Brothers? - SBI Orphanage AU

Chapter 6 - Oh no

(A/N: To be clear, there are no ships in this story whatsoever. This is absolutely not a... what would the ship name be? Philnoblade? Techza? Idk. But it's not that. This is actually a SBI fic, I've just been taking my time to get to the other SBI members. Anything that looks somewhat shippy in this is just them being... or I guess becoming good friends.)

-Phil's POV-

I was soon to learn that Hound didn't learn his lesson from running away the first time. He continued to run away every month or so, and every time Techno told me I had to find it because Hound is "my dog". To be honest, I don't really mind. Like I said, it only happens every month or so, and if spending a few hours looking for Hound makes Techno less grumpy all the time, then it's worth it.

Techno hasn't really started to spend more time with me, but we got into an arrangement where whenever one of us has to get the groceries, we both go. Techno carries the bags, and I talk to the cashier, and whoever's chore it's actually supposed to be gets to keep the change. We still don't walk together though, we just meet up at the store and right before we get into the orphanage.

Also, school has started. During the summer, I made a considerable amount of money since I worked on average 5 days a week, 8 hours a day. Obviously there were some days I didn't work because one job would end and I'd need to find a new one, but I'd also find weekend jobs to do so it balanced out.

Now that school is in session, I have to content myself with working 3 hours a day, 2 days a week plus 6 hours on Saturday. Each of those shifts are at different jobs, the Saturday one is a building/repair place, and I work at an after school program for the other two days. It does mean that I need to pay attention to getting my homework done quickly so I have time to sleep and also work, and it does take up a big portion of my weekends, but I don't mind. I'm saving up money so that I can get myself to college and I can buy a house when I turn 18 and leave this orphanage. No one ever gets adopted here, so that's not really something I need to consider factoring into my plans. I also want to have extra so that if something comes up, I will actually be able to deal with it instead of needing to give up my plans.

(1.)

But enough about my job, you're probably interested in school itself. Because we all know how interesting school is. Neither Techno nor I know anyone at the school because we used to live too far away before we ended up at the orphanage. Techno spends his lunches in the library, reading or doing homework. On the days that I work after school, I also do that so I don't have as much homework to do when I get home from work at night, and on other days I help younger kids with their schoolwork. I guess I understand how it is for some kids who don't have the best home life and can't ask their parents for help with the material. For example, one kid, Fundy, tried explaining what his parents are like and I got pretty confused because he used a bunch of figurative language.

"Phil," he once told me, "It's like my dad keeps my mom in a bucket in a chest all the time."

I don't know what that means, so instead of trying to be a therapist and all that, I help him understand long division and other school stuff. We also just joke around about stuff. He calls me old because I'm in high school and he's only in elementary school, so sometimes he jokes that I'm like his grandpa. It's a lot of fun, and I'm also hoping it will look nice on a college resume, but if not, I'll still be glad I did it.

Techno went to this thing where you fight, dodge things, do obstacle courses, etc and the person who does them the best wins money. It's kind of like a sport, but when people pay to watch, some of the money goes to the winner, and some to the place that runs it all so they can keep making the obstacle courses, arenas to fight in, etc. And the fights are like boxing kind of. I think. I'm not really sure, I only went to one and I was confused a lot of the time. But even though I'm confused, Techno is really good at it and wins them a lot of the time.