“Todd, your father was so excited for you to come over and play with Jun.” Ms. Suk said.

“That’s great.” Todd replied slowly. Todd was distracted by the icy glares Jun had sent his direction the entire time Ms. Suk was on the phone.

“So, is your family new to the neighborhood like us? Ms. Suk asked.

“We’ve lived here since I was in kindergarten.” Todd said with a glance towards Jun.

“Weren’t you one of the kids who took the placement test the same day as Jun? I had to ensure Jun took the test, and I remember red hair.” Ms. Suk said. Jun muttered something in Korean that Todd didn’t understand. What he did understand was the look that Ms. Suk gave him and the way Jun slouched in the front seat.

“Yeah that was me. I was transferring back to Fillmore. I went this school called Viltburg-” The car swerved as Ms. Suk looked back at Todd.

“You went to Viltburg? The really high end, snooty school? It’s one of the better schools in the district right?” she asked.

“Top school.” Todd said quickly. “I got the highest score on the placement test and got a spot at Viltburg. I went there...most of the year then had to change plans.”

“That must have been really rigorous.”

“It was, I took all honors classes at Fillmore and the regular classes at Viltburg were still difficult. Not to brag, but I developed a pretty good study system to keep an A average.”

“I can imagine...” Ms. Suk said, her voice sounded a bit dreamy. “All honors classes...A average...” She raised an eyebrow. The car stopped at a red light and she turned to Todd. “Too bad about the placement this year huh?”

“Actually I received the highest score again, but there’s no placement this year.” Ms. Suk could barely contain her laughter and slapped Jun’s arm with the back of her hand.

“This is what I told you about. I wanted you to make a nice friend with a good head on their shoulders. He can get your grades up and get you into Viltburg.”

“I mean, I don’t know about-”

“You two are going to study every day after school from now on.” she said. Jun slowly turned around. His eyes were wide and flashing and Todd thought he could see veins strain against his skin. Todd shrank back into his seat. “If we start with three hours every day, we can work up to five by the end of fall.” Jun’s eyes briefly flashed blue. “My son in Viltburg...maybe even better if I keep you both on task.”

“The placement spot is only available at the beginning of the year.” Todd said.

“Nonsense, you guys are going to push each other to such good grades, they’ll have to let you enroll. They’ll probably beg you. Ha.” Ms. Suk laughed. “That will show Connie. So proud of her son in Puma Scouts.” She snapped her fingers. “That reminds me, I found your scout brochure in the trash. I’m going to watch you fill it out and turn it in this weekend. You need an extra curricular to get into Viltburg.” Jun mouthed a particularly rude threat to Todd.

“Actually,” Todd said, “we’re already in safety patrol together. There’s a serious pre- and post- school commitment, along with field trip duties. Looks great on an application.” The car stopped suddenly and Todd’s face hit the back of Ms. Suk’s head rest. She looked at Jun and asked him something in Korean. Jun mumbled a response and looked away. Her mouth curled into small smile and Ms. Suk reached over to brush her hand through Jun’s hair. She leaned over and kissed him on the forehead.

“What did I tell you? If you be your best self, you’ll make plenty of friends.”

“Mom. Geez...” Jun said. He slouched in his seat as the car got back into motion.

“What about your other friend?” Todd asked. Jun immediately sat upright.

“Other friend?” Ms. Suk asked.

“Yeah Fi-” Todd was drowned out by the sound of Jun coughing loudly. Ms. Suk and Todd looked him.

“Sore throat.” he said.

“Oh. Well anyway, I’m talking about Finn from-” Todd said.

“Finnish...meatballs...from Ms. Baker’s food experience class.” Jun said quickly. “We were discussing Russian foods.” He looked at Todd and slightly shook his head. Todd furrowed his brow and tapped his chin.

“It’s Swedish meatballs, honey.” Ms. Suk said as they pulled into the driveway. “And Sweden isn’t...actually, I’ll let you cover that during tutoring.” Jun ran his finger across his throat and Todd nodded a gave him a thumbs up.

“That’s right! We were discussing it with your friend Finn, who is a good influence and definitely has not been given in school suspension.” Todd winked as Jun slapped his forehead. Ms. Suk frowned.

“Finn?”

