Swish~ Swish~, hot water poured over his hair, flowed over his body, and the warmth allowed the somewhat weary Dean to completely relax.
At this moment, he didn't have to worry about the upcoming troubles and it was a rare moment when he could let down his mental guard.
Half an hour later, after a good hot shower, Dean reluctantly dried off and stepped out of the bathroom.
As he stood in front of the bathroom mirror ready to get dressed, he was suddenly captivated by his reflection and zoned out.
Beneath the light brown hair was a young and vibrant face, but it was the pair of bright, crystal-clear blue eyes that were most striking.
If you were to compare them with the photos in the living room, you'd realize those blue eyes were inherited from his mother.
Dean's mother was of Irish descent; the blue eyes were a signature racial trait. As for the light brown hair, that was inherited from his father.
As a Welshman, brown hair was the most common hair color. Well, like the island of Ireland, Wales was also a more niche existence among the British Isles.
This could also be seen from their surname—Price, after all, it was one of the most common Welsh surnames.
However, due to the passage of many years and the mixing of so many generations, Dean had already accumulated the bloodlines of all three British Isles, truly a hybrid.
Dean briefly ran through his family history in his mind and then gave up on delving into it. From his grandmother's generation, the story could take three days and nights to tell, but now wasn't the time.
After getting dressed, Dean went straight upstairs to his former bedroom.
Pushing the door open, the typical American teenager's bedroom came into view—sports star posters, baseball bats, magazines, records, scattered in every corner of the room.
But it was clear that someone had tidied up here. Despite the multitude of items, they did not appear cluttered.
It wasn't hard to guess that his mother, Katelin, must have often cleaned his room for him.
Since Dean's college wasn't far from home, he usually returned to Youngstown on weekends. Therefore, after every departure, Katelin would tidy up his room for him.
However, since his mother's death, Dean had hardly been home for the past month, and the room had remained as neat as it was after being cleaned.
Coming to his desk by the window, he casually flipped through some magazines on computers, such as "Popular Electronics," "Byte," "PC Communications," and so on.
Looking at the professional computer terms on them, knowledge about the field naturally surfaced in Dean's mind.
Indeed, the former Dean was a computer geek, and it seemed that his skills were quite remarkable. Given a computer connected to a network service, he could do many things that would astonish others.
Only at this moment did Dean suddenly realize, ah, 1988, the eve of personal computers taking off, the night before the birth of the internet, the dawn of a great era.
He felt the cells in his body itching to try, myriad ideas came flooding in, but soon Dean forcefully suppressed them again.
It was better to deal with the trouble at hand first, after all, family and school were the foundations of a good beginning.
Stuffing a few clothes into his backpack, Dean stepped out of his room and paused for a moment as he passed by the adjacent bedroom.
The tightly closed door in front of him seemed to have been unvisited for a long time, belonging to his brother Reed.
About him... Dean shook his head and continued to walk down the stairs; two minutes later, he stepped out of the house once again.
Looking back at the detached house with its red triangular roof, to be honest, this home was actually quite nice.
Although it appeared somewhat desolate due to recent neglect and the lawn, unattended, was growing wild.
And those plants surrounding the yard—hibiscus, forsythia, tulips, and hyacinths—were gradually fading from lack of care.
But in Dean's eyes, scenes of happy days gone by still involuntarily came to mind: Mil Creek Park to the south, Youngstown's largest park. A full 800 acres of woods, ponds, and gardens connecting the south and west of the city.
To the north was McGuffey Plaza, a model shopping center in the southern part of town built by the Cafaro Family in the 50s.
Bowling alleys, candy stores, Isa's Dairy, A&P supermarket chain, trolley stops, schools, churches, playgrounds—it had everything.
Although Dean hadn't visited them yet, a single glance brought the past to life vividly before his eyes.
At least he still had a home, and it was in the white neighborhood of the south side of town, Dean optimistically thought as he turned to head for Bruce Street.
...
"Jerry, are you sneaking to watch the adult pay-per-view channels again?"
"NO! Mom, I swear it wasn't me this time!"
"The TV bill is $20 more than last month. Pay-per-view charges of $4 a show were only billed 5 times, honestly, that number is lower than what I expected."
"Exactly, mom! It wasn't me! I watched it a whole 18 times last month!"
"Aha~ Thanks to your efforts, last month's tissue expenses doubled."
Just as Dean arrived on Bruce Street, he hadn't even knocked when he heard the "harmonious" exchange of the family of his Aunt Rachel.
"Cough~, dear, I think Jerry has reached the age where we need to give him some private space," Frank's voice came through indistinctly.