Waking up the next morning, Kyle groaned and pulled the pillow back over his head. He’d stayed up forever trying to write a silly report for his grandfather, and in the end he wasn’t certain if it’d even pass muster. There were so many things that he’d left out of it, he wasn’t certain it’d be accepted. There wasn’t any video footage uploaded, no mention that he was playing a female, was a princess, and had a quest from the start to overthrow the elven kingdom. Even thinking about it made him groan even harder.
Glancing at the alarm, he’d awoken a few minutes before his alarm was set to go off this morning. Not in the mood to hear the incessant beeping, he groggily tossed back his covers and rolled up and flipped the switch off, before it ever even came on. Sluggishly, he got dressed without any enthusiasm and slowly trudged down the steps.
His mother was still in bed and hadn’t gotten up yet, since coming in from work late last night, and Kyle didn’t even bother to head into the kitchen to look to see if she’d left him anything for breakfast. He simply didn’t feel like eating anything this morning. Making certain to grab his house keys from beside the door, Kyle headed outside and slowly shambled across the yard to Sera’s house. The air was cold and chilly this morning, but the fresh nip seemed to suit his current mood, so he didn’t mind.
Getting at Sera’s, Kyle let himself in through the sliding kitchen door. Fanny was standing at the stove, cooking what looked like pancakes this morning, while dressed in nothing more than a thin pair of white lace panties and a cooking apron. Singing some little ditty to herself about blueberries and strawberries having a fight, she simply waved with the back of the spatula and didn’t bother to greet him this morning. Simply shaking his head to himself, Kyle walked on past as if he hadn’t noticed anything at all. Franklin could catch her and deal with her this morning; Kyle was simply too drained still to worry over it.
Getting at Sera’s room, Kyle didn’t even bother to nudge her like usual this morning; instead, he simply grabbed the blanket and tugged it off from her to begin with.
Sera was dressed in a long white nightshirt that covered her fairly well for a change, so Kyle didn’t even get to alleviate his mood by staring at her this morning. Feeling the cool morning air, Sera began to twitch and feel for her blanket in her sleep, and taking advantage of the opportunity, Kyle gently reached down and tugged up the bottom of the shirt she was wearing just a bit, until he could get a peek at her bare buttocks. Half smirking, Kyle slowly eased his hand up under the hem of the shirt and gave her a quick little pinch, using just his fingernails.
“Yaa!” Sera jerked and rolled forward away from him and rubbed her hip with on hand.
“Something wrong?” Kyle asked, trying not to smile.
“Something bit me,” Sera pouted sleepily, while still rubbing her backside. Slowly, she focused her sleep-filled eyes up and half glared. “Or else you did something.”
“Not me,” Kyle lied innocently, while going over and digging through her drawers. As he pulled out her school clothes, he simply tossed them over his shoulder and in her general direction. “Get dressed. It’s a nice morning outside today. Let’s take time and walk to school for a change. It’ll give us a bit to chat for a while this morning. There’s several things we should probably talk about.”
“Well fine.” Sera rolled out of bed, half snorted to show she was still irritated, and then pulled off her shirt and tossed it over past Kyle to land on the dresser. She quickly eased into the clothes he’d tossed her way, and by the time Kyle had repacked her drawer where he’d simply rummaged in it and messed it up, and folded up her nightshirt and laid it back neatly on the dresser’s top, she was mostly dressed by the time he turned around.
Not even bothering to wait for her to put her socks on, Kyle walked on out and slowly down the steps, where he could now hear Franklin in the kitchen with Fanny, the two of them chatting lightly about who-knows-what. “Hey guys, me and Sera are going to head on out this morning. It’s a nice pretty day, and we’re just going to walk to school. We’ll grab something to eat from the cafeteria there.”
“Well breakfast is almost done here,” Fannie yelled back from the kitchen. “If you guys just want to wait a few moments, you can eat here, if you want.”
“No thanks,” Kyle called back. “I was up late last night dealing with sending a report to gramps so I can get paid, and I’m just not in the mood to eat yet. Maybe after a nice walk in the morning air. ‘K?”
“Well, be safe out there, and watch so you don’t get ran over!”
Kyle half laughed to himself as Sera rushed down the steps to catch up. “Mom! We’re not three anymore!” She yelled towards the kitchen, embarrassed. “I think Kyle and I can walk down the sidewalk now safely! It’s not like we’re going to just jump out in front of the first bus or semi that comes speeding down the road doing ninety!”
Slipping her feet into her shoes, Sera grabbed her jacket and was putting it on as she headed out the front door. “Come on Kyle, let’s get on out of here.” Without bothering to reply, Kyle walked on out and shut the door behind him, and the two walked in silence close together for several moments just enjoying the morning air.
