The moment they arrived and dropped Lyrica at home, Lyrica's father crouched down and put both his hands around his daughter's shoulders.
"Lyrica, I know this is sudden, but can we leave the house to you in the morning from now on?"
Lyrica frowned in confusion. "Huh, why?"
Lyrica's parents looked at each other before her father turned his attention back to Lyrica. It was then her father revealed that he's finally got a stable and long-term job in a certain food manufacturing company.
"Seriously?!"
Lyrica's priceless reaction made her father smile brightly, it's as if he had won a lottery after seeing his daughter making a face.
"That's not the only good news we have for you, right?"
After getting the cue from her husband, Lyrica's mother lowered herself down. She looked at her daughter right in the face.
"I was told by my employer that he is raising my salary back to normal."
"E-Eh...?"
Lyrica is struck with the good news. It's all so sudden that she doesn't even know how to react.
Up until yesterday, they were worried about where they'll get the money for their debts, rent, and also Lyrica's hospital bill. Then the next day, Lyrica's father suddenly revealed that he's finally got a job and her mother's salary was back to normal.
"Hey, we told you, didn't we?" Lyrica's father gently caressed his daughter's black hair. "No matter how many hardships the world throws at us, as long as we are together as a family, we can overcome anything."
Lyrica thought that this is all too good to be true. But no matter how Lyrica looked at it, it seems that everything's happening for real.
"Now then, Your Mother and I need to head out now. We don't want to be late for our work, right?"
"Yeah." Lyrica's mother stood up before patting her daughter on the head. "My shift is only until noon, so I'll be at home by then."
"All right," Lyrica replied while nodding her head. "I'll see you later, Mother, Father."
Words cannot express how happy Lyrica was at that moment. At last, the Rael family can finally go back to how it used to be. That's where she's wrong.
One morning, Lyrica had once again caught wind of an unusual silence between her parents. It was the same scenario as when they were heading back home after Lyrica was discharged from the hospital.
At first, she thought it was just her overthinking things, and so she dismissed it. But seeing how they do not make conversations with each other unless Lyrica is involved, made the young girl wonder.
"Why?"
That question did not leave Lyrica as the unusual silence between her parents become more apparent and more frequent by the day.
It reached the point where it's starting to bother her so much, she's beginning to have trouble studying and sleeping at night. And so, she gathered the courage and asked her parents about it.
"Nothing is going on."
"Sometimes, there's just nothing to talk about, so it tends to be quiet."
Of course, Lyrica did not believe their answers. Because if that were the case, the silence between them wouldn't bother Lyrica, at all.
"They're hiding something, I know it. I don't know the reason why, but I need to figure out what it is, or it won't stop bothering me."
With that said, Lyrica decided to figure out her parents' secrets herself.
"All right."
Another morning came, Lyrica finished preparing her school bag and was about to head out when her father called her.
"Lyrica, do you want me to take you to school?"
Lyrica frantically shook her head in decline. "No, I can go on my own now. Tell Mother I love her."
Lyrica rushed out of the door before slamming it shut.
Her father watched her daughter do so while fixing his suit. At the same time, her mother walked down the stairs to the living room.
"You heard her. I'm heading out." Said Lyrica's father in a flat voice.
Lyrica's mother did not reply and instead went to take a shower.
Moments later, Lyrica's father walked out of the door alone and went straight to his car. After revving the engine, he pressed the gas and started driving the car, not knowing that a tricycle is following him from behind with Lyrica riding on it.
Twenty minutes later, Lyrica saw her father's car stopping beside the road where a huge establishment resided.
She exits the tricycle after paying and thanking the driver.
With a red cap she bought to hide her face, Lyrica took a long gaze at the establishment once more.
"Is this where Father works?"
Thud!
"Crap!"
As soon as she heard the car door open, Lyrica hid behind an electric pole. She peeked and saw her father walking, not towards the establishment, but across the road.
"Is this not the place?" She murmured.
Lyrica followed her father until she reached the corner of the road. There she saw him standing in front of someone's house. It's not even a house, Lyrica thought it was a mansion due to how big it was.
"This doesn't look like a food manufacturing company to me."
Ding Dong!
Lyrica's father pressed the doorbell to the mansion. Not long after the doorbell rang, a rich-looking woman full of make-up, accessories, and extravagant clothing came out.
"Who is she?" Lyrica asked herself in wonder.
"Well, did your wife and daughter suspect a thing?"
"Huh?"
The woman's question made deep lines form on Lyrica's forehead.
Then her father answered the woman in an awkward tone.
"It doesn't seem to be the case. They're completely oblivious about my job being fake."
Lyrica gasped in shock. "Fake?!"
Lyrica couldn't believe what she just heard. Her father is lying to her and her mother about having a job.
"Well, you do have a job. A job to devote yourself to me." The woman let out a peal of seductive laughter.
Lyrica stared blankly as her father got dragged by the woman inside the mansion.
That moment, two elderly women walking the opposite side of the road where the woman's mansion resided brought back Lyrica to her senses.
Lyrica tried to walk past the two older women, only to hear them gossiping about how the woman from the mansion brought another man from her house which is her father.
Seemingly in the know, Lyrica tried to follow the two elder women and learned that the woman is the owner of the establishment and uses her wealth to have men wrapped around her fingers.
Soon after learning about the woman and her connection to her father. Lyrica ran back home to tell her mother about what she had seen and heard.
"Moth...er..."
But, instead of knocking on the door in a hurry, Lyrica's legs froze at the sight of a man whose arms are wrapped tight around her mother as their lips entwined with one another.