Chương 45: Failure

June was considering stabbing himself. The first Mother's Day with the Queen was simple and quick; June cared deeply for everyone there, so it was quite a pleasant celebration. But now he was in the waking realm, getting ready in his all right clothing instead of his best. It was almost time for the second Mother's Day celebration, and June was almost shedding tears of blood from how much he wished he were sitting with Lilia in the garden right now.

He really didn't like his family, his biological one; they forced him to celebrate with them every time, and there really wasn't any other way to describe it… Well, one came to mind actually.

'It's going to be a shitfest.' June by no means hated his mother or his father, despite the fact that he's been dead to him for almost as long as he could remember. He knew the lives his parents lived were horrible, and when they fled their homeland, they were riddled with problems. June's father wouldn't be attending; the man may be dead for all June cared. He was an alcoholic for as long as June could remember, but June never really hated him; he was more or less indifferent to him.

In June's twenty years alive he only saw his father sober twice, but his father basically drank himself into the ground for as long as he could remember, he knew little about his father's past, except a few horrible things, like how his twin brother and father had died when he was young which turned him into the breadwinner of his family from a young age, his mother wasn't a good person and ended up manipulating him for most of his life.

June's mother came from a fairly nice family, actually, his grampa was a pretty cool person, his grandma was also pretty nice, but his mother had been married away at the same age as he was now, and was forced to toil and live with a man who was deeply obsessed with his mother; his mother also hated her and in turn, so did his father. So after being married for a long time, her will and soul were whittled down to a hopeless husk of who she was now.

Well, as much as he gave them leeway for being bad parents, he really couldn't bring himself to hate them, despite how much of his life was taken from him growing up. Two people he really did hate, on the other hand, were his siblings; both had concerning tendencies, and both were horrible people who dragged June through muck so they could vicariously live their fantasies through him. June finally finished getting dressed, and his older brother had come to pick him up.

To his luck, his older brother ended up convincing some poor sod to marry him, and therefore, he had to mute some of his problematic personality when in the presence of his wife. June climbed into the backseat and put on a neutral face. He had worn the sling bag from the photo shoot and carried his wallet inside; he had a simple pair of black sweatpants and a sweater that accentuated his broad shoulders. June, of course, had his sunglasses on; he only had one pair from the photo shoot.

"You look like an idiot." June ignored his brother's comment. Out of the two people he hated in the world, he hated his brother the least. June saw him and saw him as a misguided fool who tried to have people look at him as cool.

'Crippling insecurity' His siblings seemed to obsess over what was cool; his brother, in particular, had a couple of cringy tattoos plastered on his body. Everything he wore, in fact, was branded clothing, and despite his baldness, he still pruned his head every day. The car ride was simply June looking out the window while his brother told him and his mother about how the government was working with this group and that group to make everyone impotent or something.

Over the years, June had realized that he didn't really need to listen; a simple 'yes' was all it took for his brother to keep arguing with an invisible force. June quietly ignored his yammering brother, oddly enough, despite his constant exposure to people who really hated minority groups. June never really understood why. His family itself belonged to a minority group.

Maybe in some weird way, his horrible family had pushed him to become something in the opposite direction, or maybe he was just another one of the sheep his brother hated. Eventually, the car pulled up to an all-you-can-eat buffet that his family frequented. It was cheap, but it was his mother's favorite place, similar to June, his mother also had a deep fear of going outside, especially to new places. June plucked the pointless seatbelt.

He was a Dreamer now, even if ten cars crashed into him, he would be fine, but wearing a seatbelt had become an ingrained healthy habit in cars. June opened up his sling bag, produced a small box, and gave it to his mother.

"Happy Mother's Day, Ama." She opened it and started tearing up when she saw the diamond-encrusted bracelet. June didn't really care for expensive things; if it did its job, then it was good enough for him. But his mother had grown up in a place where gestures of expensive things meant a lot, at least that's what June thought. He didn't know much about his parent's homeland. June awkwardly hugged his mother and then got out of the car.

He readjusted his glasses despite keeping his eyes closed; his brother walked up and patted him on his shoulder. If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

"Jesus, June, were you always this tall?" His brother's question was a valid one; it wasn't exactly common for someone the same height as you to suddenly grow three feet higher, but June, without looking, simply replied in a dry tone, muting the will imbued in his voice to sound almost as mundane as it used to.

"Yes" They walked inside and got a table for seven, and waited for his sister, her two children, and her disposable partner to arrive. Somehow, every time there was any celebration, either his brother or sister would come very late, provoke a fight, and then end the night on aggressive terms. June simply sat back, watched, and feigned idiocy when they asked him to pick a side. June waited 10 minutes and then went to get something to eat.

He would have normally pulled out his phone, but he was not ready for the new phone conversation that he had a feeling would eventually pop up. June grabbed a plate and walked around. His eyes were closed, but echolocation was enough to make up for it; he was even considering picking up another, or a few extra extended sense skills other than echolocation, due to its usefulness.

Ignoring the blatant stares, he heard hundreds of individual voices in the crowded restaurant, sometimes friends or family trying to convince someone else to strike up a conversation with June, sometimes voices of jealousy, and the regular conversations that he had nothing to do with, it was less of a willing choice to listen in since it was something deeply ingrained into his body even before his transformation, he was listening for signs of trouble, and things to avoid.