“My imaginary friend.” Jun said. “Yup just another imaginary friend from an imaginary adventure.” As they sat at the red light, Ms. Suk raised an eyebrow.

“It’s a good thing you can start to put that stuff into the past now. Todd you shouldn’t indulge him.” she said. Jun turned to stare out of the window and sat with his arms folded the rest of the trip.

----------------------------------------

“You can’t give me the silent treatment forever. It wasn’t my fault. Todd said, his hands in the air. “Mostly.” he added. Jun continued to sit on the couch and stare out the large living room window. Todd was as impressed with the house from the inside as he’d been from outside. The living, far from stuffy, was well decorated with exotic lighting fixtures and very modern styled furniture; it reminded Todd of one of the decorating catalogs his mom liked so much.

“One: you’ve intruded on my entire setup. I can’t accomplish my goal with you as an extra pair of eyes and ears like some busy body warden.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Okay, intrude is a bit strong. You mom just got excited about Viltburg. Worst case scenario, a couple of study sessions and that’s it.” Todd said. Ms. Suk walked through the living room towards the stairs then stopped.

“Todd I found your school email, but do you use anything else for a calendar? The school only lets you fill in appointments until May, and I want to take advantage of the extra hours in summer.” she waved him off. “You know what, I’ll just make a calendar myself and add you both.” She ran upstairs.

“Only a couple of study sessions.” Jun said, in a mocking tone.

“She works impressively fast. I’m scared.” Todd said.

“You should be.” Jun said. “Which reminds me, two: you almost completely blew everything I’ve worked so hard to keep secret with your blabbing blabber mouth.”

Todd looked around. “How was I supposed to know she didn’t know about, well anything?” he said in whisper.

“That cough was code for ‘stop and shut up because my mom isn’t supposed to be aware of any of that’. It was pretty obvious.”

“I can’t believe I missed that.” Todd said with an eye roll. “This will all blow over.” Ms. Suk descended the stairs.

“Todd, I already told your father you’ll be staying for dinner, so we can order some workbooks and study materials.” she said as she walked back through the room.

“Do you ever get tired of being wrong?” Jun asked. Todd plopped down on the couch. Keeping an eye on Jun for Principal Park was one thing, but this was way too much. Tutoring anyone would cut into the precious time Todd needed to claw his way back to Viltburg; there weren’t enough hours in the day to get Jun up to speed.

The door to the basement opened and a girl emerged. She had raven hair which fell below her shoulder blades and wore a large sweatshirt with shorts. She looked a bit older than Jun and had a button nose with laugh lines around mouth. The girl stood in the living and looked from Todd to Jun with mixture of surprise and annoyance.

“Mom wants you to look in the garage for her good rice cooker.” the girl said.

“Why?” Jun asked. The girl touched her temples with her index fingers.

“I’m reading mom’s mind right now...oh wait, it’s obviously because she said so, dummy.”

“Why don’t you get it then?”

“Because there are spiders and because when I bring it to her, I might actually slip up and mention how I caught you sneaking out two nights ago.”

“You said when I did your chores yesterday, we’d be square.”

“Yeah, well now I’m adding this.” the girl said. She and Jun glared at each other, each face scrunched up in a frown.

“Fine.” Jun grumbled. The girl smirked as he got up and walked out the front door. Todd hurried to get up and follow him. As he passed by, Todd stuck his hand out.

“I’m Todd.” he said. The girl rolled her eyes.

“I don’t care.” she left him hanging and walked upstairs.

----------------------------------------

“Ahh!” Todd yelped and jumped into the air as he heard something rustle the grass. As walked around the house to the garage, Todd was so engrossed in developing a plan to get out of tutoring the unexpected noise startled him more than usual. He looked in his immediate area, but didn’t see anything. The end of the drive way and garage was close by, but the backyard extended further out. It was flat, with a few trees, which meant few places for a rabid animal to hide. Opposite the house was as slimmer patch of equally lush grass, along with silver chain link fencing. Todd furrowed his brow. The trash cans against the fence were knocked over. He didn’t remember that being the case when they arrived, it would have stuck out compared to the neat and orderly nature of the rest of the property, but there was no sight of any possum or creature.

“Knowing Jun it’s probably some invisible possum that spits acid or something.” Todd said. That was the other reason he had no desire to be stuck in the role of academic helper: Todd wanted nothing to do with whatever bizarre situation Jun would find himself in next. Todd still didn’t understand almost anything, and for the sake of getting back to his old life, he knew he didn’t want to understand.

