The Earth After Rebirth

The door to the bedroom creaked open. Kiro entered with a confused expression. His parents jumped, startled at his sudden appearance.

"Not tell me, why not?"

"Why were you listening in on our conversation?" Freya asked him sternly.

"I mean, I didn't mean to eavesdrop... Hey don't change the subject!"

Freya simply smiled. As if to say, 'well it was worth a try.' Kiro looked at his parents expectedly but none of them wanted to say anything. Kiro had already been through a lot in their eyes, especially with the academy incident. They wanted to protect him.

But Sekani realised it was well beyond that now. He was already exposed and there was nothing they could do to change that, even if they wished it were not true.

"Ki, listen, I don't want you involved in the family company until after graduation, can you let your father handle this bit?" He asked him sincerely.

Even with his realisation, he still wanted to be his shield. A parent will always be a parent after all.

"Dad, come on. I'm old enough, you can't make the decisions for me. I want to be involved!" It came out like a yell, he didn't mean to, but he didn't care about that now.

"Hey hey, speak respectfully to your father. We raised you better didn't we?" Freya chimed in.

Kiro apologetically nodded. He didn't think it mattered much, but his parents raised him better than that, the world he had experienced made him less patient though.

"Are you sure, Ki? I want you to be sure." Sekani pleaded.

"I'm sure, I'll drop out of school if I have to." He regretted it the moment the words rolled out of his mouth. Freya was already red.

"Get out!" She yelled. "Out, out of my sight. We've worked so hard for you and, and you just..."

"I'm sorry, I was just... it was for emphasis, I didn't mean it literally mum, of course I wouldn't drop out." He tried to mend.

"Leave us for now, I'll be out in a minute." Sekani told him, he looked at his wife who was furious. He looked at his carefree son and whispered, "I'll defuse this, so just wait for me in the lounge."

Kiro practically ran out of there. His heart was pounding faster than it had been when he met the harbinger. He preferred fighting monsters than being in the same room as his mother when she was furious.

"Good day!" He greeted Vada and Angelina.

He peered through the window and Philip was playing with Alora and Loki in the snow. He watched and wished he could join them.

'I should try to not live too much in the game. I'll miss many moments with my family.' He made the mental note.

His train of thought skidded into a stop when his father called out to him. They went to his study. He'd never been there before, it was cozy and dimly lit. With book cases all around, papers litterd the table, clearly his father had been working a lot. Something he didn't wish for him.

But he wasn't going to reprimand him about this. It was his dream after all, he didn't have the heart to tell him to slow down, besides, he was looking healthier by the day. Clearly, he wasn't overworking himself.

They sat across from each other, Wilfred poured them a drink. Kiro waited for his father to fill him in.

Sekani instead gave him a stack of papers. He figured he'd show him instead of talking for hours. Kiro sat there, reading, drinking the whiskey and occasionally making snide remarks at the audicity the Blakesons had.

"How bold, they have no case here." He clicked his tongue. "This is just a waste of time and resources."

"You reckon?" Sekani of course knew this, he just wanted to gauge his son's knowledge and how good he was discerning harmless fancy words.

"Of course, they don't own the gaming gear tech. You made your own, with a very different, better software. Otherwise, why would they have approved the patent?"

"Good question."

"They probably have someone high up, they probably want to ruffle some feathers, make you back down."

Wilfred nodded. He wasn't part of the conversation, but he could hear everything he was in the same room as them after all. That's what he and Sekani concluded too. He could now see why his parents were so proud of him.

"That's about the gist of it."

"Are you backing down? Is that why you came back?"

"Of course not. I'll be leaving first thing in the morning. I won't be back until, maybe, around Christmas morning? Everything needs to be settled."

They sat there and chatted for a while. Sekani told him everything they've done for Waynworth Enterprise up until this point. Kiro just sat there impressed by his father, he was warm inside. Not because of the whiskey, but because he was happy.

"I hear you spend hours playing games? I know it made us what we are but Ki, your mother is pregnant. You can't spend all your time in there."

"It didn't make us dad, that's a weird way to put it. But yes, you're right. I'll cut my time. I promise." He smiled. "When's the hearing?"

"After Christmas, they decided." Sekani thought for a while. "We've never had an extravagant Christmas day. We should, for Alora."

Kiro simply nodded. He agreed. She was the youngest, who still believed in all sorts of fairytales. Now that they could afford things she usually asked for, it was the perfect time to spoil her rotten.

"Could I, come with you, to the lower district? It's as good a time as any, to start learning the ropes. Besides it'll be good for me, I'm doing VR sciences after all." He convinced him by leaning towards learning for school purposes.

He told him he'd talk it over with his mother first. He also wanted Hiro to come, it'd be a dream for him to be surrounded by every material he couldn't afford back then, in real-life too.

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