Life or Revenge?
Axel opened his eyes again to the plain ceiling of his room. If it had been any other day, it would have just been him being lazy, but today the reason was different; he tried to get up from bed but didn't find an ounce of strength to do that. He knew that when he walks out of the room, he is going to see his home without his father nagging him, being a busy body, or even eating breakfast while jotting down something on paper. The moment he walks out, he knows he has to face the truth for what it is, and there is no going back. Despite all this, he knew he had no choice but to get out. 'I knew it would hurt, but should it hurt so much?' For the first time, Axel felt the pain of having something torn away from him—something he had taken for granted.
Axel came out of the room to see the front door closed; his mother used to open it way before Axel woke up, but that is understandable; she just lost the man she loved and was forced to accept a situation and take charge of the household. She needs to live for herself and for the sake of Axel, and she has to face all that reality and move forward with it.
Axel feared that Lily might have taken a rash decision due to her agony and was scared to even consider that possibility; he dreaded going to the door. 'God, please! I don't have it in me to deal with another goodbye, so for this one time, help me out, alright?' Axel went to the door and peeked in through the keyhole, then let out a long sigh of relief.
He went back and opened the door, cleared out the garden, and bathed. He went to the kitchen and made oatmeal for himself and a portion for his mother. After he ate his fill, he took his mother's portion, heated it, and opened the door as quietly as he could to not wake his mother up. She was awake, but she felt like she had lost the strength to move forward, so she just pretended she was asleep, just like Axel pretended to believe that she was still asleep. He kept the bowl on the study table beside her bed and closed the door quietly behind him.
He peeked through the keyhole once again and saw his mother sitting up, with her back leaning against the wall, and stretching her arm to the side to take the bowl of oatmeal, which she ate with almost no appetite for it. Yet, looking at her at least being able to eat put a smile on Axel's face, though one filled with sorrow.
Axel went to the market to buy a little stuff for the house, but he felt a familiar face cross by him and turned around; fear, rage, and confusion overwhelmed him, clashing one against the other and leaving him stunned. Axel stared at Drake as he disappeared from his vision. He decided to follow him, leaving his to-do list for later. He wanted him dead; he wanted Drake Maroon dead. Axel was out for blood; the only thing keeping him in control was the fear of that day, when he watched his father being forced to walk the path of death.
"It's the bi*ch of the reaper again, isn't it? Somebody should just kill him or strike him down with thunder." said the old man, who was the owner of one of the stalls in the market alley. It was the only place in the city that sold stuff at cheap prices and had food items at dirt cheap prices; they were run by illegal merchants, and a significant part of the goods were stolen. They could sell it in other places, but they would risk being caught by the police, and anyone would choose to side with the lesser devil: the Mafia group, The Reapers.
"Just die, you son of a bi*ch," the owner continued pointing his finger towards him. The old man was definitely drunk; it was still the middle of the day. "If you want to die, die by yourself, old man; don't drag us with you." The man next to him pushed the old man's hand down. "Just so you remember, it is only because of the Reapers that we are even able to sell things in here; if they feel like it, they'll kill you no questions asked; it's their hunting ground, not our play ground." Though the man said it with vigor, he looked as if his life were on the line, hanging on the old man's words.
"As if I care, does any other bastard come to swindle me of my stuff in broad daylight? For fu*k's sake, if somebody just kills him, I am sure that will guarantee your ticket to heaven... Wait, that doesn't sound right... Oh right! You and your family will be blessed for generations."
"Old man, you are wasted; just shut up, or I'll push you to him myself." The man was nervous and becoming even more nervous at every word of the old man.
'Killing him, huh? That is a lovely wish. I wish they would kill him as brutally as possible. I wish he suffers from losing every single one he cares for, dying before his eyes.
Axel decided to leave the place and went back to the market to get the stuff he needed from the store. Being there was driving me towards the realm of insanity. He went back home as he fantasized about almost several different ways Drake could suffer in his head.
Axel went to his home and was pleasantly surprised to see his mom working around the house. At the corner of the room, he saw a box filled with things his dad used: his painting set, which he had as a hobby; the gloves he used when he was working around the house fixing things; his tool kit and other stuff; and his recipe book, the one Benny left to Axel.
As long as he could remember, his father was always filled with passion, despite both him and his mother teasing him for it. He was the best cook in the neighborhood since he was the one who was always in charge of the food at carnivals. Axel went straight to the box, took the recipe, and went to the kitchen.
"Mom, I am going to try the stew for lunch," Axel said as he started to skim through the content of the book. His mother put up a strong front and a smile. She said with a gentle voice that was just a bit louder than a whisper, "That sounds lovely, Axel."
Axel started cutting the vegetables: potatoes, carrots, tomatoes, and peas. He put the pot on the stove, started to boil the water, and added in the veggies. Axel followed the recipe to the letter. Lily kept looking at him once in a while; she couldn't be more proud of Axel than she was then. Looking at Axel trying to fill in the shoes of his father and take up responsibility was a dream come true for Lily, but not at the cost of Benny's death. She rushed back to the room before her eyes started to tear up without Axel noticing her; he was immersed in cooking the stew.
