Ren walked slowly back to his room, the five thousand crystals weighing in his pocket like stones of possibility. The mushrooms in his hair pulsed softly while his thoughts wandered to his parents again.
He stopped before a hallway window. At this hour, they would be preparing food in the small restaurant's kitchen, earning barely enough to survive.
"One hundred thousand crystals," he murmured with nostalgic feeling. "In just two months..."
Memories rushed in unbidden: his mother counting crystals at the kitchen table, worry in her eyes as she tried to make the money stretch. His father exhausted but smiling, always smiling.
"The investment," he whispered while the mushrooms pulsed more slowly, as if sharing his memories. "I could return everything they spent on me."
His fingers brushed the crystals in his pocket. Each one represented another step closer to repaying what they had sacrificed for him.
