Brothers? - SBI Orphanage AU

Chapter 1 - Philza's Past

~Philza's POV~

-1 year before the story really starts-

"Why didn't you clean the house?! You literally stay home and do nothing while I make money for this family!"

" 'Do nothing'?! Just because I don't have a paid job doesn't mean that I'm not busy being productive! I went grocery shopping today, drove Phil to and from school and his friend's house, continued lessons for my online class, and made dinner for us! I just didn't have time to clean on top of all that!"

"Oh ok, so while I'm busy making money to help this family, you're busy spending it! Even Phil makes some money, and he's not even an adult! You're just being childish, wanting others to do the work for you!"

"CHILDISH?! How dare you!" (1.)

I sighed. My parents were always fighting. I decided to go downstairs and try to get them to stop, even though I'd tried almost every night for a long time and it had never worked. I guess I just never wanted to lose hope that maybe one day my parents wouldn't fight, that maybe divorce isn't inevitable.

"Mom, Dad, calm down. Do you really need to fight about this again?" I tried to remember what I'd researched online about solving conflicts. "How about you each calmly share your side of the argument and listen to what the other person's side is, so maybe you can both be happy wi–"

"Phil, son, I see that you're trying to help, but this really isn't any of your business. There wouldn't be a problem if your mom didn't refuse to acknowledge all of the work that I do at home. Even though I don't make money at a job, if I didn't buy groceries and make dinner for everyone, we'd have to spend a lot more money to go out to dinner every night!"

"Go to your room and do your homework."

I sighed. I'd already finished my homework yesterday so that I'd have time to go to my friend's house and to do any extra stuff that needed to be done. I finished cleaning my room, started my laundry so I could have it in the dryer before I go to bed tonight, and double checked that I didn't accidentally skip any homework or forget about a test the next day. I then kept an eye out for possible places that I could go to interview for a summer job when school lets out. All that being done, I let myself relax and play hardcore Minecraft before I goes to bed.

-3rd person POV-

11 months after the previously mentioned argument, Philza's parents finally got a divorce. Phil's mom wanted to get rich and marry someone else, and didn't want to be burdened with taking financial responsibility for a kid, even one that mostly takes care of himself. She also didn't think as many people would want to date her if she already had a kid from her previous marriage. Phil's dad didn't think that he'd be able to take care of Phil, given that he's busy taking an online college/university course to get a degree, and while that's happening will struggle to even be able to find time for a job to support himself. They ended up deciding to place him in an orphanage. That orphanage was mostly for older kids who were orphaned, so those kids were rarely if ever adopted. Rather, the orphanage would become their new home until they turn 18. All of these legal arrangements took around a month to complete.

A/Ns: I'll still put notes at the start of chapters sometimes, this section is just for notes that would otherwise have been in the middle of text. The notes refer to where the small numbers in parenthesis are in the chapter.

1. I really just didn't have a good idea for something to have them fight over, and I remembered that I've heard several stay home parents complain that people don't think they do work because they don't have an official job.

Chapter word count: 594

Total word count: 668