel were sprawled in their shared bedroom, deeply unconscious and dead to the world.
A heavy, peaceful quiet settled over the apartment, broken only by the steady rush of water from the kitchen faucet.
Cassius stood at the sink, his back hunched slightly as he aggressively scrubbed the remnants of dinner from the heavy iron pots.
He never waited to be asked, because he kind of liked doing dishes at times.
Rachel stepped quietly into the kitchen, wiping her hands methodically on a dry dishtowel. She stepped close to him, her weathered fingers gently grazing the fabric of his sleeve. (He put on a hoodie.) He stopped his aggressive scrubbing, turning his head to look down at her.
Bathed in the warm, yellow glow of the overhead kitchen light, the blond hair made him look oddly regal. Or, perhaps, like the most dangerous enforcer in a crime syndicate.
"That color," she murmured softly. "It really does suit you, Son~son."
Cassius shifted his gaze to the dark windowpane above the sink, catching his own reflection in the glass. That familiar, blinding ego flared to life instantly.
"Yeah," he smirked, his voice dripping with confidence. "I'm well aware. Ma~."
Without warning, he flicked his wrist, launching a cold spray of soapy dishwater directly into her face.
Rachel gasped in shock, swatting him hard on the shoulder as a rare, genuine laugh tore from her throat. "You absolute dick! Don't spray dirty water at me~!"
"Yeah, yeah. Go to sleep, Grandma," he chuckled deeply, wrapping a damp, heavy arm around her shoulders and physically turning her toward the hallway. "Go rest those fragile bones before they crumble into dust. I'll handle the rest of this, so don't worry about it."
"I am perfectly capable of cleaning my own---"
"I know you are, but I don't accept rejected offers," he interrupted not missing a beat or step, marching her forward with a grip that was immovable but infinitely gentle. "If you collapse from exhaustion, I'm just gonna step over your body. You are way too heavy to carry, y'know that right~?"
She let out a dramatic huff, swatting at his arm again, but she didn't resist as he escorted her all the way to her bedroom door.
(Well... what a miracle. She didn't kill him for calling her fat, lol)
Moments later, as she lied on her mattress in the dark, pulling the heavy floral quilt up to her chin, she listened to the rhythmic sounds of the kitchen. The clatter of plates, the rush of the faucet, the scrape of the sponge.
'I have no idea who you were before you stood on my porch, Cassius,' she thought, her eyes growing heavy as a sense of safety washed over her. 'But I know exactly who you are now. And I thank God you never left me... I just hope you two are looking down with a overwhelming sense of happiness, Eun-ji, Marcus, because you'll see your children are, right at this moment, happy and safe...'
"Thank you..."
<><><><><><>
END.