The Bond

Ch 20

"Bold."/"Bold italic" : animatronic is talking/animatronic is talking in mind

"Normal."/"Normal italic." : human is talking/human is talking in mind

=o^o=

That day the two of them went to his house to repair the hole in the ceiling of his house.

Michael sometimes winced at the expression Mark had on the first time he saw the hole; dumbfounded and gawked, speechless for a few moments. Michael just laughed awkwardly when Mark looked at himself quickly and asked for further explanation (but in the end Michael answered it was the work of a thief).

It took a few hours to fix at least almost the entire gaping hole in the ceiling, considering that they both only knew the basics of fixing things with tools. Then they decided to take a break.

By now Michael was pouring cold soda into two glasses—he'd left the rest for Ennard or the animatronic would sulk for days and that was really annoying—because the weather was pretty hot. Mark came into the living room a few seconds later and sat on the sofa with a heavy sigh.

"Your house is so quiet," Mark said quietly, picking up the soda glass on the table.

Michael shrugged. "It's only me here."

"Don't you have a younger sister? Where is she?"

Michael's gaze dropped. "Elizabeth ..."

Already died. He had seen it with his own eyes as the claws of the machine pulled his little sister inside.

"... probably taken away by my mother." Michael finished his sentence with a small grunt, though he bit the inside of his cheek after that. "Then ... you know what happened to Evan."

No one spoke for minutes.

Of course, the tragedy left a deep wound on Michael, a memory that even the two of them could never erase. Michael always blamed himself, he hated to have done that to the youngest.

However, as usual, regret comes at the last moment.

Michael saw Mark staring into the contents of the glass with a look that couldn't be interpreted so clearly. Maybe Mark was thinking back to the past, as he is today. The end of the four delinquents who often make trouble is closed with an unexpected, traumatic case. How can a teenager think like that, even though he already has an awareness of which things are good and bad?

Michael is blinded by pent-up jealousy. The outpouring of anger made those days worse. He was haunted by crying every night.

"By the way."

Mark decided to speak.

"I still can't believe someone tried to break in and fell from the ceiling." Mark frowned at Michael, causing Michael to sigh and grinned awkwardly. "Then you didn't hear that at all."

"Because I was working at the time," Michael replied.

"At midnight?"

"Yes."

"What kind of work?"

"Yes."

Mark's eyes twitched in annoyance at Michael's casual reply, but Michael didn't really care. "You like to keep things a secret now. From your eyepatch to this."

Michael rolled his eyes bored of hearing that. "You're still as pushy as you used to be," Michael replied. "I wouldn't be surprised your new girlfriend would dump you in a week if you keep pushing her. Or if I tell her that her boyfriend flirts with his ex sometimes."

Mark glared at Michael, his cheeks flushed. "I'm not—teasing you—"

"I never said it was me, you said it yourself. You do realize you are a playboy and must have had a lot of exes, right?" Michael looked at Mark with his eyebrows pulled up, his expression didn't seem at all impressive seeing Mark grit his teeth.

"Forget it," Mark said irritated, Michael snorted a little. "Anyway, I saw that Evan's bedroom door was open. What were you doing there when he was gone?"

Michael's eyes went wide, without a word he immediately left Mark and jogged towards his sister's room—the door was indeed open. Michael choked; there's no one there. Did Ennard enter this place? Michael stepped inside slowly, then his shoulders slumped and he groaned in pain at the old memories as if attacking his head. Michael covered his face with both palms. He tried to forget all the dark things that had happened in the past.

"Afton."

Michael gasped, quickly looking up—Ennard's glowing robotic eyes could be seen through the half-open air duct cover. "Wha—hide!" Michael said, trying to keep the pressure off his voice. "Mark could have seen you!"

"Oh."

"Seriously." Michael wanted to grumble at Ennard's super curt and unconcerned reply. Then Michael was silent for a few seconds. "Did you enter this room earlier?"

"No."

"Don't lie." Michael narrowed his eyes at Ennard. "It's just me, you, and Mark here."

"Then why do you ask?"

Michael groaned in annoyance. "Why did you come here?" he asked back and growled angrily.

Ennard didn't answer for a minute, Michael waited—not—patiently. "I'm just, curious."

The eldest Afton massaged the bridge of his nose tiredly, he exhaled tiredly and folded his arms in front of his chest. "Don't come in without my permission," Michael said in a low voice, he knit his brows together and pursed his lips.

Once again Michael sighed wearily, then looked away from Ennard and stepped out of Evan's room, heading back to where Mark was. Mark turned out to be standing at the end of the living room hallway, looking at the direction he was walking at this time. Michael brushed his brown hair into a mess, he wasn't sure what to answer Mark's question with.

"What happened?" Mark started asking. "I seem to hear you talking ..."

"My new habit, talking to myself." Michael cut Mark's words with perfunctory reasons. "Nothing happened. It seems that only the wind kept the door open, I forgot not to close the window."

Mark rounded his mouth. "Oh." Mark nodded in understanding. "By the way, looks like we have to continue tomorrow, I still have work."

Michael grimaced. "Sure, go home, I'll catch up later. Thanks for the help today, Mark," Michael said with a grateful smile, Mark returned the smile and patted his head again a few times—Michael was still trying to dodge but Mark was stubborn.

"See you later, Mike."

Nodding in response to Mark's goodbye, Michael waved a small hand at the man briefly from the doorway until Mark disappeared down a different alley. As soon as Mark had left, Michael immediately closed the door and leaned his back against it—for a few moments he felt calm because he was alone now.

Then a loud bang startled Michael out of his relief.

Michael immediately got up and headed for the source of the sound that startled him—he was panicking something had happened. Then he slowly realized that the sound was coming from the room whose ceiling he had just fixed with Mark.

"Ennard!?"

Ennard.

Ennard was standing in the same spot when he found the wreckage of the ceiling on the floor.

And he looked up; there was another, new hole.

"Ennard!" Michael shouted angrily. "Why did you break it again?! What are you thinking—gosh we just fixed it! What the fuck is wrong with you?!"

The animatronic stared at him without lowering his chin at all, and his arrogance only further irritated Michael. Ennard snorted, "I don't like him, he's annoying."

"Mark is not—that doesn't answer my question at all!"

"I won't change my answer."

"Ennard!"

Ennard paid no heed to Michael's protests and the other cursing Michael directed at him.