The first thing that Jay did when he woke up was standing upright and slapping Red King's face to wake him up. No matter how comfortable the bed was, it has to be done. The sooner his male caregiver wakes up, the sooner they can go to the bakery. The sun is already high up in the sky as seen from the window, and the sounds of the bustling city were creeping in through the motel room's door.
Now that he's not relying on the dim ceiling light, the transmigrator could finally see how run down this place was. The wallpaper was a sad beige with a bit of mold at every corner; there's cigarette stains on the popcorn ceiling, and the furnitures were dusty. Furnitures included a single chair and table next to the window. At least the bathroom was clean, and the baby received a bath while Red King asked the front desk for new sheets.
JJ was sitting by the window with a map in hand, and she giggled when she saw the baby trying to wake up her partner. She's dressed in the motel's bath robe, and her light brown hair was still wet from the shower. The teenage girl put down her map before she took a few steps towards the bed.
Their motel room wasn't big, so it only took a few seconds for JJ to cross the room and pick up the baby from the bed. Jay expressed his disappointment by wiggling out of her arms, only to fall on his ass on the bed.
His action earned a laugh from the teen girl, and she sat down on the bed next to her sleeping companion. Her hands gently picked Jay up by his torso again, but this time instead of trying to get him off the bed, JJ put him in a sitting position.
"Ssshh..." The teen girl giggled before she talked once more, "Let him sleep. He got first watch last night. We'll go to the bakery for brunch, I promise."
Baby Jay looked up at her, and he pouted. Why can't they go to the bakery now? Fine, fine... The Red King can sleep in a little more. The transmigrator didn't know that his caregivers took turn sleeping so that one of them can always be on watch duty.
Safety is priority, after all.
Giving up on his mission to wake up his male caregiver, Jay turned his attention to his female caretaker. Her deep blue eyes squinted a little bit as she smiled at him. She's a beautiful young woman, but too bad that she was put into this situation. From his knowledge of the original book, Jay can say that the female Jay Pleng is very intelligent too, yet she's stuck here with them. What would her life be like if she never killed her father and joined Lady Red?
'Do you feel bad about being stuck with us?' The baby lifted up his arms and patted her face. Jay is glad that his caretakers couldn't understand his baby babble. 'Do you ever miss your family? The life you left behind for this?'
"You're such a cutie." The teen girl giggled and pinched the baby's cheek, enough for him to look ridiculous but not enough to hurt. Her deep blue eyes were shining at him as her voice pitched higher. "Yes, you are, Kaon. Oh, let's look at the map."
She left him alone for a few seconds so that she could grab the map and a pen from the table where she left them. The teen girl set it down in front of Jay without any fear of the baby ripping the valuable piece of paper.
"It's a little outdated because it was made before the war, but it'd still work." His female caretaker tapped on the city map with her pen, and the transmigrator couldn't help but pull the fragile paper closer to himself.
Thank goodness. The map is in English. From the what the System told him and all that United Earth stuff, Jay was glad that the map was in English. Who knows what language the United Earth had chosen? The author never mentioned any of these things in the original novel, so now the transmigrator has to worry about it. System? Any information on this?
[ ENGLISH WAS VOTED TO BE THE UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE SINCE MOST SURVIVORS OF WORLD WAR THREE SPOKE SOME FORM OF ENGLISH. ]
Good god. Does that many of the seven thousand languages on earth went extinct?
[ YES. THE CURRENT UNITED EARTH ONLY RECOGNIZES ONE LANGUAGE: ENGLISH.
HOWEVER, PARENTS AROUND THE WORLD CONTINUED TO SPEAK THEIR NATIVE TONGUE TO THEIR CHILDREN, SO NOT ALL LANGUAGES ARE LOST. ]
Phew. Jay was a nerd in his past life, and he wanted to be a international studies major, but he never made it to college because of his dwindling health. His parents paid for an online college, but it wasn't fulfilling to him, so the eighteen year old Jay dropped out and began rotting in the hospital.
Looking at the map, the city of Esther was created around a bay with hopefully thriving ports. His tiny hands ran over the outline of the city to where the red pen drew a small dot on a suburban block. The transmigrator guessed that's where they are right now.
"He's a scholar, aye?" His male caregiver's voice made the baby flinched for a second, but it wasn't enough for him to accidentally rip the map.
"Let him be. Look at him being all cute and serious." JJ giggled before she put a hand on her companion's shoulder and push. "Get your ass up and get dressed. We're going to the bakery."
The Red King groggily nodded as he dragged himself off the bed, then he stretched. Since he's wearing a simple white T-shirt, the transmigrator could see the faded scars on his arms. Some of those scars crossed his veins, and some were cramped over each other, meaning that he had been injured in the same place multiple times. Jay wished that he could learn more about his caretaker's backstory more than the little summary that the system gave him.
Five minutes later, Jay found himself on the street. The left most of their stuff at the motel because according to JJ, it's only a short trip to the bakery to get food, then they can hole up in the motel room again.
In daylight, the city looked worse than it was last night. Huge holes dotted the sidewalk and the street while plastic bags flew through the air once in a while. Loud cars and motorcycles fought for space on the once suburban road. Each house was either half destroyed or being built on by thin sheets of metal, giving the neighborhood a very dystopian look.
Thinking about it, the original novel's world building was future dystopia, so it made sense that it is what it is when Jay came into this world. Even though it's board daylight, the transmigrator could see working girls trying to hustle their next customers into one of their houses where their pimps were watching from the window.
Thankfully, those girls left Jay's group alone because they have a child with them. The transmigrator was being carried in one of Red King's arms, and the teen boy was holding holding hands with JJ, who's looking at the map.
As mentioned by the kind grandma back at the motel last night, her bakery should be down the street, on the same block as the motel. What the grandma didn't mention was it was a very long block.
Jay was a bit bored as he was being carried on the trip. He forgot his Rubik's cube in their motel room, so what is he supposed to do?
His violet eyes landed the familiar logo of the United Superhero Council at a stop light. A man in a van parked in front of the bakery were giving out pamphlets from the van's window. His blue jacket has both the USC logo and the United Earth logo. Oh, is he a missionary or something? No, that's not the right word. Probably a social worker?
Many people seem to ignore the social worker, most of them didn't even take the pamphlets that he was handing out, so Jay kind of felt bad for him. As his caretakers got in front of the bakery, the social worker handed them a pamphlet.