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Jake Addams: April 24th, 20XX

My legs trembled as I stood in the parking lot of the giant building and tried not to panic. The box of things Sparrow had given me weighed heavy on my arms as I double-checked the address on the keys Finn had dropped behind.

No, it was the right address.

It was, but I couldn’t believe my eyes.

I’d known he’d recently moved out of the dorms, and I knew he lived in the wealthier part of town. But somehow, that information failed to help me understand the sheer extravagance that I witnessed.

The rumour that Vanessa had told us a few weeks ago suddenly seemed much more plausible. Could a rich family really have picked him up to run their business?

But he wasn’t even out of university yet.

Then again, it wasn’t like it would be the first time a wealthy family picked a young kid to groom into the perfect worker. Sometimes they would even have them marry into the family to ensure loyalty. It was such an old-fashioned practice that it was hard to fathom the kid I saw every day at school could be its victim.

I looked up at the skyscraper and wondered just how much it would cost to live there. Never mind a monthly rate; they might have to break it down to a day-by-day basis to ensure the tenants could afford to live there.

Other clues suddenly filled in a bigger picture I hadn’t known I was painting. The expensive motorcycle Finn had a few months back and the expensive jewellery he sometimes mindlessly wore around the school. He’d mentioned he had a job before, but I couldn’t think of anything legal that would net a teenager a lifestyle like this.

Should I ask him about it? And would he even give me an answer if I did?

But then again, Finn himself had asked me to drop by today. I didn’t know why, but he’d suddenly called this morning and had asked me to swing by. Then Sparrow had overheard the call and had asked me to take this box of costumes with me.

I handed off my keys to a scornful valet and watched him scan the bar code Finn had texted me.

Suddenly, his expression changed, and he looked me up and down once again.

I was awkward as I was still wearing a suit Sparrow had put me into and wasn’t used to it. After they had taken me as a member of Sparrow’s group, she’d started offering me parts in her grand productions of set design.

It wasn’t often, but she would ask me to get in costume and pose for a few hours when she couldn’t find anyone else. Although I knew they weren’t real siblings, one thing both Sparrow and Finn shared was how quickly they grew close to people. But then again, maybe I was just a pushover, and I gave in too easily to definite requests.

I hadn’t known Finn stayed in such a fancy place when I’d accepted his invitation, but I’d figured I could just swing by and say hi. I also wanted to know where he’d gone for a week and figured I could ask about that.

“Sir, please come this way.”

The concierge led me into a front hall of the extensive building, and I experienced the uncomfortable ordeal of being put through a scanner three times and patted down like I was at the airport.

“Clear.”

As the third person put their hands on into my breast pocket to check if the other two had missed anything, I grew slightly annoyed. It was one thing to go through all this, but at least Fin could have given me a warning.

“You’re free to go, Sir. Please proceed to the front desk to complete your check in.”

They tried to help me put on the metal accessories that they had taken off before, but I pushed them away as gently as possible.

It had been uncomfortable enough to have my belt taken off for me, but I didn’t think I could have them put it back on.

I finally made it into the main building and froze in awe. The space was as majestic as a museum and polished so brightly that it almost hurt to keep my eyes open.

The front desk was an extravagant culture of a griffin with a flat back they used as a regular desk.

The man at the desk was an elegant, middle-aged man that calmly flipped through a newspaper. Newspapers were so outdated that I didn’t even think they made them anymore, but I couldn’t help but admire how well they fit the scene.

I finished my long journey and placed the box on the floor before straightening my back and clothes. It was just a lobby manager, but I was sure he was much wealthier than I was.

From the grand decorations to the sheer area code of the building, I enviously wondered how much the employees got paid here. Maybe I would ask Finn if he could swing a few strings and get me a summer job here.

The lobby manager looked me up and down and reluctantly put down his newspaper. I guess he’d pinned my social class with a mere glance at my apparel.

His eyes lingered on the suit as he didn’t quite recognize the brand, but it was the cheap jewellery that sealed my fate. I’d failed to meet the dress code that seemed to be required to exist in this space.

“Might I help you?”

I didn’t waste time getting offended at the dismissive way he spoke to me and pushed forward the barcode Finn had texted me.

“Here. I’m here to see a Finn Hall.”

The relaxed expression melted like an ice cube on a summer day, and he suddenly grew hostile.

“Listen, young man. I’m not sure how you heard that name, but you need to turn right around and leave the premises. I don’t know who you are but Mr. Hall is far from being an individual you can meet with a mere guest pass.”

The sudden hostility caught me off guard and put me on defense as well. More doubt about what exactly Finn did as a ‘part-time job’ blossomed in my mind as I pulled my phone back from the hostile employee.

I didn’t know what was going on or why this guy was so fiercely loyal, but I figured calling Finn would resolve the issue.

“If you can give me a moment, I can call him.”

He looked at me like one would look at a desperate fan trying to break into their favorite celebrities house. But as annoying as the look was, there wasn’t much I could do about it.

I put the phone on speaker and called Finn. While Finn wasn’t the worst at picking up his phone, he wasn’t all that reliable either. I got the distinct feeling that if he didn’t pick up the call, someone would swiftly escort me out of the building.

