Ren cracked a smile and plopped himself down on the floor.
"I may have thought you were a real piece of shit, but I understood it. You saw a way to not be a target and you took it. Don't get me wrong, you probably got what you deserved. But it does make it easier to forgive you though. But if you don't want to be seen with me…"
"Going to stop you right there. I'm not playing that game with you; friends here not there. That's not what's happening," Hutch explained as he put the shoebox back into his closet. "Truth be told, I can't even remember anyone else's name. They weren't friends, they were shields." Turning around, he looked down at Ren, "But thank you, because I am sorry, and you are not wrong. I was a real piece of shit."
Ren grinned wide, "Gotcha. So, we're friends again?"
"That's up to you. But I know it's what I want," Hutch replied, holding out his fist to him.
"Sounds good to me."
Reaching up, Ren balled his hand into a fist and punched at Hutch's hand as hard as he could.
"That's all you got?" Hutch snarked, watching as Ren shook out his hand. "Going to have to work on that for when we're in school together."
"You're coming back?"
"At the beginning of next semester. I doubt I'll get much of a choice, but let me know what your electives are, just in case."
"Yeah, no. Adult or not, it's pretty obvious by the work you've been doing that you should just sign up for the shop classes and leave the intellectual stuff to me," Ren said, while stretching out on the floor. "Speaking of which, I have an idea about how you might be able to find out if Salvador is connected to Cascel."
"Great," Hutch replied as he turned to leave the room, "you can tell me about it over dinner."
"Sweet. Your mom still stocking the same frozen dinners she used to?" Ren asked, rushing to follow Hutch into the kitchen.
"Nope," Hutch replied, opening the fridge, and pulling out a container of leftovers and several fresh vegetables. "Thankfully, I've managed to convince her to let me take care of the food management. Take a seat, and watch the magic as I turn this leftover roast into a soup."
"You are going to cook?!" Ren seemed more shocked over the fact that he cooked than anything else he had told him that day.
As Hutch went to work, pulling out a pot, and chopping the onion, carrots, and celery, Ren sat at the counter and drank an offered can of soda, watching in a strange silent awe.
"So, this plan?" Hutch prompted, wanting Ren to reveal his idea.
"Right. Right, my plan," he replied with a vigorous shake of his head. "Sorry. It's just, this is more than enough proof of you being abducted by aliens. Anyways, since I know you've forgotten, my grandpa works at city hall. I can ask if he'd be able to look up the property information on the Cascel Tower for me. If I tell him, it's for a school project, he won't even ask any questions. And if he can't do it directly, he'll be able to tell us how to get a hold of the information, which should have the name of the owner on it. Although, and I hate to ask this but feel the need to verify, but have you tried looking him up online?"
Hutch paused and lifted a brow in his direction before rolling his eyes and sighing. Swirling some cooking oil into the bottom of the pot, he turned on the burner and scrapped up the onion he had chopped, tossing it in. "While I admit that it took me a moment to figure it out, I did, in fact, try to look him up. I was unsuccessful. That's not to say that I was doing it right though. I barely remember how to use the TV and phone; computers are a bit more complicated."
"And you're planning to come back to school?" Ren questioned with a laugh.
"Didn't say I was going to be good at it."
"No kidding. Though I would think you'd be at some advantage being a grown man in a teenage body?"
Hutch groaned, saying, "Ugh, it sounds so creepy when you put it like that," as he stirred the onions and added the other vegetables to the pot.
"Do you want to go back?" Ren asked, catching him a bit off guard as he began to shred the left-over roast.
"To high school?"
"No, to that planet."
"Every minute of every day, since I woke up in that hospital," he replied, speaking with honesty. "I find that being distracted makes it easier."
Ren smirked, tapping the half empty can against the countertop. "Never thought you'd ever get over your crush on Britney."
"Britney… Britney," Hutch repeated the name to himself a few times until it sparked his memory. "Britney Brooks! Wow! Now there's someone I haven't thought about in decades." Taking a moment to stir the vegetables, he looked at Ren as he added the leftover gravy to the pot, a broad grin stretching across his face. "She has nothing on Kahlala."
"Do tell," Ren remarked, chugging back the rest of his soda while Hutch began to add water to the pot until the vegetables were covered over.
"What's to say? There isn't a woman on this planet as beautiful as my xal… I mean wife. I forgot about Britney the moment I laid my eyes on her."
"And you think Salvador has the answers to how you can get back to her?"
"That's my hope, but it's just as plausible that he doesn't know anything about the amulet either. So, until I can find answers, I have to pretend to be seventeen again."
"You're going to need to work on that or you're going to get mistaken for a teacher."
"Yeah, don't want that to happen," Hutch replied, adding the meat to the pot. "Might help if you refreshed my memory on who we go to school with?"
Ren cracked up laughing and Hutch was glad to hear it, regardless that it was at his expense.
As Hutch continued to monitor the soup, cleaning up and adjusted the seasoning and heat as needed, Ren relayed the social workings of the high school they used to attend together. While some of the names sparked memories, others seemed completely new, and this left Hutch deep in thought.
"Sci-fi question for you," he began, as he grabbed a couple of bowls down from the cupboard, "I don't remember ever hearing of Cascel or any of their affiliated businesses before I ended up on Illimev. In that timeline, Salvador wasn't on Earth either. Breaking his amulet put me back close to when I left, assuming it did the same for him, that would explain Cascel being here now, right?"
"Following so far," Ren replied, moving over to the kitchen table Hutch had set.
"Doesn't it also explain how I have no memories of half the people you're telling me about?"
Ren gasped. "Salvador's return has altered a portion of this timeline!"
"And I only have memories of the original."
Ren smacked his hand onto the tabletop. "It all makes sense! You said Salvador's a smart guy, right?"
"As much as I hate to compliment him on anything, he was basically a genius on Illimev, so no reason to believe he isn't up there on this world too."
"That explains why he has no social media footprint!"
Hutch shook his head. "I don't follow you."
"Look at the larger picture," Ren began to explain, as Hutch joined him at the table, leaving the soup to finish cooking. "If he realized that his presence was altering the course of your history then he was smart enough to know that it was a bad thing. He's kept himself hidden, no public appearances, no social media, nothing that could potentially alter you coming into existence."
"Wouldn't he want the opposite? He could have interfered and made it so I wasn't even born or had me be more…"
"Sympathetic to his beliefs?" Ren finished his thoughts.
Hutch nodded. "He always tried to justify his decisions to me, and never understood that he couldn't make mass murder seem like a reasonable solution. Stopping me from existing seems like the smarter choice."
"Not necessarily. You mentioned that he was trying to get his wife to join him there. Instead, he ends up back here, presumably with her. Like how you ended up back here with your mom. If you aren't born, you never go there, and he never finds his way back home. All of what he's done was to ensure you remained in the timeline, but fully aware that he is here now. I think he wants you to find him so that he can stop hiding. He's back and once you find him; he knows he has nothing to worry about and he can get his revenge on you."