In My Hands, Know Suffering

2: Feed Fire With Flames

It had been a week after the account with the foretold whisper, like how the hell can a whisper be foretold? That didn't make sense. Kerxis had become frantic about his brother not visiting his psychiatrist for his weekly session in overcoming a possible root of trauma.

Castellone, being the impetuous little brother, grimaced at him for the repetitive reminder. He'd head straight for his room after arriving home from school. There was no reason to be doing that nor should Kerxis waste the effort and money to have him in a better mental condition. He hadn't really lost his mind. Not yet anyway.

"I'm not in any fucking trauma, Kerxy. I'm perfectly fine. I don't need some fucking mind-reader telling me stuff I already know." He told his brother, subtle anger fumed out of him.

Being the only family he had left, Kerxis was only concerned for his younger brother's well-being. He knew he wasn't at home all the time because he had to work to keep Castellone fed and had to pay off his tuitions at school.

It wasn't like they were struggling financially, but Kerxis just wanted his brother to have a livable future, leaving all the worries away. Castellone was going to college soon, and he wanted to secure a good future for him.

They've lost their parents years ago in a car accident. Car accident, ha! So unoriginal. It killed them on sudden impact, igniting all possible evidence to flames, reducing them to nothing but the remembrance of their ashes. Castellone was barely ten that time, and Kerxis just took his first step into university too. He had to take up part-time jobs while struggling with academics.

Back to the now, Castellone locked himself in his room and stayed up until he finally finished his part, his contribution, to the dreaded research. He didn't care much about the quality of the output just as long as he had something to present the group the following day. He didn't even care whether they passed or failed either. They can suck it for all I care.

Kerxis hadn't come home that night. He was always busy with work. When he was early, Castellone often skipped dinner. It was one of the effects of not having anyone around the whole time, he was used to the silence and his lonesome. He would cook dinner for himself, sometimes for both of them when he felt like it. If he took pride in a single thing, that was cooking.

At least food wasn't that much of an asshole like how humans were, but that was an unfair comparison. Why would he waste time comparing lunatics to a universal language that they, as brain-wrecks, enjoyed themselves? A yawn, a quick shower, and a shut-eye took him to drift off.

The following morning, the alarm blared him to awaken. He reached out to turn it off, got out of bed, and prepared for school. Kerxis's room was across from his and noticed that his brother's door was ajar. He opened to see if anybody was there but no one was. Kerxis hadn't come home.

He heard a sound from the garage. It sure didn't sound like the engines of Kerxis's car so he went to check it out just in case and saw someone closing the garage door upon entering their property.

"Genon?" Castellone said.

His blond friend turned to face him while biting an apple. "You never locked your garage so, you know."

Yeah, Castellone knew about how often Genon passed through there. "I was just preparing."

Genon followed him into the house. "I'll wait. By the way, did you know?"

Castellone scoffed. "I don't remember what's been happening for the past week." Only that time in the park.

"Rius is moving to Clawde, he says they got some family business there that he needed to be taught about." Genon said quickly as if rushing to tell the news.