Zachary walked back home alone.
After tending to his injury, he departed with Lauren as he felt he didn't need to trouble her anymore. The walk home was indeed mundane and nothing to look forward to, but it wasn't something he couldn't handle — he had done this a million times, after all.
「Should I write something when I get back?」
He was desperate for any type of distraction. But then another thought came to his mind, it wouldn't have been wise for him to get back to writing immediately, even if writing soothed him oftentimes. If there was anything he needed at the moment, it was to rest, to take an entire break from writing altogether.
Lost in thought, he found himself bumping into someone.
Both of them almost twirled in opposite directions. Thankfully, he was able to recover easily. But the same could not be said about the other person.
*crash*
When Zachary came to, he realized that the person was carrying quite the big box with them. Their encounter with one another had led to them dropping their box and possibly breaking the contents from the sound of the impact. And indeed, there were a lot of pens on the ground, most of them were broken, which was surprising, considering a pen wouldn't break that easily.
For a moment, he thought there was noise covering them, but then he noticed that the person was a young woman, and most of all, he could clearly see her.
"Dammit! Elliot is gonna give me an earful," she spoke with a distressed yet soothing tone. It seemed that even if she were to get angry and try to shout, her blissful voice would prevent it.
Feeling a little guilty inside, Zachary apologized, "I am so sorry! I—"
"It's alright," the girl turned to look at him and gave him a clumsy smile, "I wasn't looking where I was going, the box was in the way, but it's still my fault."
The young woman seemed to be at a below-average height, she was certainly shorter than him and perhaps around Lauren's height if he were to compare them. Her purple hair was wrapped into a bun, yet still seemed unkempt in some areas. Round glasses covered her brown eyes and almost took over all her face from how big they were. She was dressed in a yellow oversized hoodie that reached almost her knees, and even with that, her dark jeans shorts were still visible.
If there were two words to describe the aura she possessed: casual and messy. That was what Zachary believed at least.
Judging appearances aside, he quickly moved to help her collect the things that had dropped out of the box. "Let me help you pick them up," he didn't remember the last time he was this kind to someone, or if he was ever kind enough to lend a helping hand before.
"Oh, there's no need for you to do that," she waved her hand at him, "I'm—"
But before she could continue, he was already on the ground collecting the pens and putting them back in the box.
"Okay… I guess," she accepted his help and went on to collect her things as well.
After a few minutes of collecting and searching for broken and lost pens, they were able to place everything back in the box, although the contents were, of course, in a much worse state than before.
"How could a pen break this easily?" Zachary accidentally spoke his thoughts.
"I blame production for that," the young woman sighed, "But my boss insists on still working with them," she then tried to clean the dust off her clothes, "Putting that aside, is there any way I can repay you?"
"Repay me?" He was surprised, "For what? I barely did anything, and the pens are still broken."
"No, you did take a moment out of your time to help me, which barely anyone does in this town apparently," she chuckled, "I believe that's worth repaying."
She had a point, an absurd one, but it was still a fair point.
"Here, how about this?" She reached for the inside of the box and pulled out a pen that seemed to be still in pristine condition.
"A pen?" He backed away, "I-I can't take this, it's the only one that's still good."
"Yea, you'll take it, and for free," she slammed it onto his palm and then gave him a smile, "Consider us even now."
「I wasn't even thinking you were in my debt.」
"You know," she inched closer to his face, "You shouldn't deny what's rightfully yours. You could lose someone because of that."
Her voice was still soothing to the ears and quite mesmerizing, the kind of childlike voice you would hear out of an adult and never an actual child.
"Anyway, I better get going," she backed away and closed her box, "You take good care of that pen, alright?"
And with that, the odd young woman was gone.
Zachary looked down at the pen. It was a black and gold ballpoint pen, which would certainly fit for someone in an office for work, and not for a high schooler like him — and not for free.
Nevertheless, he had no choice but to accept it.
※※※※
Since he was already in the street that was overlooked by his home, Zachary proceeded down to the gate and walked inside.
With the road of concrete coming to an end and turning into a spiral, a fancy front yard came into view. Coupled with a fountain and a car or two parked just outside, it had the whole setup of a fancy mansion yard. However, it was still not impressive in his eyes, no matter how many times he looked at it.
Whenever he came back home, Zachary would always rush in, never to look up at the mansion directly or see who was around — he had a general idea of what the mansion looked like after living there for years. So when he did look up this time, he was shocked by what he saw.
He was not faced by the shadows of a decrepit house.
He was faced with eyes, two glaring eyes.
The eyes of a woman sitting on the balcony. She seemed to be having a cup of tea by herself. But now she was fixated on the terror-stricken eyes of Zachary's.
That woman wasn't his aunt, nor was she his cousin, nor a maid, nor anyone that came to his mind. And of course, she wouldn't come to his mind. He stopped looking at her face a few years back. After all, it was saturated by a burn mark, a grim reminder of a life that was once forgotten.
That woman was his mother.
"..." He stopped in his tracks for the few seconds he locked eyes with her.
It was wide open, deprived of any ounce of passion.
He felt a chill run down his spine. His petrified face was proof of that. He felt as if it was being slowly pulled away from the rest of his body.
They looked at each other for the first time in forever from afar. There were no words spoken. Just a ghastly stare from a mother to her child.
He rarely talked to her directly, and even when he did, he would never look her in the face, only opting to listen to her melancholic voice.
「No... not anymore...!」
Shifting his gaze away from her quickly, he climbed the entrance's stairs and reached for the door.
「And here I thought I'd start to feel better…」