"Step bro! Please hand off my balls!"
"I said hands off!"
With that, the room fell silent, except for the Air conditioner humming in its corner and someone tapping away at their phone. Outside, the evening sun peeked through the curtains, shining its light across the bedroom. And someone was just lying there, sprawled out flat on his back. One leg was hanging off the side of the bed, as he looked totally relaxed, which was weird because he sounded absolutely pissed off.
That was Aurelian Knox, the owner of the voice, the bed, and apparently the balls in question.
He didn't even look up from his phone. His thumb moved, scrolling as if his dignity wasn't currently under attack. His expression was calm, almost bored, but the way his jaw tightened gave him away.
Across the room, near a small wooden table, stood another young man with a grin that was far too satisfied to be innocent.
This was his stepbrother, Mason Hale.
Mason leaned over the table, elbows resting casually on its surface. Between his hands sat a wide ceramic bowl, which he rotated slowly, deliberately, as if savoring the moment.
"You're overreacting," Mason said lightly. "I'm just holding them."
Aurelian's eyes finally lifted from his phone, "You're fondling them."
"I am not."
"You're smiling. That means you are."
Mason chuckled and lifted the bowl slightly, giving it a gentle shake.
"Relax," he said. "I was just curious."
"Curious about why I told you not to touch them?"
"Curious about why you have so many," Mason replied, finally setting the bowl down with a soft thud. He straightened, one hand gesturing toward it. "I mean, seriously. Who keeps this many golf balls in their bedroom?"
"Get out!" Aurelian said.
Mason ignored him completely, as he picked one ball from the bowl and bounced it lightly in his palm.
"You know," Mason said, circling the table, "if you didn't shout that loud, I wouldn't have noticed them in the first place."
"You literally walked into my room and went straight for my balls!"
"Because you don't let me touch them when I asked."
"Why would I ever agree to such?" Aurelian shot back. "Do I look like one of those guys?"
"Why the much fuck about some balls, like what's the point?" Mason genuinely asked.
"They're collectibles! Now get out!"
Mason raised both hands in surrender, the smirk still on his face. "Alright, alright. I'm leaving. No need to guard them like that." He then placed the ball back into the bowl, then took a few slow steps toward the door, clearly enjoying the look on Aurelian's face.
Reaching for the door, he paused, and glanced back once, "For what it's worth," he said lightly, "you're really weird, you know that?"
Aurelian didn't answer, and Mason just ignored him and opened the door, with the creaked sound echoing throughout the room, Aurelian exhaled with relief that his step brother he viewed as evasive is now about to leave.
"You're not even my brother anyways," Aurelian said under his breath, his voice so low so that Mason wouldn't hear it.
The truth was that Aurelian wasn't someone that didn't try to get along with others, on the contrary he was a friendly person. But after his mother's death, and the way his father quickly remarried just a year after, he had always viewed Mason with contempt, just seeing him as someone trying to fill his mother's place.
Mason's legs stopped, just inches away before he fully left Aurelian's room, but he heard it. He heard what Aurelian said.
Mason has always known that Aurelian didn't and probably would never view him as a brother, but he kept trying, always approaching him in a playful manner. Aurelian never said it out loud, he never said those words, but now he did, even though he never meant for Mason to hear them.
"You know, I tried, I really did. But if you can't at least see me as someone who belongs here, then just fuck off!"
Slam!
With that, Mason shut the door, leaving Aurelian alone in his room.
"Damn it!" Aurelian reacted, tossing his phone onto the mattress.
He had wanted Mason to leave, sure. He wanted his space, his privacy, and his balls respected. But the look in Mason's eyes right before the door shut wasn't the usual look of someone offended, but it was a look of someone who had tried all he could and just realized that all his efforts were literally pointless from the start to begin with.
For a year, Mason had endured the cold shoulders, the eye rolls, and the blatant territorialism given to him by Aurelian. He had even treated Aurelian like a brother even when Aurelian treated him like a stranger.
Aurelian then sat up and stared at the closed door. Part of him wanted to go after him—to say it was a slip of the tongue, or to at least snap back with another insult to return things to their normal self. Anything was better than that final, jagged "fuck off."
'Why do things have to be this hard.'
With a sigh, Aurelian decided it was best to chase after Mason and apologize. Sure, it pained him to even have such thoughts, apologizing to Mason? Eek! But he wasn't a child anymore. He was sixteen and understood that what he did was wrong. There were some things you shouldn't say out loud, even if you truly mean them, especially if they would hurt someone who was trying.
Grabbing his phone and heading downstairs, he saw Maria, his supposed stepmom and Mason's mother, watching a show on television while holding a cup of coffee.
Trying to leave the house without making a sound so she wouldn't notice him, he walked slowly, attempting to get past her without making any sound. He didn't want her to see him, he personally didn't want to see her either, and just seeing her face as he walked down the stairs had already done enough mental damage to him. And he knew If she noticed him, she would obviously call out to him and try to make small talk.
Slow and steady, he drew closer to the doorknob, his fingers already brushing its surface…
"Oh, Aurelian. I didn't see you there."
Fuck!
'Of course she had to notice. Why can't this bitch just sit and watch her show?'