He grabbed some teriyaki meatballs, some sashimi, and California rolls from the sushi stand, some onion rings, and some fried shrimp. Not exactly a balanced diet, but he came here to eat what he wanted, not pretend to enjoy foods that he didn't like. June went back to his table and sat down, and quietly started to slowly eat. His brother was complaining to himself about his sister being late, and June's mother and his brother's wife seemed to listen intently, knowing this was the usual.

Funnily enough, it was usually the other way around; they were both culprits of this behavior. June didn't bother, though; he was used to their behaviors enough not to care. He simply sat and ate. His sister was a horrible person, how horrible exactly? horrible enough to think joking about killing his dog was funny. It wasn't a once-in-a-while thing; in fact, she made it a point that she would kill his dog one day. His sister had no real friends; she had two children, one was nine, and the other was born this year.

Somehow, despite having two children, she managed to chase away every decent person who made an effort to love her. Her current partner was a piece of work himself; he was a shameless fool, a real throwaway piece of trash. Her second child was his, while her first child was actually his brother's. They hooked up during the first partners funeral since that man died of an overdose. June really hated her beforehand, but now he was truly repulsed by her.

Surprisingly enough, the disposable partner she had survived long enough and was still with her. Oh, and not to forget, the man had his own children who were luckily not coming along with him today, he was the type of parent to just take others things to give to his children, and his children were the type to break others things with no remorse.

June truly hated his siblings, the idea of being in both of their presences repulsed him so much that he kept on eyeing the dull butter knife next to him, it wasn't a new behavior for him to have those types of thoughts in their presence, but now it was a pointless one, any injury he inflicted on himself would heal immediately, he truly had nowhere to run this time. Eventually, almost an hour later, his sister and her disposable husband arrived, and his two nieces also arrived.

His oldest niece wasn't too bad, despite having bad tendencies and horrible traits her mother had ingrained in her. June did his best to tolerate her downsides; the kid had plenty of bad influences around her already, and she didn't have many friendly faces to have her back, so June tried to be that firm rock since he knew her mother was a piece of work. His second niece was born this year.

June had put on a face of indifference when coming to this child; no, he didn't hate the child, he simply knew that the second he showed any affection, he would become the child's impromptu parent for when things went south. Despite that, he kept the baby in his peripheral vision at all times.

June was only twenty, but he ended up becoming a forced babysitter for the elder niece because he showed a little affection when she was growing up, he had a deep feeling that if he continued showing affection one day his sisters children would get pawned off to him one way or another, which was a horrifying thought to him, he really didn't want to become a parent before marriage, and he didn't want his early years to be taken away more than they already have, but at the same time if a situation did arise where he needed to take care of them, he would step up simply because he didn't trust anyone else to.

The meal went on merrily, in his head, of course. In reality, most of the meal had been his siblings arguing with each other. He sat. He ate. Every word his sister said made him wonder if she was a dreamer who imbued words with hate. She never said anything positive; every word either carried someone else's shameful secret or something hateful about someone else. June used to have a weak physical reaction to her voice; it used to feel like screwdrivers plunging into his ears and twisting violently.

Now, with his awakened body, his vision doubled, and his hearing got so sensitive as to hear every undulation of her hateful vocal cords, not to mention a series of other pains. Maybe this was why he survived the beast's ever-present influence; her voice hurt him more. June only held on by clenching his teeth and tearing his insides apart with his ability; the blood would be reabsorbed immediately anyway, so he didn't have to worry about a mess, but the pain made her voice fade a little.

And then she started talking about him, in fact the entire table started talking about him in front of him, they all speculated and imagined made up scenarios, they asked him who was bullying him, they talked about his secret love life, but at the end of every fantasy they made of him they always found ways to denounce him, call him a bum, a loser, useless. He found it funny how they would fantasize situations into his life, how their imaginations were treated like reality.

He had a job now, he had a lover now; they didn't know about his lover since he would rather kill himself than tell them. They did know about his job, though, and despite everything he told them, only a warped version made it through their cherry-picked minds. Before June's transformation, the only things that he would kill were the occasional roach or a mosquito attacking him; he never fantasized about hurting people, and in fact, he never did hurt anyone. He would rather be shot than truly hurt someone.

But his siblings' words felt like they changed him; his doubt raged in his mind, and he lost all his ability to remember that the only validation he needed was from himself. Still, even then, it was hard to make him angry; he had times when people almost killed him, but even then, he couldn't find himself angry, maybe because his brother had taught him growing up that men internalize their feelings.

He knew it was wrong when he was young, he knew that was stupid when he was young, but when someone tells you something again and again every day for years, it crawls into your mind and lays its eggs while you're unaware. He didn't care much for himself before; he didn't care what they said, only so much could hurt someone before their body gave in to itself and forgot what pain was.

And then they spoke poorly about his friends, the people in his life who had gone out of their way to make sure he was okay when they could. His mind seethed, but he remembered that he needed to be the bigger person. Then they spoke poorly about his dog, the one who was there during some of his loneliest days, when something happened, and it was too much to tell another soul.

His mind seethed more; his face hadn't changed from its stoic and blank self, but under the table, his fingers had bit into his palm, dripping recycled blood into a loop. He didn't do anything; he needed to be the bigger person. June stood up quickly, his face seemed calm and collected, if not for the blood dripping from his fingers. Absorbing blood was a conscious effort after all. June wordlessly walked over to the waiter, pointed at the table, and followed them to the front desk, where he paid for their meal.

Then he walked out with restrained tears in his eyes and biting his lower lip.

'I'm the bigger person… right?'