Chapter Six

[SHOUT TO ENES AND DUKE YORK!]

As I ate, I thought bitterly about our current predicament. Now that I think about it, we are in a difficult situation.

Two weeks ago Roman was sick and we took him to the doctor. The money was spent at that time and we are currently facing a financial problem...

Luckily it was the end of the year and I will get my bonus and 13th month salary! Woohoo! Yay!

I regained my composure and happily ate the cake. Eating cake in the morning was quite heavy, but for a starving man like me, I will eat anything as long as it is edible.

-- Knock knock.

Suddenly there was a knock at the door. My wife opened it and as expected, the landlord was standing in the doorway.

"Mrs. De Guzman. Good morning."

The woman looked old, in her 50s. She had a big belly and was carrying a basket.

Penelope greeted her with a smile, and Mrs. De Guzman greeted her with a smile as well. However, we both knew the reason why the landlady was visiting us.

Penelope left the house and closed the door.

I heard some of their conversations.

"Penelope, let me get straight to the point, when are you going to pay the rent? You're two weeks late. If you add the electric bill and the water bill, it would be about 2500 pesos. I don't want to sound like a bad guy, but you have to pay."

"Yes. Mrs. De Guzman, my husband will have his salary this week and I will certainly pay you."

I sighed as I listened. Sometimes life made our lives harder.

"I understand. How's Roman? I have fruit here, you can give it to him."

Mrs. De Guzman may look bad, but she was actually a nice person. She helped us when we had no place to stay. I have a lot of respect for her.

"T- Thank you Mrs. De Guzman but I have to refuse."

My wife was overwhelmed and tried to return the basket to the landlord.

"Take it or I will force you to pay me right now."

"T-thank you very much."

My wife reluctantly accepted the gifts. She felt guilty that we didn't pay the rent on time.

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"The child is still young, so you must feed him healthy food. Don't worry, I'm not angry. Just make sure you pay."

"Yes, I will, Mrs. De Guzman."

"Oh, and give Sophia some fruit too. I think she can eat solid food now."

"Thank you very much."

Penelope said goodbye and returned to the house. She smiled and placed the basket on the table.

"Wow! Lots of foohd!"

My little girl clapped her hands excitedly.

There were bananas, apples, oranges, and strawberries. Strawberries were quite expensive in our country, but Mrs. De Guzman bought them for the kids anyway.

Penelope looked at me and we both smiled.

"We really have to pay Mrs. De Guzman."

"Yes, I feel guilty. Don't worry, in two days I'll get my salary, bonus, and 13th month. We will have a lavish Christmas."

I said and hugged her.

"Mommy and Jajjy, flirty flirty!"

Sophia said adorably and Penelope and I both laughed.

As for Roman, he was just staring at my phone, playing Snake. He just glanced at us and then went back to his game.

"Let's see, what do you want to eat?"

I said, opening my wallet.

"You have money?"

My wife asked, raising her eyebrows. I just laughed and realized that I have 1,000 pesos in my wallet.

If you convert it to USD, it was about 20 dollars... That's all the money I have left. But since I want to make my kids happy, I'm willing to spend every cent in my wallet.

"Sophia wants cake!"

"Honey, we just had cake yesterday. It's bad to eat too much sweet."

Penelope pinched her cheeks, but Sophia just looked at me innocently. Then her bright eyes turned red as she shed tears.

"Wuwuuwuu, Jajjy don't wuv me!"

... Ugh!

It hurt so much that I clutched at my chest.

"Th-then I guess we'll eat cake-"

"Honey, don't you dare."

My wife glared at me and I froze.

"As always, you are weak before your daughter's tears. Can't you see that Sophia is just acting?"

Penelope wiped away Sophia's tears and comforted her.

"Sophia, if we eat cake now, we will not eat candies for the rest of the day."

"Why?"

"Because it has too much sugar. So you have to choose between the two. What do you want? Cake or candy?"

"... Candy."

She sulked and looked down. She held back her tears and stopped crying. She liked the candy more because she could lick it longer than the soft cake.

The cake was more delicious, but the candy lasted longer and she could suck on it.

"What about you Roman, what would you like to eat?"

"Fried chicken."

... My children were quite fussy about their food. Just like normal kids, they don't like vegetables.

Roman would eat them, but of course he prefers meat over vegetables. As for my little princess, she would throw a tantrum if you fed her green leaves.

"Then I will buy chicken and sweets."

"Be careful."

I left the house and went downstairs. We live in an old apartment building built almost four decades ago, our unit was on the 2nd floor.

There was a wet market near our apartment and it only took five minutes to get there.

"Excuse me, how much is a kilo of chicken?"

"Customer, that would be 49 pesos."

"What?"

"Customer, that's already low. You can't buy chicken for that price in other stores."

The seller probably lied. You can find chicken in other stores for the same price, maybe even less.

But I'm not shocked about that... No, I'm shocked about the price, but for a different reason.

I know things were cheaper back then, but I never expected it to be this cheap! Is it because I live in 1999 in a different world? Maybe this parallel universe was much better compared to my old planet.

I ended up buying a whole chicken for 60 pesos. That should be about 1.2 dollars when converted.

[Note:]

[I can't find the exact prices of products in 1999, so I decided to price them reasonably but lower. However, it's obvious that products were cheaper back then. As of right now, the price of a kilogram of chicken was 180-220 pesos. Damn... Fuck inflation.]