Aurelian quickly froze, his hands already at the door knob. He then squeezed his eyes for a brief second, the voice of Maria making his stomach clench a little.
Now swallowing the surge of irritation that currently filled him, he relaxed his breath and turned towards her, offering a neutral expression that he had spent the last year perfecting.
"Hey, Maria," he said. "Didn't mean to startle you."
Maria shifted on the sofa, her gaze moving from the Television screen towards him. She looked at him with that soft, tentative kindness that always made his skin crawl. He hated the way she looked at him, like the way a mother looks at her child, he hates how she always tries to replace his mother.
"Are you headed out?" she asked. "It's already getting a bit late, honey. The sun went down an hour ago. It's now a bit late for a walk, isn't it?"
Aurelian checked the clock on the wall and she was right, the time really went fast as he and Mason bickered in his room. The evening sun was already gone and night came.
"Just going to visit a friend," Aurelian said easily, his hand still resting on the doorknob. "I won't be long. Just need some air."
He then paused. In a typical family situation which this obviously wasn't, at least to Aurelian's eyes, he would directly ask Maria where Mason went to, but doing so would give her the feeling that they are finally bonding and getting along. Na! Aurelian would rather not reward her with such thoughts. If he was going to ask Maria anything, He would need to make it look casual, like a passing thought, nothing more.
"Actually," he added, tilting his head slightly as if he had just remembered something trivial. "I was going to see if Mason wanted to come along, but I didn't see him upstairs. Did he… head out somewhere? I thought I heard his car earlier, but I wasn't sure if he was just moving it. Not like it matters anyway."
He had just asked Maria for Mason whereabouts without making it seem like he cared that much about him. He concluded it was better to ask her, at least if she knew anything, she would have told him, making his search for Mason less difficult.
But..... He's reaching his max, talking to her for two minutes straight? Is there anything more worse than that?
With that, Maria's expression changed slightly. She obviously didn't like the way Aurelian talked about Mason like he didn't care. "Oh. I thought you two were… well, I heard the door slam. He came down a few minutes ago looking pretty upset. He didn't say a word to me, just grabbed his keys and went straight for the driveway."
She then looked at Aurelian, searching his eyes for an explanation he wasn't going to give. "I figured you would know where he went. He usually tells you everything, doesn't he?"
What gave her the impression he tells Aurelian everything. That assumption actually made Aurelian feel disgusted, her having thoughts about them bonding? She's clearly not living in the same house as them.
"Right," Aurelian muttered, pulling the door open just enough to let the cool night air in. "He probably just went to clear his head. I will keep an eye out for his car while I'm out."
"Aurelian?" Maria called out before he could leave the house.
But he ignored her and left anyway. It had already been three minutes, which set a new record for the amount of time spent talking to her. Time he would never get back. The thought of giving her something he could never recover was taunting, but what was worse was the guilt he felt about Mason.
He had never felt this way about anyone after his mother died, not even toward his father, the person he now slowly blamed for everything.
If he didn't have to remarry so quickly.
If only he could keep it in his pants for more than five minutes.
If only he had even a shred of self-control.
If only he wasn't a complete piece of shit!
Fuck! Aurelian felt the world was against him at that moment.
Now strolling the night streets aimlessly, he began to have crazy thoughts.
What if he could go back in time?
If he could, he would definitely stop his mother from attending that meeting that day, the one that led to her dying in a car accident.
But regressing? That was the kind of thing people only read about in manhwas.
Then another thought surfaced.
What if he ran away? Left everyone and everything behind to start anew.
Yeah, that was definitely stupid. Aurelian might be considered childish for not accepting his new stepfamily, but he wasn't that childish to run away from everything he didn't like. And even if he did run, it would be an unofficial declaration of defeat to Maria, proof that he couldn't stand his ground or protect his mother's place from being taken so easily.
And then came the final thought.
Death. What if he died? Not just any death, but a death that would allow him to be reborn in a new world, leaving behind all the attachments of this world to start fresh. Because as long as he remained here, he couldn't see any way to move past his mother's death.
But he needed to.
He needed to move past it.
Because It wasn't only his relationships that took a hit after his mother's passing. Even his grades at school had fallen apart. He was someone who once hovered between A's and B's but was now a total F student. And his work life was no better. He got sacked left and right, partly because he couldn't stand coworkers named Mason or Maria, and partly because he spent most of his work hours brooding.
Fuck! He's life sucked.
His mother's death really did turn everything upside down.
Then he saw something. Light. The headlights of a vehicle moving in his direction.
Aurelian lived in a gated community, so cars rarely used the road on his street, as it was usually quiet. The vehicle was a truck, which was an especially rare sight in that area.
'A Truck at this hour?' Aurelian thought.
'Wait.... Truck-kun? Is that really you?'
Truck-kun. The formidable god of second chances. If there was a being known for its contributions to the reincarnation cycle, then there was no other than Truck-kun.
'Okay… This is actually stupid. But, but what if? Just what if it works?'
With a sigh, 'better now than never, right?'
With that, he jumped, smiling, throwing himself headfirst into the path of the moving truck, placing everything on that single collision.
Slam! Bash!
Truck-kun smirked, the job complete, another one for the win.