"Alright Aesop! We'll be back by nine, okay?"
"Don't break anything."
Seven year old Aesop nodded, clutching his soft toy. His parents stood by the door, Rosa smiling. They were preparing to go for work. The maid stood behind Aesop, bowing as the two left. The small child yawned and held onto the maid's hand as he watched his parents leave.
"Alright Aesop, let's get you cleaned up for breakfast."
He nodded, silently following after the maid. His tutor would arrive in two hours, so he could still have time to prepare. This was routine for him every day now. He would wake up, see his parents off at the door, shower and have breakfast with the aid of his maid, then prepare for his classes for the day. He never went to a public school as a child, so he never exactly had any friends to socialise with.
"Why can't I go to other schools?"
"Well..."
His mother had never answered that question. He was left with that question for two years, and eventually gave up pursuing it. He would be the only kid who never had any friends to play or have parties with. Even his birthday parties were lonely, only attended by his parents and a few maids.
When he went to high school, he begged his parents to let him go to a public school. They agreed, albeit a little unwillingly. It all was okay, and he did manage to make a few friends. That time, his parents agreed to let him continue studying in that school. However, the one thing that made Aesop so vulnerable was that because he had never socialise with people, he was overly naïve.
From the first day when his father drove him there in his Bugatti, people already knew he was loaded with cash. A lot of people flocked to befriend him, which startled Aesop. He decided to choose the nicer looking people, which really didn't make much of a difference. He found them quite nice, however. They gave him advice, hung out with him a lot and shared knowledge. But it was exactly because he was so naïve that he didn't see through their nice behavior.
When one of them asked for some money from Aesop, the male agreed almost instantly. He treated her in return for the amount of time they spent together, not minding at all when she bought the most expensive meal. When she told the others, they also did the same.
"Aesop! Aesop can we borrow some money?"
"Oh uh, sure!"
Day by day they would 'borrow' money from Aesop. He was so innocent he'd joked about it, saying that they were so forgetful and careless. The amount of money they wanted to 'borrow' was increasing each time until eventually Aesop went back home hungry one day, much to Rosa's concern.
"What's going on Aesop? Your money's been draining so fast lately..."
"You better not be buying illegal things."
Andrej looked over from his desk. Aesop shook his head as he bit into the food Rosa gave him.
"My friends have been borrowing it. They said they forgot and needed to borrow some to buy lunch."
"Two hundred dollars for lunch?"
Andrej looked at him sternly. His son looked down, not knowing what to say. Rosa hugged him, looking at his father with pleading eyes.
"It's sort of our fault for giving him so much money in the first place too..."
Andrej sighed and rubbed his temples. Aesop felt guilty, tears pooling in his eyes as he glared down at the floor. He didn't know what to say, and apologising didn't seem to help much in this situation either. Rosa pulled him close, patting him and comforting him. Andrej thought for a while before getting up.
"We'll send you to school tomorrow, same routine."
Aesop silently nodded before going back to his room. For the rest of the day, he lay there, wondering why and how he let this happen.
I was so stupid... How did I not notice?
He buried his face into the pillow and slept. He slept until his mother went up to call him down for dinner. It had been an awkward night between him and his father as they ate in silence. After that Aesop went to sleep once again, worrying about his next day at school. He didn't want to have to face those 'friends', but he didn't want to be lonely. Wound up by those thoughts, he cried himself to sleep.
The next day he went downstairs as usual, not uttering a single word to his parents. The maids found the overall situation very awkward, but dared not to ask. As they pulled up to his school, Aesop opened the door, muttering a 'bye', but did not expect Andrej to get out of the car too.
"Pa what are you-"
"Where are they?"
"Where are who?"
"Those people who owe you money."
"Pa please don't... You'll end up making a scene..."
Aesop's eyes darted over to a group of people by the door. Some of them were waving at Aesop. Andrej's eyes flashed as he scanned each of their faces, hand creeping under his jacket to his gun holster. His son grabbed his hand, shaking his head. Andrej huffed and dropped his hand.
"You'll not be coming to this school tomorrow. Now go have a nice last day here."
"But pa-"
He left without another word, leaving Aesop to stand by himself. The male sighed and walked over to his 'friends'. They seemed to be perfectly happy and oblivious to how Andrej had been glaring at them.
