Settled

"I'M NOT GOING TO FORGET THIS! YOU WILL PAY FOR THIS, YOU B*TCH!!" Those were the last words of Kaison Ford as he was taken into custody.

It took Aura eighteen months to settle the problem with Vesper's father as he came prepared. He denied all of the charges, instead he spouted lies about him being the victim of everything. This made the court subpoena Vesper against Aura's will. Thankfully, Vesper understood what he needed to say and said everything truthfully. With the help of Mare and her coworkers' testimony, Aura won.

Aura slumped down on the courtroom's chair after the judge walked out. She used up so much energy for this sh*t.

"Let's get out of here. Our kids' school is almost ending." Mare tapped on her friend's shoulder from the spectator's seat.

"Right." Aura stood up weakly from the seat and exited the courtroom along with her friend and a lawyer.

"Great work." The layer that Neo introduced, named Cillian Foster, nodded. He had black hair on all back with his eyes, difficult to differ if they were green or blue. "I think you have other things to do so we can talk about this another time."

"Thank you, Cillian." Aura nodded her head back too.

"Your welcome. Have a nice day." The man smiled politely at the two ladies and walked away after a bow.

Mare saw something flash in the eyes of the lawyer but didn't say anything. She knew now wasn't time for it. She'll talk about this once things settle down.

"We'll grab something quick and we go and pick the kids up. My treat." Mare commented cheerfully and dragged Aura to the car.

"Thank you to you too, Mare. Your testimony helped out a lot. If you weren't by my side, I couldn't have won."

"Don't exaggerate it, silly." The other woman flipped her perfectly curled hair like the ones in commercials with playful pride as she opened the passenger door for Aura to sit. "Madam."

"Thank you." Aura got into the gladly with a smile on her face. While Aura was dealing with court stuff, Mare always took care of Vesper, andthat was only a tiny part of she owed to Mare.

"Gosh, I'm starving. I feel like the stomach acid is going melt my stomach any time soon if I don't eat." Mare spoke as she drove and got into the nearest cafe.

They ordered several dishes and shared them together quickly.

"I thought you couldn't come today, mum." Vesper smiled like a moon and gathered the attention of girls when he saw his mother and his best friend's mother waiting for them in the parking lot.

"Didn't you miss me, my boy?" Aura embraced her son tightly, finally feeling free.

"Of course I did." He hugged his mother back.

Mare expected Helia to be with Vesper, but she didn't show up. "Where is Helia?"

"Helia is teaching juniors how to ride a monocycle," Vesper then pointed at the very end of the playground where kids were gathered. "Over there. But I think she is coming soon."

When the adults squinted their eyes, they could see something running towards them like a bull after red. The bull increased in size as it got closer to the group.

"MUM!!!" Helia the bull ran into her mother's legs with open hands.

"You are fast, hon." Mare almost lost balance but managed to stand still.

"Like ms ice cream bear?" Helia asked with hope.

"Yeah, just like her." The mother smiled and let the kids enter the car first. "How was school?"

"We learnt multiplication today." Vesper told them.

Vesper and Helia were in separate classes, but that didn't stop them from being close to each other.

"I didn't understand even a bit." Helia brought out her homework from the bag and began questioning her friend. Vesper was number one in academics in their year, unlike Helia in middle-upper grades.

"I was so focused on the court thing and didn't realise how much I missed my son's growth." Aura kept on looking back on how her son was teaching Helia.

"Well, you don't have to worry about the court anymore. You've got plenty of time from now on." Mare raised her brow before quickly turning her eyes back to the road.

///Years passed by. Vesper, 14 years old///

"Mum, I'm leaving first!" Vesper shouted into the kitchen where his mother worked tirelessly, trying to make food for her beloved friend's daughter, Helia.

Today was Helia's fifteenth birthday. Vesper had cake in his hand made by himself. No matter how much Mare and Aura tried to help him bake, he rejected the offer and in the end, he even locked himself in the kitchen until he was done. He didn't even allow his parents to see the cake he made. It was a surprise for everyone, especially for Helia.

Vesper made sure the cake was not touching the box before placing it cautiously in the cooler box. It was a fruit ice cream cake with carefully drawn ms ice cream bear on the side. Helia stopped saying she'll become ms ice cream bear, but she hadn't stopped loving her.

"Are you seriously not planning to show us before we go?"

Vesper turned around to see his father, Cillian, raising his brow. "No, dad. Helia is going to be the first one."

"You sound like a newlywed." His father sat down next to Vesper.

