DAWN OF SHADAWN

Chapter 08

Shadawn had made it back on time to his room, successfully dodging the rest of the Fernandos that had gotten back from their little trip to the grocery store. The majority of the times that hyaté had attempted talking to him, Shadawn had always slipped out of any interactions by pretending to be asleep. Cooped up in the room he spent his time under the heavy fluffy blankets with his sketch pad and pencils.

This time, however, he made the decision to greet Hyaté as he entered the room by giving him a slight nod in acknowledgment.

"You're up!"

The boy grinned, not at all bothered by the fact that Shadawn had obviously been avoiding him up until then. He made his way to his blue-themed mattress to drop off some groceries he had bought for himself.

"What have you been up to? Hope you had some of the left overs Hynata told you about. We're just about to have lunch, want to join us?"

Hyaté had a habit of asking a couple of questions in one breath, that Shadawn always faltered on which question to answer, considering the fact that his responses were mostly a nod or a shake.

He went with answering the latter by shaking his head no.

Shadawn looked away, signaling that he wanted to end the conversation by opening his suitcase to grab one of his old novels. It was quiet for a while, none of them wanting to break the prevailing silence. However soon Hyaté would be the one to break it with a question he had been itching to ask his older brother.

"Why don't we go shopping tomorrow? It looks like you could use a few sets of new clothes"

As Shadawn looked up at him with a frown, he found Hyaté biting his lower lip, slightly frowning while looking at the meagre contents housed by his worn out suit case. 

Shadawn shook his head no.

"I don't have that much money to waste on clothes. "

He mumbled monotonously.

"Oh don't worry about that! I've got Dada's credit card at hand."

The younger grinned, beaming with his usual positive energy as Shadawn was taken aback at the offer.

"I don't have to pay?"

he questioned curiously.

"Of course not"

Hyaté frowned in confusion. 

Shadawn couldn't help but feel as if there was some catch to the generous offer. Surely no one would offer a stranger such generosity without expecting something in return. If there was one thing life had taught him, it was that everything comes with a price, and behind every action is a very calculated intention. Looking up at Hyaté, Shadawn couldn't really detect any hint of an ulterior motive, his face was painted with a grin so wide it would have been contagious to anyone else. 

"So what do you say?"

Shadawn did contemplate the offer. He needed clothes. Badly. But... 

"No thank you."

Hyaté's grin was wiped off like the back space of a key board within the next second.

"Why not?!"

Shadawn refused to answer. He didn't want to let him know of how much he hated being there. And how much he really failed to trust any of them. They were all pretending, and never giving into any form of interaction or connection was the only way of not getting caught in something that would make him turn to unwanted decisions.

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Hyaté walked into the occupied hall and pounced onto the long mustard couch. His two brothers and their father were amidst a discussion regarding an article about tax rates that had been published last Sunday. Hyaté occupied himself with his phone, scrolling through social media, waiting for the older men to snap out of the topic. Hynata joining the topic got them even more invested in the conversation that half an hour later he decided to intrude.