It would seem to be that Mildred was right about Ariel. The next few days have been far more peaceful for me. An annoying brat she may be, she’s still a kid with kid responsibilities to attend to. I still have no idea why the hell she latched onto me so hard, but I guess if she’s not bothering me anymore, then it doesn’t really matter if I don’t know. Kind of like when my computer acts up for no reason and becomes fine again after restarting it. I decided to tell the story of my sordid weekend to Blanche during her daily morning visit. I didn’t explain every little detail, but enough for her to get the general gist of it.
“…Well now…”
She seems lost in thought, trying to find something to say, but nothing’s coming out.
“I thought maybe you’d find the girl relatable. She seems to be as pushy as you were.”
I said that in jest, but Blanche is annoyed with me.
“I could’ve sworn we made up, but if you’re still bothered by me helping you, so be it.…Speaking of which, how have you been doing on food?”
I’m confused.
“…What do you mean? I’ve been eating the food you’ve been giving me.”
She sighs, seemingly frustrated with me.
“…Please tell me you’re not just eating the meals I make for you and nothing else.”
“Not every day, but some days, yeah…What, is that a problem?”
I didn’t need to ask that question because I already know the answer, but it’s too late to take it back.
“The whole point of me coming over has been to help you improve your eating habits! Haven’t you felt the need to eat more ever since we started doing this?”
Geez, she’s really riding my ass on this.
“I’ve been eating the food you’ve been making me, isn’t that enough?”
Blanche takes a deep breath before answering me again.
“…No, that’s not enough. While it’s good that you’re at least eating enough to not be starving yourself, my food isn’t enough to get you all the calories you need in one day. I was hoping that by cooking for you, you’d feel the desire to eat more in general, or make your own food.”
…It might’ve been a mistake to accept Blanche’s help.
“Like I keep telling you, I don’t get hungry often and even if I did, I wouldn’t eat much more than snacks and microwave meals.”
“You can’t cook?”
“I can cook, I just find it to be a pain in the ass.”
The look that Blanche is giving me is hard to decipher. She looks exasperated but with all sense of anger or annoyance completely drained from her face.
“…How long have you been living alone Gray?”
“Three years.”
She gives me a look of disbelief.
“Really?”
She’s getting on my nerves. I decide to stay silent while she continues on.
“…I’m sorry. I’m not trying to be rude, but I’m just baffled at how you haven’t already died yet.”
It’s at this point that I decide to speak up.
“Okay, you’re being overly dramatic. I can take care of myself just fine. Sure, I’m not great at cooking, but I’ve managed to survive just fine before you forced your way into my life.”
There’s a pause between the two of us. To think we’d been getting along so well for the past few weeks. After a few moments, Blanche speaks again.
“Look Gray, can you at least promise me that you’ll eat more than what I give you every day?”
Given how I got roped into this whole “getting food from her thing”, I really have no choice but to promise her.
“…Fine, alright. I’ll do it.”
And thus, I was able to avoid any further confrontation and the rest of our meeting went fine. After which, I go to put away the food she gave me in the refrigerator and…outside of some water bottles, it’s empty. In short, I’m going to have to visit the grocery store today in order to keep my promise. What a pain.
The local grocery store is pretty well stocked for a store in a territory. The PearlCoin Organization has strong connections with nearby farms and not so nearby factories. Along with local businesses, they’ve even managed to get a decent trade deal going with nearby states of HOME. Although HOME hates modern technology, they also understand the threat they’re under if LOVE ever decides to invade them, and thus it’s pretty common for state governments of HOME to trade goods with cryptocurrency groups in exchange for protection.
Speaking of LOVE, I’ve heard rumors that some high-ranking PearlCoin members are involved with an underground black market that deals with smuggling food from the more elite residential towers of LOVE. Honestly, I believe it if only because despite this territory being nowhere near any ocean of any kind, I’ve seen the likes of lobster and scallops occasionally being sold here. Of course, regardless of how likely true these rumors might be, the PearlCoin Organization can never confess that they’re true due to the inevitable shitstorm it’d cause.
I don’t know what to buy. See, this is my problem with cooking, I never know what the hell I want to cook. I think of random foods that might sound good independently but would be terrible put together. After some deliberation I decided to buy some pasta, spinach, and butter. That’ll make for a good dinner, right? I guess I should also buy some blueberry packets for snacking as well. I purchased all my items with little issue and left the store. While walking back home, I found myself walking by the park before stopping due to seeing someone familiar.
