Before Furry

Chapter 4

Rainier the ace of basketball club. Kinda glad I found the right timing to put this.

***

"Pardon the intrusion..."

I lowered my head as I followed Rannier, entering his house. It was a bit smaller than I expected of someone like him.

As I went inside, I was stunned. Words couldn't describe what I saw right now.

"Sorry if it's kinda messy." He touched the back of his head while smiling apologetically. "Both my mom and my brother are always busy and never spend much time at home, while I'm just kinda too lazy to clean up."

Calling it messy was an understatement. There were lots of boxes and items in the living room, it was difficult to see the other side of the room. Furniture like a stand lamp, wardrobe, table, sofa, shelves, television, etc were placed in odd places, like they were shoved inside the room wherever they fit. There was very little space to move as there were also many small things on the floor and tables. Some places even looked dusty like it had never been clean for several years.

Calling yourself lazy was understandable considering this place would give cleaning services a nightmare.

"Um, you don't need to be that surprised, you know." He scratched the back of his head. "As I thought, it is that bad, isn't it?"

"Eh? N-no, it's not that bad!" I shook my head and hands quickly to deny it. "It's a nice house, really. It gives an... adventure vibe, yeah! Some kind of old house with hidden treasure... or something like that..."

I trailed my sentence as I flopped down my ears. What nonsense had I just said? What if he felt offended by it?

"Thanks. Never thought of it that way." But then he just chuckled with a hand on his mouth. "This house has been like this for as long as I can remember. I heard my family moved to a smaller house not long after I was born, so they stuffed all the things from the old house into this house."

"I see." That was an interesting story, in so many ways. They really need to consider selling some of their stuff. It was not healthy to live in this kind of environment.

"Well, and about the treasure, I'm pretty sure we can find one or two in those piles of boxes if my brother's pacifier that he used when he was a baby can be counted as one. I remember finding it by accident in one of those boxes last week. Mom was so nostalgic that she started to cry."

We end up chuckling together. They really need to consider doing a massive clean-up.

"What about your dad?"

"Gone. Never see him in my entire life. Probably the reason why we moved out." He said it lightly while shrugging like it had nothing to do with him.

"Oh. Sorry." That was my bad. I need to talk about something else instead.

"So, you said your brother is busy, right?" I asked to change the topic. "Am I bothering him?"

"Nah, it's okay. He said that he'll have free time today. He usually gets home late, so you are lucky to get this rare chance."

'Usually gets home late' huh? I guess we have something in common.

"And since this is a rare chance, we should use it to bother him while we can. Because that's what a little brother does." He said as he winked with his thumb up.

I didn't know if they got along well or not.

"Well, since the person in question hasn't arrived yet, let's have some fun in the meantime." He walked through the sea of wonder with ease to some kind of open space on the corner of the room. He then pulled a rope that connected to the plafond, revealing a staircase that was hidden within it. I watched in amazement as this was the first time I saw something like this.