…When Juin got back to Mrs. Martin"s house in the middle of the night, he received a thorough scolding from the middle-aged woman. He thought that everyone would be asleep by then, since the entire house was dark, but when he walked into the house and about to creep up the floor, the light was suddenly turned on, and Mrs. Martin was standing at the entrance to the living room and looking at him with a furious expression.
"Do you know how worried I was? How can you be so irresponsible? Going off with just a simple word like that?" Mrs. Martin snapped as she tightened the belt of her black bathrobe. "Mr. Smithson called earlier, and he was so mad that you went to visit him unannounced, and what"s this about you luring his son out and placing the poor boy in danger? And what the h.e.l.l happened at the neighbor"s house?!"
Mrs. Martin had a shock of her life when she received the call from Mr. Smithson, who after complaining about Juin and something about his son, told her about the damage at Jim Mack"s house.
Apparently, after his son fell asleep while talking about the monster he saw at Jim Mack"s house, Mr. Smithson went over to take a look. He was shocked to see the hole in the wall, and worst, he was horrified when he saw the bones that fell out of the wall on the second floor.
Almost immediately, he ran home and called the cops before calling Mrs. Martin.
"What did Mr. Smithson say?" Juin asked meekly as he tried to avoid eye contact with Mrs. Martin.
"He said that there was a hole at the front of Jim Mack"s house and there were…" She made a cross sign on her chest before saying, "There were skulls and bones that fell out of the wall! What the h.e.l.l happened there? Juin, I tell you, if you"re involved in some weird stuff..."
"I"m not, Mrs. Martin," Juin tried to rea.s.sure her. "I went there to see if it can trigger some memories about Ashton… and I accidentally b.u.mped into the wall. You know how clumsy I get sometimes. I think there was rot in the wall, or something… but it broke so easily… And when I saw the skulls, I just ran…"
He then tried to make himself as small as possible, as if he was still afraid of the skulls he saw. With tears lingering at the corners of his eyes, he then looked up at Mrs. Martin with sad puppy eyes, as if pleading for her to comfort him like a child, and to take her mind off the matter so that she would not think too much into the matter.
"Oh boy…"
His tricks worked. Mrs. Martin immediately pulled him into a hug and patted his back as she muttered, "Poor boy… You"ve been through a lot!"
"Wow… That works…" Juin mouthed to Lucifer, who was sitting on the stair railing with one leg folded in front of him and one dangled off at the side.
To his amus.e.m.e.nt, Lucifer rolled his eyes and scoffed, "Silly humans, always choosing to believe the easy one…"
After a while, Mrs. Martin released Juin and said, ���I can"t let you go unpunished this time…"
She thought for a while and thought hard, and realized that there wasn"t much to punish Juin with. First of all, he did not have much of a social life. Second, he wasn"t like the other kids who were addicted to gadgets and TV. Thirdly, his allowance was already quite small, and she did not feel comfortable taking them away even for a day.
"Mrs. Martin?" Juin called up when he saw her frowning hard. "Is everything alright?"
"I…" Mrs. Martin cleared her throat and said, "Your punishment is to wake up at 6 am every day, including weekends, for a month to help me clean the house and prepare breakfast."
"What?!" Juin gasped. "An entire month? That"s far too long!"
And with the h.e.l.lish training that Lucifer had been giving him daily, he needed all the rest he could get!
"Or would you prefer two months?" Mrs. Martin asked nonchalantly. "You left the house in the wee hours, with only a vague message. I then received a call and--"
"Alright, alright!" Juin sighed. "I concede. A month it is…"
He then dragged his feet up the stairs and went into his room. When he walked into the room, he saw a bundle on Wesley"s bed, with light coming out from the bottom of the comforter. With a sigh, Juin turned on the light, which caused the person under the comforter to jump up while holding a manga in his hand.
"Oh, it"s you!" Wesley sighed in relief. "I thought it"s Mrs. Martin. She said she"s going to take away my manga books if she caught me reading at night again."
"You should be asleep by now… It"s really late," Juin said as he looked at the younger boy.
"It"s Sunday tomorrow. I can just take a nap in the afternoon." The younger boy immediately put the book down and asked teasingly, "Did you get punished?"
With a dejected expression upon thinking of the next coming weekends, Juin nodded as he placed his bag on his bed and started unpacking them.
"Mrs. Martin was really worried earlier, after that phone call she received…" Wesley said as he threw the manga down on his bed and walked over to sit on Juin"s bed. "So, what did you do this time?"
"Nothing," Juin mumbled.
"I thought you are going to stay the night somewhere else…" Wesley asked as he watched Juin move from the bed to the closet and back again.
"I finished my things earlier than expected," Juin said before picking up the bag and putting it under his bed. "Anything happened when I was gone?"
Wesley shrugged. "Nothing… But a man came to look for you."
Wesley"s words caught Juin"s attention, and the latter looked at him with a brow raised. "A man? What man?"
He thought that it was either Warlock or Mr. Thompson, since he wasn"t that close to any other adult man.
"Erm…" Wesley looked at the ceiling as he tried to recall the man"s appearance. "He looked smart and expensive. That suit of his looked like it could pay our entire house expenses for three months. And he has silver hair… and silver-colored eyes as well."
The younger boy s.h.i.+vered when he thought about that pair of eyes. When he saw them, for a brief moment, he felt as if those eyes were looking through him and spying on his every thought. And even the man"s smile creeped him out, like he was about to completely devour him, flesh and all.
"Wesley, what"s his name?" Juin asked as he changed out of his street clothes and into a fresh pair of pajamas.
"You aren"t going to shower?" Wesley asked while wrinkling his nose dramatically, as if he could actually smell the scent coming from Juin.
"I"ll take one tomorrow morning. I"m too tired to do anything now… Anyway, what"s his name?"
Wesley shrugged. "I didn"t catch it… Not all at least. Erm… I think his name is… Priest… or Preston… Or something that starts with P?"
"That"s not helpful," Juin murmured as he ma.s.saged his glabella. "Why was he here for?"
He did not recall meeting anyone by that name, or anything similar. Why would a random man suddenly come over to look for him?
"Ah!" Wesley placed a fist on his palm and said, "I think he"s interested in you."