When Lily came back to the dining room to have her lunch, Axel had set the table with the steaming pot of stew at the center, a jug and two glasses of water, and bowls at each side of the table. Looking at the table made for just two people made both of their hearts ache a bit. But they knew they had to move on for each other and themselves. Lily was about to serve, but Axel took her bowl and served her the stew before Lily could raise a hand. She wished that Benny could have seen his son acting all grown up and responsible. A warm feeling took over her, enough to let her see the light at the end of the tunnel and to find the motivation to move forward. Enough for the corners of the lips to curl up into a mellow smile. She sat down and took a sip of the stew.
"Axel! It tastes like a stew." Lily was genuinely surprised because it tasted good; she was just planning on encouraging him on his first try because it was edible, but she never expected it to be better than edible.
Axel was more surprised, but by how little faith his mother had in him: "Well, who do you think dad used to order around to do all the grunt work at the carnivals?" And that's not the end of it; he made me replace a food stall to talk with his friends more than once or twice. Though that's what he said, a smug look was stuck over his face for a while.
"Yes chef! I look forward to seeing you cook for all the meals then." Lily said, teasing him with the first wholehearted smile she had after all the tragedy. Though Axel felt that it would be a pain to cook every day, he knew doing it would help both of them overcome his father's loss, and he was more than ready to make it happen.
"I was planning to anyway." Axel said just as he had another spoon of the stew. Lily felt proud of her baby boy, Axel, for growing up to be a wonderful man. Axel, on the other hand, began to consider how time-consuming it would be to learn and practice different recipes, buy the ingredients, and clean the kitchen. "You're planning to take over your dad's business, huh?" Lily almost muttered to herself in the middle of her spoons. "Maybe…" Axel said with a mild smile on his face, slowly eating the stew. Lily didn't say anything and took another spoon of the stew, but her face still looked smug nonetheless.
A month passed by, and Axel had started to move on, but Lily had it worse, tearing up in the middle of the day and feeling depressed whenever she looked at the amateurish painting of the sunset at the seashore that Benny presented to her months back for her birthday. She was getting better, but it was hard on her.
Axel kept getting better at cooking; he had started to look more like a chef than Benny was. Axel loved cooking, but it was mostly because it was the only thing that made him feel acknowledged by his father; the guilt he felt for just watching his father drink the poison felt like someone strangling his neck just enough for him to survive; sometimes he even wished to die. Cooking for him and his mother and getting to hear his mother talk about her younger days and all the fun memories she had shared with Benny; the little chuckles; getting to make a dish that tastes just like his father's and sometimes even better; getting praised for it by his mother; every little thing was the pillars for him that held him together.
Two weeks passed by, and Lily had started to move on too; she joined a diner to work part-time, but when she broke the news to Axel at the dinner, he was more than just confused. "Then where did the money we used until now come from?"
Axel was confused and a bit irritated with himself for not thinking about it because he was preoccupied with learning to cook from his father's recipe book. Lily's expression turned sour on that question; she hesitated to answer with a guilty expression on her face. "...your father told me to use the money from a bag..." The mood at the table went to the ground.
It didn't take much for Axel to connect the dots—it was the money that Drake threw at his father after he made him drink poison. Axel felt disgusted with himself for living off the money given by the man who killed his father.
"So, what do you think about the chicken soup I made today?" Axel asked with a cheerful smile; he didn't let a single bit of the horrible emotions show up on his face. Though he felt horrible for using that money, it was the only way for them to manage till they found another way. More than that, he didn't want either of them to go back to the dark and stay down crying.
Lily forced a smile on her face and said, "It could use a bit of improvement." Then she went back to her food in silence. Axel wanted to earn as well after hearing his mother plan to work in one of the diners.
"Maybe I'll start looking for work instead of doing odd jobs around the neighborhood." Axel wanted to keep it to himself, but he accidentally blurted it out, and it was too late to take it back. Lily looked at him with an apologetic look; Axel giving up on his newfound passion for cooking to attend to their finances didn't sit well with her.
They finished the dinner and went to sleep, yet neither found it an easy task: Lily, for using the money from the thugs and pushing Axel to give up on his passion, and Axel, for thinking up different jobs that could suit him, and of course, most were desk jobs with minimal work and hopefully a good salary. He still had the makings of a lazy king.
A few more days passed, and Lily had finally started to cope with life but was still a long way behind in moving on from Benny's death. On the other hand, Axel still struggled to find a job. Some jobs did fit his criteria, but sadly, they were run by the Reapers; moreover, Axel didn't want to do anything even barely connected to them. The people considered the reapers their protectors, and working for them was a source of pride for them; the only exception was Drake and his men. Axel kept asking different shops, stores, and anywhere else if he thought it would work out for him. And that day was no different; Axel came out of a wholesale trading group's store. Axel was tired of this routine; he had already stopped counting how many times he had been rejected sometime after his fifteenth try. He struck the store off his list and moved on to the next on the list; it was for the position of helping out an accountant for one of the textile manufacturing companies named Treys.