Finally, it was Sera who spoke first. “I might not be able to join you in Winter’s Tale for a while,” she said softly, with a sad tinge to her voice.
“Why’s that?” Kyle stopped walking and simply stared at her. “I thought you were having fun. Did they find out you’re playing a guy in game or something? Are they going to make you wait till that thirty-day period is up to restart as a female?”
“No, nothing like that.” Sera said, shaking her head from side to side. “In some ways, it’s a good thing. In others it’s not. Honestly, I don’t know how to feel about everything that’s been going on lately.”
Glancing around, Kyle gently took her hand and tugged on her to follow him. Whatever was up, it sounded serious in its own way, and standing on the middle of the sidewalk wasn’t any place to discuss such things. Pulling Sera along, he dragged her up the street and then down the side alley to where one of the small preschools were.
“Let’s talk here,” he pointed at the small teeter-totter, before going over and sitting down on one side of it. “It’s been ages since I’ve been on one of these things, and I don’t think we’ll bother anyone out here. We’ve got some time before school still.” Slowly Sera walked over and sat on the side opposite him. “So what’s up,” Kyle asked as he tried to balance calmly on the teeter-totter without going up and down with her.
“I honestly don’t know where to start.” Sera complained. “Last night was a complete and utter mess. Father and mother had gone out and bought themselves two V-RIGS of their own yesterday – somebody should come and install them in the house today! I tried to explain to him that he didn’t need three servers, that him and mother could connect to the game with the one in my room, but he didn’t listen! Or care! Or wasn’t smart enough to understand what I was saying.
“Whatever the issue, we’re going to have three V-RIG servers in our house now, and they’re all top-end servers like mine! That’s probably more than what the school would even need, if they decided to let every student there log into the virtual realm! It’s nuts!”
Half hopping up to shake her fist in frustration, Kyle’s side of the teeter-totter suddenly dropped and banged against the ground. “Yeouch! Careful there, don’t break me! I didn’t do it!”
“Sorry.” Sheepishly, Sera slowly sat back down and the teeter-totter rose back up to level out once again. “It’s just frustrating. I tried to tell Papa that the house probably isn’t even wired to handle that big a pull on it. His response? ‘Then we’ll just get someone to come out and redo the wiring on the house! That’s not a big deal!’
“AAAAAAH!” Half shouting, Sera shook her fist at the sky. “So now there’s going to be contractors rummaging around, tearing up who know what, and being a complete nuisance, for who knows how long! And while they’re at it, mom’s going to get the kitchen redone, and maybe the bathroom, and probably their bedroom. And we’ll probably need new furniture, and maybe a solitarium would be nice…
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“Who knows what the heck our house is even going to look like once she finishes remodeling! She even told Papa that it might be nice if he bought the house beside us and tore it down so we’d have extra room! There’s people living over there – our neighbors!”
“Do you even know them?” Kyle asked, trying to remain calm, while trying not to feel slightly jealous. He couldn’t help thinking that it must be nice to have so much money you can just buy out the neighbors on a whim. “Aren’t they that old couple who spends a lot of their time down where it’s warmer in the winter? They might actually be happy to sell.”
“That’s not the point!” Sera pouted, crossing her arms. “I was happy with where we were living, and with things the way they were. Now our home is going to become a war zone of renovations for the next year, or more!”
“It might not be as bad as you imagine it to be,” Kyle offered, trying to calm her down. “You know, if it’s too much of a hassle, you can always come and stay over at our place until things settle down. Mom won’t mind you staying in the guest room beside mine. You should know that. You’re always welcome, just like I’ve always been welcomed in your home. That’s what friends are for, to be there for each other when life gets annoying sometimes.”
“You best watch what you say,” Sera warned, “I might just talk you up on that offer. If they start ripping out the bathrooms and such, I’ll go nuts if I can’t even take a shower or anything!”
Laughing, Kyle just nodded. “Well, you’re welcome to come use our shower anytime – just so long as you don’t throw the soap anymore! That hurt!”
“Well, fine.” Sera snorted slightly and was silent for a few moments, before speaking again.
“And that’s not all either.” Sera sounded quite sad and disappointed. “I couldn’t talk Papa into staying and running the restaurant any longer. He said, ‘It was fun for a while, but now it’s almost like work. It’s time for me to move on and find something else to do.’ He’s not going to keep managing it, and won’t be opening it or cooking there anymore.”
“No more Franklin’s?” Kyle asked, shocked. “I know you’d mentioned that he had talked about shutting it down, but I thought you’d be able to talk him out of it. That sucks!”
“Well, that’s kind of the good and bad thing,” Sera said. “I couldn’t talk him into managing and working there any longer, but I did manage to talk him into not selling it or closing the place down.” Pausing and taking a deep breath, she continued, “Instead, Papa’s going to have the title put over in my name, and it’s going to be up to me to run it and manage it. The name might be ‘Franklin’s’, but the place is actually going to be ‘Sera’s’ from now on.
