Chapter 8:Reminiscence

On Saturday while others were preparing for a party this particular boy cooped himself up inside his apartment, green eyes on a screen, a supply snacks next to him while he played on his Ps5.

He studied all night, started playing video games a few hours before sunrise, and continued to play after sunrise. There were little hours of the morning after sunrise, to him they flew by fast but slow, it felt slow to him though time never fails to prove to us differently.

Reality began to sink in when he heard the door bell chime, its gentle tone echoing throughout the apartment. He paused his game and looked at the digital clock on the coffee table, 10:34, it showed.

He narrowed his eyes trying to reduce the blurr on the numbers desplayed, his eyes adjusting to the sudden change of scenery. When he finally saw it, he burped up a sigh, as the exhaustion that was being kept at bay with dopamine levels falling, so was his energy.

"Who is it?!" he yelled, as he staggeringly stood up from the pillow he sat on on the floor. His face was droopy with tiredness, light bags trying to colour below his eyes, his black hair a heeping mess.

The person at the door said nothing, instead chose to reply with 3 presses of the melodic bell. This made the boy groan in annoyance as he neared the door, the bell kept on getting rung to the point that its beautiful melody annoyed the boy the more it was rang.

In two seconds more he opened the door with a less then merry look on his face, "Stop ringing the damn bell!!" he yelled at the visitor, who smiled bashfully, amused by the reaction.

"Hey Mikey" the visitor greeted politely, the resident boy looked at his cheery guest, the angery look on his face gone, as he stared in silence hoping that was enough to creep the guest away.

"You can say something you know, right?" the guest said feeling slightly uneased, his polite smile faltering but not disappearing.

"what do you want Jason?" Mike asked, his face churning in utter disgust when he said his visitor's name.

Jason smiled at his reply, having been the most he could get out of his extranged brother for quite sometime now, to him his brother's hostility was better then silence. Mike had shunned him for a long time before they met again in this particular town, and to him it was earth shattering to say the least.

"I need you to get dressed so we can hang out today, if thats okay" he said, half asking as he pushed past his brother into the apartment. "Who the hell said you can get in here, i dont want you-", "brother your apartment is a mess, you really need to clean up and if you couldn’t it would’ve been better if you took a servant to-"

"Jason, what the hell do you want?!" Mike hissed in anger at the teenager, who was walking around his apartment without a care in the world, he stopped in his tracks when he entered the living room. The mess he found there was a perfect desplay of the life of an unsurvalanced teenager, but what stopped him was the fact that he had a couch for one.

A recliner facing the tv, next to a coffee table with a digital clock, and near the tv in front of those was a lone pillow on the floor, with a gaming controller on top and snacks on its side.

He sighed, "Mike, how long have you been gaming?" he asked in worry as he stared at his brother with a sorry look in his emerald eyes. "All night, what's it to you?" he spat, while making his way to his screen, he sat down and continued his game, playing while Jason just stared.

He looked at Mike and felt sorry, sad and guilty all at the same time. Solitude, to some its bliss, to others its loneliness, he wondered how it is for Mike. But it was somehow hard for him to ask at all, feeling that he was partially to blame, knowing that it will only score venom from Mike more then answered.

"I told Avery and Valery why you hate me" he said, and the room stilled, as if those very words were the ones turned the lights on in the room, though instead they made the anger inside Mike boil.

"Why?" he asked bitterly, the sourness in his voice apperent, but the anger held back. "They asked, also i want to make things right with you and i felt that was the first step to-?", "Or you told them what you did and they ditched you" Mike interrupted, already turned to look at Jason in the eyes while Jason remained silent he smiled, "Ah, so thats it, they know your a scum bag now and you want to suck up to me to feel better about yourself, heh predictable"

"No!, i want to make things right by you, I have wanted that all these years, with or without an audience" Jason protested, his voice laced with traces of dispare, but of course he wanted to try, he wanted to reach out.

Mike stared at him blankly studying him, wanting to find a quirk that said opposite to his words, "your annoying, please leave" he said. "No Mike, i want to fix things between us and i-!", "would you still want that if your cherished Mother was standing right here?!!" Mike started, halting Jason's stream of hopeful words,

"or those disgusting dogs you call siblings?!", silence, "nothing to say?.. thought so, just run back to your posse and leave me alone, your nothing but a pathetic lap dog and thats way worse then them, at least they do things they want to and not what others want to like cowards!" he yelled.

Jason's emerald eyes started to sparkle, tears started to well up in his eyes, only a blink away from streaming down." Great, so now you wanna do crock tears? No time for that, if you're done talking leave before you make my floors damp crying a river" Mike sneered.

Jason clenched each hand on his sides into fists till they became white, gritting his teeth and replacing pain with anger. "Im sorry alright?! Im sorry for all the pain i caused you but i wish you wouldnt mock my desire to change!, im trying to live my life away from them too and i have been even more by searching for you while they sat in their cozy chairs and continued with life!" he started.

" i dont care about them, not in the slightest, but they threatened to make my life impossible, worse then yours was and i was scared alright?!"," and you arent now-?".

"Of course i am! But i dont care now!, we'll be 18 soon meaning ill have my freedom and i can live my life without their backs creating a shadow on my existence and happiness, and thats what i intend to do!" he yelled, his face red as the tears begun to fall.

Mike only looked at him, Jason's desplay of emotion untriggering to his heart strings."hmmm, do you actually believe they'll let you be free?, just like that?" he asked curiously.

"Yes, they did let you go so it'll be easy to-", "your wrong about that" Mike said, interrupting Jason, "w-what?", "those fools hated me thats why they let me leave, they hoped i would die and they would say i had mental issues or something and ran away from home, that being said.....they never stopped looking for me or more so spying on me, i got some freedom when i came here though...feels nice" he said.

"i dont understand, they didnt seem to care at all nor did they seem like they were searching for you.. So why would they..?" Jason questioned. "its the same story with you, for a fact that you were also searching for me without their knowledge, they did the same. I ran through many places just to avoid their spies, and it seems yours' was one of the many"

Mike sighed, a little ticked off by his brother's obliviousness, who in turn stood silently in shock, trying to process his words. "My point being, they didnt let me go, and imagine you their lap dog getting away with it that easily, soon you may be dragged back there while i disappear again" he said.

"but i dont understand, what would they gain in doing that?" he asked, hoping that the answers would make all those problems disappear. "Security", "security?".

"The more you feel in control of those you feel can destroy you, the more you feel safe and prepared for their rath, in pther words their preparing contingency plans for moves i could make" he explained, "and would you do that? would you expose them?".

"Nah, im not stupid, i have no reason to.....yet, but who knows, one poke and i may turn into a ticking time bomb. I was never known for my ability to keep calm when im pissed off after all. So what about you? are you ready to grow some guts? Or will you bow and kiss their feet when they come for you?", Mike was curious of this, by this time he had already started munching on his biscuits as he waited for a reply from his brother.

Jason swallowed hard his face was tense, fear was there, decisiveness gone. One thing was for sure, his next words would truly affect how his relationship with his brother would continue from there forth and with every second passing he felt his answer becoming more and more meaningless...

To be continued.....