Key of Souls: Twisted Wonderland

Chapter 25: A Promise to my Mother

3rd POV

The sun was setting as Dawn, Deuce and Grim were walking down Main Street, along with her new plush friend Perry on her shoulder. The two teenagers were carrying their bags of items back to the kitchen to complete their tart for the Unbirthday Party.

"That store was crazy.", Deuce said.

"That's definitely not your everyday student store.", said Dawn as she readjusted her arms to properly carry her bag. "Kyu.", Perry squeaked as he noticed her struggling a bit.

"Tssk. Stingy Deuce.", Grim grumbled at Deuce.

"Who are you calling stingy?", Deuce snapped back. Just before he could say more, he noticed that Dawn was having trouble carrying the bags with the canned fruit. It was heavy, but she thought it wouldn't be too much of a problem. He quickly went over to her and said. "Hmmm. Dawn, that bag of cans looks pretty heavy. I'll carry it."

"It's okay Deuce, it's not that heavy and it's no big deal.", Dawn said as she shook her head. But Deuce wouldn't hear of this and took the bag from her. "Don't worry, I'm used to carrying heavy stuff.", he told her.

"Do you usually buy a lot when you go shopping?", Dawn asked him.

Deuce shrugged his shoulders and let out a sigh. "Yeah. My mom always buys more than we need during time sales, and I get stuck carrying all the heavy stuff. Since I'm the only boy, it was my job to take care of anything requiring strength... Oh, my bad. I've been talking about myself.", he said with a light blush on his cheeks.

Dawn lightly smiled at him and told him, "It's fine. I think it's pretty great how you're helping around the house. You must really care about your mom to do so much for her."

Deuce looked away at her with a solemn look and said, "...That's not true at all. I always made mom...". Just as he was about to explain, he felt something bump into him really hard. "Ooof!", he went. A loud cracking sound was heard as well. "Aaah! The eggs!", Grim shouted as he saw the bag on the ground. The teens looked down and saw how several of the eggs were now broken and made a gooey mess all over. "Shit, half of the eggs are destroyed! There's egg all over the bag...!", Deuce said.

"Hey, you! Watch where you're... wait... You're the fools that wrecked the egg in my carbonara earlier.", a familiar voice said. When the first years turned around to see who it was, Dawn felt like a big lead fell into her stomach as she recognized who it was. To their displeasure, it was the two delinquents who gave them trouble at the cafeteria.

"It's you guys again. You can't catch a break!", the red-head delinquent said. Deuce just stood his ground as he gave the two males a stern look as he controlled his anger. "You were the ones who jumped out from behind the corner. At lunch, it wasn't like you couldn't eat the egg anymore but you still came to pick a fight... Just now, you destroyed half of our eggs.", he told them.

"Yeah, that's right!", Grim shouted in agreement.

"And? You sayin' it's our fault?", the silver-haired delinquent questioned him as he got close to Deuce's face with a smug smile. But Deuce didn't break eye contact with the teen as he said with a cool tone, "Yes. Please pay for the eggs. And please apologize to the chickens, too."

"Chickens?...", Dawn muttered.

"Hmmm~? You're getting all worked up over eggs.", the red-head delinquent asked mockingly. Deuce narrowed his eyes at him after his comment. "Huh?", he went.

"They didn't hit the ground, right? Don't sweat the small stuff.", the silver-haired delinquent arrogantly said. "We saved you the trouble of breaking them!", the red-head goaded him. Deuce just glared at the two of them and was about to talk back when...