“And that’s why I probably won’t be able to play Winter’s Tale for a while. I’m going to have to do interviews, hire some workers, train them, set their schedule, and all that stuff! I’m going to have to deal with the suppliers, keeping track of stock and bills and all that junk as well! To be honest, it’s an almost overwhelmingly daunting tasks, and I don’t know if I’m up to it. But,” she confessed, “I want to try. I don’t want to see the store just shut down, and I think I’d like to see if I can keep it going.”
“Then keep it going. You’ll do fine with it, I bet!” Kyle smiled and gave her two thumbs up. “You’ve helped Franklin with the place for years now. You know everything there is to know about the customers, the food, and all that stuff. I think you’ll be just fine. And,” he laughed while pointing it out, “you know if one of the customers or employees gives you any trouble, Franklin will trample his way through every house between home and the store to smoosh the idiot like a piss-ant, with the slightest little call from you.
“Hell, as protective as he is, it wouldn’t surprise me if he doesn’t hire the mafia, three biker gangs, four private investigators, and seventy-six secret security guards to patrol every street from there to here! Remember when we were little kids – four or five years old – and that one brat down the street knocked us in the mud and stole our candy? I remember Franklin hired several security guards from that incident, and they weren’t even for us!”
“They were for the other kid and his family!” Sera laughed, just thinking about it. “I remember that. ‘They need security around them, to protect the people from their assholeness. I want you guys to keep them under a 24-hour surveillance, and don’t let them harm anyone else. If they try, stop them and call the police.’ Papa didn’t think me or you needed any security. It’s just that the other guy and his family needed to be watched so they couldn’t hurt any other innocents.”
“I kinda wonder what happened to them,” Kyle mused.
“Oh, that’s simple!” Sera answered. “They ended up moving, thinking that’d help them get away. They claimed father was harassing them, but it’s not against the law for a private investigator to park outside someone’s house, or drive down the same roads, or eat at the same places. You can’t even get a restraining order against them, unless they do something threatening to you. Simply sitting, recording, and writing down every action you do isn’t enough for the law to step in.
“But, it’s enough that the guy’s employer thought it was bad for business, so he let him go. The poor guy got fired, his wife almost had a nervous breakdown and ending up divorcing him, his kid got sent off to boarding school somewhere else. All because his son was mean to us, and instead of apologizing and telling him not to do it again, the asshole asked Papa what he thought he could do about it. As far as I know,” Sera admitted, “that poor sap still has half a dozen private security watching his every move. Papa’s like a dog with a bone; once he starts gnawing on something, he doesn’t let it go.”
“So see,” Kyle encouraged, “you have nothing to worry about. You’ll be just fine managing Franklin’s. And, if you look at it honestly, what’s the worst thing that can happen? You fail and end up having to close the store? Franklin was going to do that anyway! It sounds like it’ll be a great experience for you, to be honest.”
“Yeah, but I won’t be able to log in and play with all you guys for a while,” Sera pouted. “And how are you going to be able to keep up pretending to be me, where Heather is concerned? She’ll learn that I’m not really playing, before long, if I take over the store.”
“Then let’s just tell her the truth,” Kyle volunteered. “She ran around with William for a while and only ran away because he wouldn’t give her time to breath. I think we’ll be fine working together. It’s not like she’s going to be able to just run off and leave, anyway. She’s the one who destroyed the travel stones, we don’t know of any others nearby, and there’s no other towns or cities anywhere near us. For better or worse, she stranded herself in the middle of the deep dark forest with my character, and I think after our encounter with the named beast we ran into last night, she’ll realize she can’t get out of there without me.”
“Named beast?” Sera asked.
“Yeah, ‘The Tangler’,” Kyle answered and then hopped up and back off from the teeter totter, causing Sera to suddenly drop, bang onto the ground, and sprawl out backwards.
“Yeouch! What was that for!”
“Now we’re even; that’s for dropping me on my tush a few moments ago.” Walking around, Kyle slowly held out his hand towards her. “Come on. We’ve sat out here talking long enough this morning. After missing yesterday, we don’t want to be late. Let’s go, and I’ll tell you about ‘The Tangler’ on the way to school.”
“Fine.” Rubbing her hip with one hand, Sera took his outstretched hand with the other and slowly got up. “And, I’ll talk to Heather today and let her know who’s who in game. You guys probably won’t see us for lunch, but I’ll see you after school or in the morning, no matter what.”
“Won’t make me the least bit angry, you telling her,” Kyle admitted as he started walking on towards the school once again. “But for now, let me tell you about The Tangler….”