“…So, there was this barrel, right? This stupid goddamn barrel that I couldn’t get past at all no matter how hard I jumped! After spending hours on it, my brother came in and was all ‘See, what you gotta do is just go up and down on the control stick without jumping, that’s it’ and I was just like ‘What!?’, and then he showed me. And seeing how the game did nothing but lie to me about how to beat the fucking level, I threw the controller against the wall…I thought my brother would understand my pain, but he got mad, told on me to mom and dad, and now I have to buy him a new controller.”
It’s none other than Ariel, having an animated conversation with an unfamiliar man on one of the park benches. Is this a joke? What is with her and wanting to hang out with random adult men? The guy sitting by her looks to be in his 30s, with messy chin length hair and scruffy chin stubble on his face. He doesn’t seem to care too much about what she’s talking about but is doing a good enough job at feigning interest that she’s not noticing. She does seem to take notice of him not saying anything though.
“…Umm, you can talk too if you want. It feels kind of weird doing all the talking myself.”
The way she’s blushing and rocking her legs back and forth while talking makes it abundantly clear that Ariel has a thing for this guy. And judging by how the guy’s response is to put his arm on her shoulder tells me that he has a thing for her too. He leans his face in and speaks gently.
“…It’s fine. I’m just a quiet guy in general.”
Ariel responds to him by resting her head on his chest. What’s going on here clearly isn’t good. Anybody who isn’t a kid can tell that this guy is bad news. But what the hell can I do? “Law enforcement” isn’t a thing around here, and I don’t have the physical strength to risk interference. I have no real choice but to walk back home while feeling sick to my stomach.
I couldn’t stop thinking about Ariel for the rest of the day, not even while I was at work. I don’t know what makes that damn kid so adverse to hanging out with others her age. Honestly, there’s a part of me that feels as if I should just let her go get molested so that she’ll actually learn a lesson for once in her life. But you know, I would in fact be betraying myself a bit if I did that. I’ve never been molested for the record, but I did have a close call.
It happened when I was 12. This was when I was just starting to question the behavior of my parents. I got into an argument with my parents about plasma donation. Usually, there’s no real need to donate organs, blood, or anything like that in the Territories. The clinic usually has plenty of that stuff available from the various people who’ve been murdered by members of the PearlCoin Organization. But either this was a more peaceful time for PearlCoin goons, or more likely, the murder victims as of late just didn’t have good enough blood to be used for plasma donation. So, the clinic at this time was running a special donation campaign where they’d give you money for donating plasma.
My brother took notice of this campaign and decided to start donating for extra money. Due to his muscular body, he could donate more plasma than the average person (and thus make even more money). Even though he was only doing it for financial gain, classmates at school and neighbors started to see him as a good guy for doing it. My parents especially approved of how his actions made them look good. It didn’t matter that he was still his same violent and abrasive self, he donated plasma, so therefore was a good person.
My parents started to donate plasma themselves and then proceeded to pressure my sister and I into donating plasma as well and we were both uncomfortable with it. For my sister, it was due to the fact that she had a weak constitution and was concerned about the effects donating plasma could have on her. For me, I just didn’t want to do it. While to normal people that is an acceptable line of reasoning, to LOVERS and Outside LOVERS, it is not. Much like how not following the laws of LOVE results in the loss of livelihood for someone, going against the desires and requests of an Outside LOVER means they will do whatever they can to force you too.
So, my parents started to guilt trip and punish me and my sister for going against their wishes. You’d think that I’d end up bonding with my sister over this, but that didn’t happen. She told me that unlike her, I had no legitimate reason to reject donating plasma, I was just being selfish, and that it was my fault that mom and dad were going after the both of us. Indeed, she had managed to convince our parents to completely side against me. This led to a massive argument the day it was time for me to go donate, which led to me running away from my family.
I remember first going to a couple of friends’ houses, and while they were sympathetic, they also couldn’t let me stay over. Mostly due to the fact I’d have to get permission from their parents, and I knew it was far more likely they’d just call my parents and have me sent back home anyways. After that failed plan, I decided to just go hide out in the park for a bit. There were a lot of homeless people there that day and I hung out with them in order to stave off boredom. I didn’t really talk much though, mostly because I didn’t understand the severe mental psychosis and drug addictions that the people there all struggled with.
However, one of the homeless people did take an interest in me. He was the kind of homeless person that you could tell had been living that way for decades just by looking at him. His hair and beard were a disgusting greasy mess of tangles, his teeth were either black or missing, and he had a vile stench that I can only really describe as “every bodily fluid covered in rotten cheese and then dunked in alcohol”. As much as I didn’t like being around this guy, he would always make an effort to sit as close to me as possible. I wanted to push him away, I also felt like I had no choice but to put up with it.
