The Sun Burns Brightly With My Love For You

Chapter 10: Seymour Douner

Author's Note/Trigger Warning ⚠️: Implied underage drinking and getting drunk (though not actively shown), Underage smoking, Implied underage smoking. Brian's birthday is October 27th and the ages of each member of the friend group is as follows: Alana: 18, Brian: 17 turning 18 in 12 days, Seymour: 17 turning 18 in 2 and a half months, Mei: 17 turning 18 in April and Elias: 16. This chapter could be alternatively titled: The one where Charles has a figurative heart attack due to worry.
Enjoy!

"Detective Baranov?" Seymour asked.

"Yes Seymour?" The detective replied, eyes still focused on the paper he was reading over.

"I forgot to mention it in our last meeting but my Dad wants to have a meeting with you sometime this weekend. Sorry bout that but ever since my Mom died he's had this thing with seeing who the parents of his kids friends are. Sorry if it's an inconvenience to you." Seymour said.

"Nah, it's fine. It's only fair for a parent to be overprotective over their offspring when there's a serial killer on the loose. But, Seymour, do tell me, now just how overprotective is your father?" Detective Baranov responded, waving away any of Seymour's previous worries.

"Quite frequently to be honest. More than the normal overprotective parents in this town. A lot more than the other parents. It's kind of overbearing to be completely honest." Seymour spoke, furrowing his eyebrows at the very thought of how easily his father could start panicking for even the smallest reasons like when Lyde fell off the playground rockwall back in 3rd grade.

"Interesting. Well tell him to meet me at Riley's coffee shop on Saturday from 2:30 to 3:30... You'll be able to watch over my daughter as well as your younger siblings for an hour right?" Baranov asked.

"Yes, of course I can, I'm 17. Anything else?" Seymour responded.

"Nothing else, you're dismissed." The Detective replied dismissing his trainee with a single wave of his hand.

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Seymour stood on the shore of the lake near the docks (not the ones that were used by the public during summer, but rather the old, falling apart ones, that were strictly off limits due to safety reasons) and took a long drag of a Camel 99, staring at the clouds up in the night sky (don't ask where he had gotten it from, that's a secret).

His cousin Brian and best friend Elias had both been there too earlier, drinking (in the case of Elias and himself, Brian had always disliked the taste of alcohol) and smoking (all of them were doing that however) but Elias always got drunk faster than Seymour did (Elias was by no means a lightweight though) and Seymour's elder cousin by 2 months decided to do the responsible thing as the only fully sober one and walk Elias safely home.

Before the pair had departed however, his cousin had turned to Seymour, one of his hands wrapped around Elias' waist and the other placing Elias' arm around his shoulders to help the drunk teenager steady himself, and told him with his head tilted to the sky, "It looks like it's about to rain and it's getting quite late so don't stay out for much longer. I'll bet right now that Uncle Charles is pacing back and forth, worrying himself half to death because you haven't returned and it's the middle of the night."

"Yeah, Yeah, alright mister 'I was born 2 months before so I'm in charge' I'll make sure to get home soon. Oh, and happy early birthday Brian. 12 more days until you're an adult."

"Yeah, and thanks. Well... Better get sleepyhead over here home and then myself. My parents are probably also worried sick." He said, before slowly walking away with Elias.

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Seymour finally stopped spacing out when he felt a large water droplet land on his forehead. He looked up. It was raining. And heavily too. Seymour realized that his clothes were completely soaked.

'How hadn't I noticed that it was raining until now? How much time did I let slip my grasp.' Seymour thought.

Then the rain stopped. Confused Seymour turned his head to look back up only to see an umbrella shielding him from the rain's wrath. He looked beside him to see the person who was shielding him from the battering rain and, in turn, sacrificing their own clothes, was none other than Mei Wong.

Mei, along with Alana Pittman was a part of Elias, Brian and Seymour's friend group, however, both girls tended to stay away from the boys whenever they decided to smoke or drink due to not being interested in those things (which was a good thing; none of the boys wanted them to do drugs, it was quite hypocritical but they all deliberately chose to ignore that).

Mei also had the most obvious crush on Seymour, though it wasn't as if she actively tried to hide it or was oblivious to her own crush. And while Mei was pretty, smart, kindhearted, had a great personality and was his type, Seymour had delayed actually trying to make them anything more than friends.

Maybe, if Seymour could finally find justice for his Mom's murder, he could think about trying to date her, but until his thirst for vengeance was finally quenched he couldn't see himself in a stable relationship.

Especially not with someone like Mei. She deserved the world for all the shinanigins she had to deal with from the boys in the group and he knew that if he were to date her now that he would end up not being there for her emotionally and she didn't deserve that.

Mei must've known what he knew too, for she never tried to push him into anything that he wasn't ready for and always was there whenever he needed her. Like a silent and ever patient rock.

Mei said nothing. Then again she didn't need to, she merely gave him a soft smile, an invitation to stay at her house and sleep in a warm bed and get new, clean clothes and spend the majority of his future hangover away from his father so he wouldn't know what his son did. Seymour smiled back at her, accepting the offer.

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Seymour received some hand me downs from when Mei's older brother was his age and she then left to give him privacy while changing. When he was done, she was adamant that he take the bed and that she could sleep on the floor and while Seymour would've argued with her, "it's her room in her house so she should be able to sleep in her bed" if there was anything Seymour knew about Mei, it was that she could be very stubborn and headstrong when she needed to and it was practically pointless to argue with her once she got to that point.

Once he had gotten himself comfortable in the bed Seymour asked if they had to worry about her father.

"No." She replied, "He works night shifts and during most of the day he's asleep. Though we might have to be careful with my younger brother."

" 'kay." Seymour yawned, the alcohol in his system finally starting to get to the "sleepy stage" as he likes to call it.

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Seymour spent the next day with a pounding headache and constantly throwing up. Which meant he had to miss school and so did Mei because she was adamant on helping him through the worst of the hangover (something that Seymour was secretly grateful for).

When it was finally time for him to go home Seymour was secretly dreading it, knowing damn well that his father would be furious. A type of fury only parents could get, one born from a mixture of worry, fear and anxiety. He would get in serious trouble for dipping without a single word for a day. He would most likely be grounded for a year (though if his dad could it would be more like until he was 85).

Seymour turned out to be right because the moment he knocked on the door it flew open and his father was immediately on him, scoping every inch of his body multiple times to see if there was any sort of injury.

Once he was satisfied that there wasn't his dad's eyes immediately darkened and zoned in on his face and he did the famous "crossing arms and staring at you as if you've done this unspeakable crime" that parents have somehow managed to perfect down to a tea which makes you want to immediately get away from their field of sight but at the same time be frozen under the weight of their glare and feel all squirmish and terrible and makes it impossible to make eye contact with them and then he uttered two words in a tone that Seymour never again wanted to hear come out of his father's lips:

"You're grounded."

1411 words.