Chapter 44

In an attempt to draw the officer's attention away from Toyo, Jae made to open his car door. Before he had even reached the lever, however, Toyo again spoke up.

"I mean seriously, do you even have a single reason for pulling up on us?Or were you just bored as you sat there in your car doing nothing?"

Forming his beefy right hand into a fist, the cop rested it on the hood of the car as he leaned into the car window until he was less than a few inches from Toyo's face.

Toyo didn't even blink.

"Alright, smart ass." The officer said through gritted teeth. "Here's what's about to happen." His voice began to grow louder. "I'm going to ask you to step out of that car one more time. Very politely, you're going to do what I say. From that point on, every time I address you, you're going to respond with either 'no, sir,' or 'yes,sir!'" He was practically screaming at this point. "Now get out of the car!"

Looking at his brother's face, Jae could see pure rage in his eyes, like flames dancing in a hearth. That was all he needed to know that Toyo was about to explode.

Grabbing Toyo before he could say anything else, Jae forced him to pay attention as he spoke. "Brother, calm down."

Then, as quickly as it had come, the memory was gone.

"Alright then asshole!" Toyo shouted. "Since I'm obviously too stupid to understand, why don't you explain to me what the hell your problem actually is? I'm over here trying to help you feel better and you just insist on acting like a fucking girl in the middle of her period."

Slamming the door into their room closed, Jae met Toyo's glare.

"I'll tell you what my problem is. You deliberately left instead of waking me up this morning because you knew what time the meeting was! You knew how serious I was about going, but you didn't agree with me, so naturally you just assume you're the one in the right, like always! I was oversleeping, you saw your out, and you took it without giving a damn about what I believe to be the right choice!"

Toyo looked dumbfounded. "Are you being serious right now? What even gave you that idea? Why would you think that?"

"Because that's the way you are." Jae forced himself to calm down. He hadn't meant to start yelling, but Toyo always managed to find a way to push the issue.

When Toyo didn't answer, instead crossing his arms expectedly, Jae continued.

"You always do this. You always think you're right. If someone has a different opinion, than to you they're just wrong, no questions asked. That's what I'm angry about…" He hesitated, closing his eyes for a moment before adding, "And the fact that you're keeping something from me."

Meeting Toyo's gaze, Jae waited to see what he would say.

"Listen," Toyo began, "Now that you've explained it to me, I get the misunderstanding here. Obviously we both feel pretty strongly about what course we should take, but just because I don't agree with you doesn't mean I think I'm right. I've been more unsure of myself this past month than I have our entire lives." He paused. "But I have no idea where you came up with me keeping things from you."

Jae lifted a hand, pointing at Toyo as he replied. "Don't insult me. I know there's something you're hiding. Every time we level up, you don't open your menu to apply the stats. Same with when we got our second skill slot. You never even mentioned what you decided on to me when we agreed on how I should get Detection-"

"That's not true." Toyo interrupted. "I told you I wasn't sure what I should get, and later I figured it would be smarter to wait until we knew more about the extra skills. We don't know if getting to a particular floor or beating a certain quest will give us some free skill or power that negates what we got early game. There's no respecing here man, and we can't afford a mistake like that."

Jae hesitated as he considered his brother's words. What he was saying made sense. On top of that, it was true how unsure Toyo tended to be with making character choices in RPGs.

"And I promise you," Toyo continued, sincerity lacing his words, "I did not know what time the meeting was, and neither did Naomi. We woke up and figured you'd want to sleep in." He smiled jokingly as he added, "I swear I've never gotten so much backlash for trying to be fucking nice."

Jae narrowed his gaze as he gave Toyo a final look. "I want your word."

Toyo blinked. "My word?"

Jae gave one solemn nod. "I want your word as my brother that you didn't know about the meeting, and that you're not keeping anything from me. God knows we can't afford to keep secrets from each other. Not anymore."

Toyo rubbed the back of his neck with his right hand as he looked down the cobbled street.