Moving out

Back in the Higgins household, it was more of a cheerful atmosphere since their son came back. Meanwhile, they didn't forget to apologize to Piers for their son's crude behavior. However, Piers said it's fine and that their son helped him yet again. At one point, Jamie and Martha thought that their son had bound Piers in some kind of spell which is leading him to say the same thing over and over again.

Nevertheless, once they invited the two in, Jamie went into the kitchen and reheated the Christmas dinner from the day before which they didn't touch because they weren't in the mood to do so. Once he brought the food into the living room, Piers tried to take himself out of the equation by giving out some excuse, not because he didn't want to eat it, but because he thought that it was the Higgins family dinner and he wasn't a part of the family. However, the three of them around him didn't allow him to do so and hence he sat with the three and had dinner.

Piers felt that the dinner was tasty. Although it wasn't groundbreaking of some kind and was a reheated food from the day before, it still had this feeling of home from the food. He complimented Martha for the wonderful food, however she wasn't ready to take one since the food was completely made by Jaime and she had no part in it. Piers didn't know about it but thought that he should have been aware of this since Jaime is the one who reheated the food as well. He felt bad for stereotyping the situation in his mind.

Anyway, they had all sorts of talk while they had the dinner including what they did last night. Even though Jimmy explained most of the stuff in detail, he didn't reveal that he was awakened. Piers noticed this, although he didn't know the exact reason for him doing so. He could round it up to two options- Jimmy was either embarrassed to have a power with a humongous amount of Karma which is especially useless or he didn't want his family to get into trouble since he met a high profile celebrity as in Santa freaking Claus and that guy revealed that he was in God's exclusive squad of ten awakened beings. The second made more sense to Piers even though he knew Jimmy was annoyed about the Karma stat. He thought that Jimmy might be worried to tell his parents about this since they might accidentally reveal it to someone and the rumor might spread like a wildfire. Therefore, in the end, Piers didn't reveal anything as well.

Towards the end of the dinner, Jimmy suddenly slammed his spoon to the table, making everyone turn towards him. He took a deep breath in. "I've got something to say to you guys!" He proclaimed. Piers immediately thought that he was gonna reveal his awakened power even though five minutes ago he made theories as to why Jimmy might not want to reveal it. Now that it seemed like he was gonna do so, he threw his theories into trash.

"What is it, Jimmy? Something happened to you lately?" Piers asked with a smile on his face, as if signalling to Jimmy that he knew his announcement. However, Jimmy clearly ignored this smile and looked at his parents instead.

"I'm leaving this house." He replied, much to the surprise of all three around him.

"But you just arrived here!" Martha retorted.

"Mom, I'm not talking about a one day leave of sorts. I'll stay out for at least one month." He replied.

"Hmm, what's the reason?" Jaime looked serious as he asked.

"Well, I've been suspended for a month as you know. And if I'm to stay at this home, I would just… stay here, I guess? Like, right now I just got a part time job at X-mall and all. I'm afraid that if I stay here, I might just go back to my delinquent ways or something." Jimmy replied. Even he was unsure about what he was saying.

"Is that so? Where are you gonna stay?" Jaime asked.

"Umm, well… Piers lives alone. So I will crash in his house." Jimmy replied.

"But wouldn't that cause Piers problems? I haven't seen you do any kind of job when you're in this home. If you're gonna be like that around Piers, he might have to take care of two people. Have you thought about it?" Jaime asked. The atmosphere was so intense that Martha let Jaime do all the talking.

"Oh, I'm fine with that though…" Was what Piers was saying. But, the atmosphere of the room didn't allow him to raise his voice one bit.

"I'll try my best." Jimmy spoke.

"Huh?"

"I'll try my level best to help him in household work. I might suck in it, but what's the harm with trying?" Jimmy shrugged.

"You sure about that? Are you completely sure that you won't ditch it halfway saying that it's hard or some lame reason like that?" Jaime asked.

"I won't. I promise." He spoke with conviction.

"Hmm. Well, might as well help Piers rather than loitering around in this house, right?" Jaime sighed, basically giving permission to his request. Seeing her husband supporting the decision, Martha tried to go against it, however Jaime grabbed her hand under the dinner table, asking her to stop. Although she didn't know the reason behind it, since her husband asked for it, she reluctantly agreed to his request as well.

The rest of the few minutes were really awkward and the one who felt it the most was the outsider Piers. He was fine with eating food alone or around bustling people, but this silence was totally uncomfortable in this scenario where three people were around him. However, he worked his way through and completed the dinner and quickly left the dinner table.

Jimmy was the next to follow. Before exiting, he said that he would be in his room, packing his clothes. After that, there were only two people left at the dinner table. Martha and Jaime didn't talk for quite a while. Hell, they didn't even touch their food after Jimmy's announcement.

Finally, Martha broke the silence. "You know he's lying, right?" Martha asked.

"Huh?"

"What he said. He's lying… Or at least, he's hiding something from us." Martha replied.

Jaime thought for a while. "Hmm… Maybe. That is a possibility." Jaime nodded his head in agreement.

Seeing Jaime being nonchalant about it, Martha got furious. "If you knew about it, then why did you let him go, huh? What do you think will happen if he's to get in some trouble because of this?" She asked.

"You really think that Piers would let him do something like that?" Jamie asked back.

"Piers? We just saw that kid today! And he seems to be in Jimmy's clutches or something. You're gonna trust a kid with our son? What's up with you today?" Martha asked.

"Hmm, if you're not gonna trust that kid, then how about trusting your son then? Don't you trust him?" He shrugged.

"Absolutely not. Especially since I know that he lied to my face." Martha replied, clearly frustrated by her husband's carefree attitude.

"Well, it's not like I trust his words as well…" Jaime sighed.

"Then…"

"But I trust his eyes. I don't think anyone's eyes have the capability of lying. His eyes asked me to trust him with this. So, yea I'm trusting him on this decision. I don't think he's going through the same path as before, Martha. I believe that he's changing… For the better." Jaime explained his stance on the matter.

After hearing Jaime's side, Martha could do nothing but sigh. "You really believe that, don't you?" She asked.

"Well, there's nothing wrong in trusting your child. So, yea. I do." Jaime replied.

"Hmm,well count me in as well." Martha smiled.

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After the dinner, Jimmy headed straight to his room to pack whatever he needed. While heading to his room, he saw Piers waiting for him. "Hey, Jimmy!" Piers called for him.

"What is it, Piers?" He asked.

"Why did you not reveal the truth? And why leave your home?" Piers asked back.

Jimmy sighed. "Are you really asking me that? You know why, don't you? I don't know anything about the system that I have. So, I want to learn a bit about it. I wanna level up; even though that's eons away. And if I have to level up, I gotta get out of here and walk around at random times. I don't know how I can get them missions. So, yea. Still got a lot to understand. And until I understand it to its full extent, I don't wanna reveal anything to them or stay near them. I know this is the Santa system and all, but what if it somehow let's something explode or something just to give me a mission or something? I don't wanna put them in danger." He replied.

"So, you're fine with me being injured from the blast?" Piers asked.

"Well, you are the one who chose to be my helper. If you're getting blasted, that means you bear responsibility for getting yourself out of it! Simple as that." Jimmy replied to which Piers simply shrugged as he followed him to his room.

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