The Shadowed Neko (MxM)

Chapter 13

Chapter 13

Ren's POV

The move-in was much more stressful than I had initially thought because I had a migraine for the rest of that day. Having gone to bed early with the help of the bodyguards that I'd just met who put my bed together for me, they assumed it was their fault that I'd been out of commission until the next morning. Which, I suppose, was partially true in a way. Then again, the shock that my mom had given me also helped with aiding that migraine as well. I didn't even get to open that box she was talking about until the next day. But when I was finally able to, I hadn't expected what would've been in it.

After I grabbed a boxcutter, I fished through all of the boxes I had that littered the floor of my apartment. Since I had so many, the certain one that I'd been looking for had been caught up in the mix. Pushing and moving each one out of the way, it was just my luck that it was on the very bottom. Once I'd finally found it I didn't hesitate to rip it open. Pulling open the flaps, I slowly grabbed each item that I'd seen. New silverware, cups, plates, and bowls now littered my counter. But there were a few items at the bottom of the box that stuck out against the rest.

One, in particular, was a cup that had been bubble-wrapped to oblivion. Curious about why it was so protected, I carefully unrolled the bubble wrap off of it, and in my hand, I held a black mug that didn't seem special at a glance. That was until I'd turned it around. When I saw what was on the other side, a wave of emotions suddenly crashed into me almost making the cup slip from my hands. Quickly setting it down, I stared at it out of sadness and shock, "There's no way...I thought that..." I could only stand there speechless. Before I knew it, one whole minute passed before I finally had the courage to pick it up again.

Slowly moving to sit down on the floor, I just kept looking at it. In my hands, wasn't any normal cup. It was the cup that I helped make with my dad. Two designs were on it. One was perfectly drawn while the other was horribly crude without a shred of artistic skill. They were dragons, and for some reason, my dad had been obsessed with them. Of course, the dragon that looked awful was the one that I had drawn when I was maybe ten or eleven years old. I couldn't remember exactly when we'd made it but what I did remember was that it was the only ever mug that he would use.

Running my thumb over the slightly bumpy surface of the designs I could feel my bottom lip start to uncontrollably twitch. I...I thought that this was gone forever. When my dad had just passed away, my mom's drunken despair had gotten the best of her. There was one night she'd been in the kitchen and she had been breaking everything that she could. Anything that reminded her of Dad was just too painful for her to bear at the time. I originally thought that this exact cup had been caught in the crossfire because when I'd woken up that same morning I found pieces of what used to be a black cup on the kitchen floor.

I remember being so distraught that I didn't feel like eating or leaving my room unless I had to go to school and that went on for days. That was around the same time that the bullying had gotten much, much worse. Taking in a deep and shaky breath, tears finally started to run down my cheeks. I'm so relieved that it's still okay. Thank you, Mom. I'll take good care of it. As I closed my eyes, I bent over and rested my forehead against the cold surface of the mug. Tears were still streaming and dripping down my face but I didn't care.

The memories I had of making this cup with him were still quite vivid in my mind. I kept giving him shit about how stupid dragons were. He even kept hounding me to draw one and I kept refusing unless he drew one too. I'm still shocked to this day that he could actually draw. But to think that I actually said that my dragon was better than what he drew is still embarrassing to this day. Even I knew that was a lie back then because I think all I wanted was to finally beat him at something. He'd always win at everything, no matter if it was a video game or something as silly as racing each other. I tried to make everything a competition when I was younger because my pride was so childishly stubborn. To be honest, maybe it still is.