Thankfully, Finn picked up the call after two stressful rings and a tired, gravelly voice filtered out of my phone’s speakers.

“Jake? Are you here? Ah, I forgot to warn you, but they’ll have to do a sort of security check before you can enter the building.”

He sounded disoriented, and it was obvious he’d just woken up. The extremely late warning fell on deaf ears, but I at least got to dismiss some of my annoyance from earlier.

“Yeah, I’m already past that. The lobby manager wanted to make sure I knew you before he let me up, so could you confirm that?”

“Ah-“

He let out an unfamiliar expletive, much like the one he had used a few weeks ago when he had stood off against Alice in the cafeteria.

“Give the phone to him.”

The lobby manager’s expression had already gone pale when he heard our conversation, but he went downright sallow when I offered him the phone.

“Y-Yes Mr- Sir Finley.”

From the way he bounced from the formal title to Finn’s first time, I could tell someone had repeatedly scolded him about calling Finn a ‘mister.’

I discovered Finn was a shortened form of his real name.

The man turned my phone off speaker and held a private conversation with Finn before hanging up the call and returning it to me like a treasure.

“Sir Finley wanted me to tell you he will be down momentarily.”

He waved two younger employees forward and had them take my bag and the box off my hands.

“Please have a seat and make yourself comfortable.”

They led me to an expensive-looking seating area. Someone came forward to offer me some coffee, which I declined. I actually didn’t want anything to drink at all, but the pained gaze on her face prompted me to ask for tea instead.

She brought out a fancy-looking dark tea that smelled incredible, but I couldn’t focus on it.

One of the younger employees who escorted me over chuckled as he put down the cheap cardboard box I had used to bring in Finn’s things.

“You must be pretty impressive, Mr. Addams. The boss hasn’t been out of his room for the past two days.”

“He also never comes down to meet others.”

The other one chimed in.

The entire floor suddenly froze as the elevator dinged, and the heavy doors slid open and revealed a sloppy-looking Finn. The employees arranged themselves into neat lines and inclined their heads to the floor.

“GOOD MORNING SIR”

The pained expression on Finn’s face was enough reason to understand why he rarely left his house.

He turned to the lobby manager and waved the older man to his side.

“I thought I told you not to do this anymore.”

The lobby manager put up a pained expression but showed no sign of listening to the man they had just performed such a grand ceremony for.

“My apologies, Sir, but it is tradition. The late madam was firm about continuing this tradition.”

Finn looked like he wanted to fight a bit more, but he laid eyes on me and put it off for another time.

“Sorry for the wait, Jake.”

An employee quickly dusted off the chair before he sat down and ran at him with a fresh cup of coffee. Finn accepted it with a brief ‘thank you,’ but otherwise looked like he’s grown accustomed to it all.

The unnecessarily pretty employee faded into the background and rejoined the ranks of the other employees. Once I thought of it, I looked around and realized how disgustingly good-looking all the employees were.

Was it some sort of requirement? Was it even legal to have that type of hiring requirement?

I looked back at Finn, who was a very good-looking dude. From the neck up to his forehead, he suited this place just fine, but his raggy and oversized clothes and his matted hair contrasted too heavily with the surrounding furniture. If not for the earlier display, I would have wondered how he hadn’t gotten kicked out of the building yet.

Finn looked them over in the same genial way I looked at him before raising a critical eyebrow.

“What’s with the suit?”

As if that at all mattered.

“I helped Sparrow with a shoot before coming over.”

I choked out my response ahead of the confusion that raged in my head. It wasn’t only that I worried he just wouldn’t give me an answer, but I also didn’t know where to start.

He grimaced before shooting me a sympathetic expression that showed he understood how flustering it was to be treated like a dress-up doll. We spent the next few minutes in silence before he regained the energy to ask another question.

“You worked with Sparrow’s group? So you’re done with Alice?”

“.... It’s a long story.”

“It doesn’t have to be.”

He flippantly dismissed one of the most emotionally taxing events that had happened to me in years and asked me to summarize it. Well, then again, I was sure he’d heard about it from one entirely unrelated source or the other. I would take it in good faith that he hadn’t meant it in any negative way.

“Yeah. We broke it off.”

He looked a bit surprised, but he also looked like he’d been expecting it.

“Well, that’s fair. These things happen, I guess.”

I finally recovered enough from the shock of everything to get a bit irritated.

“I won’t say it was your fault, but shouldn’t you at least pretend to be sorry?”

“If it wasn’t me, it would have been someone else.”

His sharp response cut me like a knife, and he didn’t even have the decency to sound angry at my unreasonable request, which just showed the low opinion he had of my relationship.

“Even so-“

He cut me off by vaulting to his feet and straightening out his ragged clothes. Well, he tidied them up as much as he could and handed off his mug to a waitstaff.

“Well, I didn’t invite you over for something as pointless as apologizing for accidentally attracting the attention of your ex. I need your help.”