The garage door was up as Todd arrived and he found Jun sitting on a box staring at the ground. The garage itself was quite spacious, large enough to fit two vehicles with florescent lighting overhead. Most of the space was occupied by lawn items, some bigger pieces of furniture, and cardboard boxes; Todd noticed a lot of the boxes were empty or at least were opened, except for a stack near the back corner.

Todd stood near the garage opening, unsure of how to proceed. “Shouldn’t we be finding the rice cooker?” he asked, and winced. Jun looked and shot Todd a blank expression. “Sorry I didn’t mean to sound like....it’s just your mom is really intense and I don’t think I want to see her angry.”

“Have at it.” Jun said. He sighed and returned to staring at the ground. Todd couldn’t find the right thing to say. He didn’t know Jun that well to come up with the perfect remark to lighten the mood, a fact which became a source of anxiety for Todd; and while he suspected a lot had to do with whatever happened with Finn, Todd had even less idea what had gone on between those two. Todd cleared his throat.

“Any idea where to search?” he asked. Jun continued his silence. Todd stepped over a lawnmower and made his way towards the only undisturbed boxes in the room; it made the most sense to look where nobody had looked yet. “I don’t entirely understand what’s going on but if you ever want an ear to listen...”

“I don’t.” Jun said. “I neither want or need that.” Todd held his hands up.

“Just an offer.”

“You wouldn’t get it. To go through all that stuff and then just walk away? You would have had to actually been there to understand why it...why that sucks.”

“That’s true.”

“Of course it’s true. I couldn’t even begin to list all the times we were in the thick of it, Finn, me, a few others, and we get split up. How fair is that?” Jun asked. He continued to look at the ground, but his face was in a scowl. “No to mention all the trouble I went through to set up the escape, it’s not like mascot costumes grow on trees.”

“Yeah, I was going to ask how you acquired that.”

“You just throw it away. Throw everything away. All that time and effort, all our pasts and have the nerve to talk bad about the others? And tell me what? Just let it all go? Try and settle here?” Jun turned around and sneered at the house. “They don’t get it. They just try to hold me back.” He started to breath heavily. “I was...so close...we were on our way to making everything right again. Just like it used to be, and now...” Jun wiped his face with his hands and ran his hand through his hair.

“Wow.” Todd said, quietly. It wasn’t the most profound reaction, but he was truly stunned. Between what Jun said and the surprising level of openness, Todd was floored; he had also started to feel a bit out of his depth. “I-”

“And here you are to just be the cherry on top of this crap sundae.”

“Ouch. You could try being less of jerk, did you ever consider that? Maybe that’s why Finn left.” As soon as the words left Todd’s mouth, he regretted every last syllable. “Sorry. That was...sorry.” Jun stared at Todd, his eyes were narrowed and his jaw clenched. Todd sheepishly smoothed out his shirt. “I’ll just search over here and make an excuse to get out of here.” He turned around and grabbed the top box from the stack.

“Wait!” Jun shouted but Todd already ripped the tape of the flaps. He held the box in his arms and turned around to face Jun, his brows furrowed.

“Is this your stuff?” Todd asked. One the side of the box someone had written ‘Jun- bedroom 1’ in marker. Looked at the rest of the stack and saw that they were all labelled in a similar manner, from two up to eight.

“Give me that.” Jun said. He stood up and snatched the box away. Todd looked across the garage and saw another box labelled ‘Yu-Mi- bedroom’

“Have you not unpacked at all?” Todd asked.

“That’s none of your business.” Jun said. “It also won’t be necessary.” He tried to readjust his hold on the box in order to put it back on the stack, but it slipped from his gripped and dropped to the ground. It fell on its side and the contents spilled out. Jun rushed to clean it up but Todd was already looking at what fell out. He tilted his head.

“Is that-” A loud crash against the door at the back of the garage stole the attention of both boys. They looked at the door, then at each other and back at the door. Todd took the first step forward and Jun followed with his eyes starting to glow.

Todd reached the door and grabbed the handle. He looked back at Jun who nodded and took a deep breath then pushed the door open. Todd’s jaw dropped.

“Viktor?”