I tried to get away from him by going to hide in the restroom, but I forgot that trick only works if you and your pursuer are of the opposite sex. Honestly though, I have a strong feeling the creep would’ve still followed me to the restroom even if I was a girl. He followed me inside the restroom and when I tried to get away from him, that’s when he grabbed me and attempted to force me into a stall. Luckily for me, not only was there someone else in the restroom, that person also really hated the nasty man and started a physical altercation with him that ended with the attempted molester stabbed and bleeding on the restroom floor. Watching this event and then seeing the man who saved me immediately go snort a line of cocaine at the sinks made me realize that being homeless was way too much for me and I decided to bite the bullet and head back home.
It turns out while I was gone and my family was in the midst of donating, my mother suffered from something called “reflex syncope”. Which is basically a fancy medical term for “getting sick and passing out from blood loss”, and it can sometimes happen during blood/plasma donation. This incident basically killed all interest my parents had in having the family donate plasma, and even if it didn’t, the next day the clinic ended the campaign due to now having the amount of plasma they needed. I remember sometime later on reading up about plasma donation in the old world, and it turns out what my folks tried to do would’ve been illegal since you had to be at least 17 to donate plasma then. Well, I guess that means that my brother donating his plasma would’ve been illegal too given that he was 16 at the time.
I’ve never told anyone about the attempted molestation, mostly because…well, it was just an attempt. It’s not like I was actually molested, you know? It’s not like I stay up at night crying to myself about the incident, and even trying to equate that incident with an actual molestation just feels insulting to real victims of child molestation. It’s just an unpleasant experience I had that taught me that I should avoid becoming homeless as much as possible. Of course, it’s not as if child molestation is exclusive to the homeless, given the guy who’s clearly grooming Ariel.
“…Is your stomach bothering you, or is something on your mind?”
Mildred approaches the front desk of the store and talks to me. I guess I was making a weird face while thinking about all this stuff. It’d probably be a good idea to at least mention my concerns with her.
“You know that annoying girl from Sunday who was following me around? I saw her at the park getting close to an older man.”
Mildred grimaces a bit when I respond to her.
“…That’s…really concerning. I guess you want to help her?”
“You really think I wanna help that brat? She’s just forced her way into my life so now I have to care about her possibly getting molested because she’s an idiot who likes to flirt with older men.”
Mildred sighs and stares at me with an irritated look on her face.
“…I get it, it’s not like you want to help her or anything like that, but this is still clearly bothering you for some unknown reason. I will say that you have Friday and Saturday off, so if you want to talk to her, those would be good days to do so.”
Her sarcastic tone is getting on my nerves, but I don’t bother starting anything with her about it and the shift continues normally. When I get home after work, I’m left feeling confused as to how the hell I can properly address this problem. I’m not physically strong at all, so trying to confront the guy would end badly for me. I could try talking to Ariel about it…but let’s be real, she’d most likely reject my advice. And honestly, I can kind of see her point of view. If I had been in a similar situation when I was fourteen, I’d also reject the advice of any adult telling me it was a bad idea.
Also, where the hell would I even find her again? I know I saw her together with the man at the park, but does that really mean they hang out there often? I could track her at the local schools, but there’s no way in hell that I, a grown ass man, can just hang around a school without getting labeled as the creep instead. She did mention in her conversation that she needed to buy her brother a new controller, but we don’t really sell game controllers at the store. If Mildred comes upon a retro game console that happens to have controllers with it, that’s one thing, but we don’t sell game controllers on their own, which would be what she’s looking for. She’s most likely just going to order one online.
Well, she did come across me while I was at Marisa’s grave, right? But I doubt that left any real impact on her memory, it’s not like I told her why I was there. She most likely just registered the place as a random abandoned house I was hanging out at and nothing more. I did show her the secret forest pathway from when I was a kid…which is a pretty secluded place…but she and the guy were out in public in the park, so it’s not like she cares that much about privacy. My mind keeps swirling with thoughts of various places I could potentially locate Ariel at, but the most I’m able to come up with by the time I go to bed is “I guess I’ll just loiter around the park until I can do something”.
Author’s Note: I apologize for the delay in posting this chapter, I’m having some issues in real life. I also wonder if SEGA fans will appreciate or cringe at the reference I made to the infamous Barrel of Doom.