I put down my cup as well and exhaled as the staff cleared it away. I still wasn’t over the total culture shock I was going through, but I somehow couldn’t bring it up. It was almost like talking about it would make it all disappear like a dream, despite the slight warmth on my tongue and the slightly sweet aftertaste that lingered in my mouth from the tea.

Even though I’d gotten stuck in that terrible state of surrealism, it didn’t look like Finn had any intentions to explain anything.

“What did you need help with?”

He gestured to his clothes and spoke with a straight and innocently concerned expression.

“It… is possible I might need to change the way I dress.”

The massive understatement hung between us like a silent wall, and I tried not to let my disbelief twist my face into a nasty expression. My eyes flicked around his person and the homeless-style clothing he’d come down in.

He beamed at me as he completely missed my expression and feelings and continued his request.

“Since you’re a pretty well dressed dude, I would really appreciate your help.”

Although the request was awkward and somewhat unexpected, I could understand where he was coming from. It was hard enough to adhere to a new social circle’s clothing norms, but it was nearly impossible when one was used to spending only forty dollars a year on clothes.

I was sure he wanted my help since I could relate to how overwhelming this all could be. Thankfully, I’d had Alice’s family to help me get through the transition and to teach me how to act and look when I had to interact with the upper class.

I was happy to help, but I wondered if the family that had essentially bought his skills wouldn’t bother training him in these things. I knew little about how things like this worked beyond the exaggerated stories I heard online or from my friends, but it seemed weird that they would set him up in a building like this, but they wouldn’t show him how to dress.

The discrepancy in what I saw and what I’d heard almost made me re-evaluate my original theory of Finn’s sudden wealth. I shook myself out of my thoughts and asked after a flaw in his request.

“Why didn’t you ask Sparrow?”

Not only was she more likely to know what would suit him, but he was also much closer to her than I was. She referred to him as her little brother when he wasn’t around and sometimes to his face. But I felt that it was more to mess with him than it was to affirm their relationship to one another.

Finn’s face lit up like he genuinely hadn’t thought of asking Sparrow, but just as quickly as the idea dawned on him, he rejected it by shaking his head.

“Well…. I feel like Sparrow would make this into a much larger affair than it needs to be.”

Well…. He wasn’t wrong. But there was certainly something comical about the faint shadow of fear he held on his face when he talked about someone that hailed him as a sibling.

“Well then, did you want to go today? I have until six.”

It was currently noon, so that gave us quite some time to get everything done. I wasn’t a huge fan of planning for things that I could get done in the present.

He looked somewhat thrown off but got up as well.

“Ah, I mean, I have time as well. But where do you have to be by six? If it’s not anything personal, I can drop you off after.”

I waved off the offer. I’d brought my car here, as ill-suited as that clunker was to the high-income neighbourhood I was currently in, so I had to drive it around after Finn. Then again, I hadn’t known he had a car since I usually saw him on his bike.

“Nah, I’m good since I drove here. And I have to pick up my little siblings from school since my stepmom is on a business trip. I have to look after them for a few days.”

He nodded as I revealed a part of my back story but glazed right past it and focused on my rejection of riding in the same car as him. We walked out of the lobby and to the underground parking garage. The security guard put me through another thorough check but only casually subjected Finn to a similar but significantly less intense version of the process. Finn raised his hands to be patted up and down but finally swatted the guard’s hands away from his torso.

I wondered where they had parked my car when Finn stopped beside a car that looked like it could buy four of the house I currently stayed at. He noticed my envious expression and offered me a metaphorical olive branch.

“I think they parked your car pretty far away from here since you’re a guest. Do you want to waste time trying to find it or do you just want to catch a ride with me? I can have someone return your car to your house and leave the keys with whoever is there, or in the mailbox or something.”

The thought that anyone here would make off with my car was pretty ridiculous, but I appreciated the security assurance.

It was pretty reckless to go with Finn’s plan since I had to pick up my little siblings at Six, but well… I really wanted to get in that car.

“Yeah, let’s do that, shall we?”

Finn nodded and hid an amused chuckle as he got into the driver’s seat. I got into the passenger side and admired the fancy fabric used to pad the seats and layer the seatbelt. I wasn’t even sure what it was, but it felt nice and expensive.

“When did you get this?”

He shrugged in response, but his eyes shifted, and he quickly changed the topic.

“Ah, this? I got it some time ago. Do you think I should go to the north side mall or the south side shopping district?”

I took the bait and evaluated both. The south side mall was usually full since it was in a more residential area. The only downside was the many shady areas that surrounded that nice residential area. The northside shopping center was more isolated and a much more upper scale location, but it was a long drive.

“Let’s go to the north side.”

He nodded and pulled out of the main road and onto the interstate. He drove pretty recklessly, and I could tell he wasn’t used to driving this car... or driving at all. I resisted the urge to ask him to let me take over and instead made sure I’d put my seatbelt on properly.

But to give him credit, he drove much more sensibly than Sparrow. He still went faster than the posted speed limit, but he kept his eyes on the road and would only occasionally look over to me when he needed to emphasize a point.

I still had a lot of burning questions on my mind, but for now, all I could do was let them go.