Just as Axel was walking on the road, he saw a bunch of about 25 thugs running frantically with guns, bats, and any other weapons they had. "Find the b*tch of a Reaper even if you die trying! Got it?" the man with the beard told his men; his eyes looked more devilish than the devil itself, and it sent a cold shiver down Axel's spine; he looked like a wolf fighting with nothing left to protect. Wait, they are searching for Drake? That title was reserved only for Drake.
Axel was pleasantly surprised because if you are a part of the Reapers, you are not allowed to fight each other, and if someone else tries to pick a fight with them, it is begging to be killed. ' God bless the hands of these men and show them the path to victory.' Axel would never dare try to pick a fight with Drake or any of the Reapers for that matter, but it was because he knew it was pointless and mostly because he was scared of them, especially Drake. But that didn't mean he let bygones be bygones; no, he would spend the whole wage he earned for the months just to see his dead body firsthand. And when he saw people out for blood, despite the consequences, he couldn't help but wish for their success, all with good intentions.
The commotion eventually died down a while after the men left the area, and Axel was on his way to his next stop, the Treys. He walked there and took a deep breath before he entered their office. It was late noon because of the commotion back then caused by the man hunting down Drake.
An hour passed, and Axel came out in silence, walked into an alleyway, sat down on the ground, and started crying tears of joy; he got the job! Axel didn't know how to act; he was just out of words for how he felt. It felt like a huge burden had been taken away from him, along with some of the guilt that had been suffocating him. He stayed there till the sun went down, and once he had collected his thoughts, he stood up, wiped off his tears, and prepared himself to surprise his mother.
Just as Axel was moving out of the alleyway, a man drenched in blood with a murderous look in his eyes, panting, his clothes torn, and looking like a monster crossed him just a meter away from him. Axel jumped out of his skin, and the man looked him dead in the eye; Axel froze with fear. "Tell them I went the other way, and when my men come, tell them to take me to the hospital." The man went into the alley and collapsed on the ground, hiding in the darkness. Only then did Axel realize that the monster was Drake.
A sinister smile crept up on Axel's face. Axel saw Drake's men coming in his direction, and he perfectly misguided them away from there. Drake tried to shout at him, but he was heavily wounded, making his shout just a groan.
Axel looked Drake in the eye; his fears had left him the moment he realized Drake couldn't hurt him anymore. "Do you want to say that? It was your men that came first?" Axel's voice oozed with sarcasm, and Drake caught on to what the kid was trying to pull. They heard another group coming that way, and Axel's face had the smile of an angel and the eyes of a devil. "If you are curious, Sir Drake, this is my revenge for making my father drink that poison." Despite his state, Drake didn't show an ounce of fear, but stared at Axel like he was about to kill him in the most brutal way possible; that scared Axel off. Axel went out of the alley and found the people who were hunting Drake and made the commotion in the middle of the day.
Axel signaled for them to come his way and showed them to Drake. He didn't know what the deal between them was, but he was sure that Drake was in the wrong and was going to have a painful death. The bearded man and his men put Drake in a sack and took off. The bearded guy came towards Axel. "That sorry excuse of a human crossed a line he shouldn't have, so don't feel bad about what you did, kid," The bearded man told Axel in a comforting way, but he had no way of knowing how much hatred Axel had for Drake; even as they were talking, Axel was itching to ask for a chance to punch him in the face, but Axel held it in. "The Reapers are going to clean us out after all this commotion, so we will have to clear the town as soon as possible, so here is a little gift for helping us out; it may not be much, but it could get you a good dinner for your family tonight."
Axel thanked the bearded man and left the scene. He bought some beef on his way back, and he had a lot of good things happen to him that evening. Axel went home with a smile on his face, and as soon as he entered, he saw his mother with a worried look. Only then did he realize how late he was. Usually, his mother comes around at night just before dinner, but that day, he was the one who was late, when he would usually have made the dinner by then. Axel's brain was spinning in full gear to find the best excuse it could find.
"I got a job today! So, I decided to make a bit of a bigger dinner," Axel said, lifting the packet of beef, hoping she would buy his bluff, because there was no way in hell he was going to tell her that he helped a group of thugs kill Drake just because he wanted his revenge. Axel felt the tips of his fingers going cold, yet he tried to keep moving and kept on grinning to fool his mother into thinking that he was that happy when in reality, he was dancing over the clouds; but that would raise suspicions.
"That's great news, Axel!" Lily ran to him and hugged him with tears of happiness; Axel felt like scum for lying to his mother, but he would have done the same no matter how many times he faces that situation. Axel went to the kitchen and started preparing dinner. Axel set the table with beefsteak and wine he bought on the way. Lily was humming; he had not seen her that happy in a long while.
"While I was on the street, I heard that a group killed Drake because of some personal issues." Axel looked at Lily to see her reaction. "Is that so?" Lily said and went back to eating while humming. She didn't bother about it as much as Axel thought she would, but it was better that way. 'I hope things start better and turn a new leaf in our lives'. It was the first time after their father had died that they had a normal family meal, and Axel was really happy about it.