"Don't even give me that idea, dad," Vesper replied without even wasting a second, raising his hand to stop his father. "Me and Helia... we are not like that."

"What are you guys then?"

"I love her like a..." Vesper thought for a while as he held onto the cooler box. What was the relationship between him and Helia? He never really thought about it, but he knew she was just as important as his mother. "I don't know how to explain it."

"Well, make sure you treat her nicely. I feel like she is going to be in your life for a long time." Cillian went to pat his son's shoulder but was interrupted by his wife saying she burnt the chicken.

"I will. Mum's calling you. Bye." Vesper escaped from the house before his mother could call for him too.

"Be careful when you are crossing the road." He heard his father tell him before the door closed. What did his father take him for? He wasn't Helia.

Cillian and Aura met once again at a speed dating party a year after the case of Kaison. Aura was looking for a person to be the next father of Vesper, and Cillian was there because his family was noisy about him being single without a shade of a woman.

Both knew each other, so it was easier for them to start talking again. Just three months after the reunion, Cillian proposed, and Aura agreed. Cillian took Aura's name and put his own surname as his second middle name. Aura didn't want her son to be bullied because of his name change.

At first, Cillian's family didn't like the idea of him marrying a woman with a kid, but when they met Vesper, they were whipped for that boy even though he never spoked a word.

Nowadays, Cillian's mother, Emberly Foster, got along with her daughter-in-law and often had a chat about how raising sons was difficult.

Vesper was careful not to let anything happen to his first-ever cake when he walked over to Knights'.

It was ten o'clock on Sunday and the road was pretty much empty and quiet. Many people went to church or picnicked in parks nearby as a family.

He walked around the house and knocked on the back door, connected to the kitchen.

"It's open, Vesper." He heard his aunt's voice from the other side saw the shadow through the tinted window.

"Morning, aunti. I brought the cake and I'm guessing Helia isn't up yet?" He handed the cooler box to his aunt and searched for his friend from where he could see.

"Morning and you guessed correct," Mare looked more dashing today with a wine red high-low top with white jeans, brilliantly fitting her curves. Her curly hair was decorated with a silver butterfly accessory. "You can wake her up and get her ready."

"Looking at you, I know I've made the right decision by marrying you." Neo sneaked up from behind Mare and kissed her cheek.

"Hey, uncle."

"Hey, kid. Cillian told me you made the cake by yourself. I don't even know how to wash rice. Maybe I should learn."

"You should." Mare tapped her husband's nose with her finger and opened the box given by Vesper. She then removed the cake box from the cooler box and put it straight in the freezer. "I know you don't want us seeing this first."

"You know me." Vesper smiled.

Mare smirked and continued to put away the empty cooler box. "I got a text from Aura saying that it might take them a while to come. After waking up Helia, could you help Neo with setting up the living room?"

"Sure."

"Alright." His aunt smiled just like her daughter. "Neo, could you check the stew? I feel like something is missing."

Vesper went up to the bedroom and knocked on it. He heard some movements from the room, so he guessed she was awake, but nobody opened the room after a full five minutes. He was about to knock again in worry when a note slipped from the door.

Are you alone?

It is Helia's messy handwriting but messier than usual. She apparently knew who she was talking to. But this kind of thing wasn't like Helia. She always opened the door or at least told him the door's open.

"Yeah. Yeah. Helia, are you okay? Are you being held, hostage? I'm going to call aunt and uncle." The endless imagination took over Vesper's head. What if a guy like a bear was holding a knife against Helia's throat, and she couldn't do anything but secretly send a note to him?

Vesper was about to go down the stairs when the door opened, and he was drugged, just like in the horror movies.

He was about to scream for help when he realised who pulled him in.

It was Helia.

"You scared me!" He took a deep breath to control his ragged breath and sat on the bed.

"Sorry! I didn't mean to." Vesper saw that Helia wasn't excited about her birthday.

"What's wrong?"

Helia walked around her room with stress. Her normal happy face was not there. "I think something's wrong with me."

"Nothing is wrong with you. You might have a slight problem with anger, but other than that, you are good."

The girl stopped walking and put up her index finger. "The last sentence was unnecessary. Anyway, I'm not talking about my personality." She came to sit beside her friend.

The poor boy looked so worried. He looked like a man waiting for his wife's operation in the hospital.

"Then what are you talking about?"

"I'm bleeding. Externally." Helia said the three words and flipped the blanket on the bed to show her best friend a large spot of blood on the sheets.