BXBX NOVEL Chapter 75: Answering a question Claire was too worried to voice out loud
But while the spreading rate of the rumors about what just happened was much faster than we could walk… it also meant that with every iteration of a person repeating the news, the truth about it would deteriorate just a little bit more.
That's why, while the rumors moved faster than the two of us could, by the time we reached the main crossroads of the district and took the turn for the road I formerly believed to be the main one, no one was paying us any mind anymore.
It wasn't because people didn't care about the troublemakers behind the drama… But by the time we took the corner, the details of the rumors had diluted to the point no one could tell we were the ones at the center of the talk of the night!
"Hey…" Claire tried to start some sort of conversation, but her voice broke and she turned her face away when I looked over.
Claire's expression was now that of reluctance, uncertainty, as if something was heavily eating away at her thoughts yet struggled to spark curiosity desperate enough for her to ignore the potential consequences of raising the topic.
"It's about my story, isn't it?" I asked, pretty much just for the sake of confirmation.
Claire turned her head back and looked up, only to escape with her eyes right away only to finally look at me with the corner of her eyes while still keeping her face away.
'Is it really that scary to bring up a potentially uncomfortable topic…?' I thought, before trying to imagine a scenario where I would be asking her about something that Claire was obviously uncomfortable talking about…
'Oh, I guess that's pretty normal.'
Just the thought of making Claire restless, especially with how little we actually knew each other, or how we were still in the process of laying the foundation for our relationship, was enough to make me fear such a faux pass could turn into a serious issue and a source of conflict down the line.
"Don't worry," I smiled, opting to take the burden I just imagined off Claire's shoulders and engage with the topic without having her ask about it. "While it's not something I would discuss with a stranger, it's not that I particularly mind talking about it.
And in all honesty," I sighed, "you and your father are owed an explanation…" I hesitated before putting on a small smirk on my lips as I gave the girl a side-eye.
"That is, assuming you didn't learn everything there is to learn about it when you did a background check on me."
"Huh?" Hearing this unfounded accusation, Clarie nearby jumped, her face going into a panic mode… Only to calm down when I just waved my head to dismiss her worries.
"I don't have any proof you guys actually went ahead and did it… But I'm not stupid either. While I don't really know the details of your relationship with your father, he didn't strike me as someone who would accept the kind of relationship we have right now…" I hesitated once again, only to roll my eyes and backtrack a little.
"Actually, I don't think he would allow you to have any kind of relationship with me without making sure I wasn't some sort of a piece of shit that just knows how to act in public. So, the only logical result of this line of thought is a high likelihood of a background check."
Claire's cheeks covered with a slight blush, only for the girl to then nod her head.
"Yeah, we ran a check on you…And well, shiver me timbers, there was hardly anything for us to learn from it."
This time, my mouth twisted into an annoyed grimace.
'He's really throughout, isn't he?' I thought as the face of my deplorable uncle appeared in my mind.
"Well, it's nothing all that weird or unexpected, just a natural result of having two brothers where one values success while the other values morals."
I sighed as I brought my thoughts back to the less-than-pleasant memories when I, still as a mere kid, strayed away from the righteous path my father set me on and fell for the allure of all the morally questionable choices my uncle showered me with just to spite his own brother.
"It's going to seem like a massive tangent, but I will have to start quite far in the past to explain it," I announced, only to then grab Claire's hand and move both of us to the side, giving way to a group of rowdy cultivators clearly heading out to the town to get themselves hammered.
Even if they didn't look like some sort of real troublemakers who would give us a hard time… I wasn't really in the mood to start another drama when all I wanted was to just bring Claire home safe so that we could talk in a more private and comfortable setting.
"You see, I love and value my parents very much even if they never made it big.
By all means, you could say that, when counting just my immediate relatives, I come from a normal, healthy family with a factory technician for a father and a high-school physics teacher for a mother," I started from a weird angle by putting a relatively huge emphasis on my parents' profession rather than the quirks and qualities of their character.
Nevertheless, Claire didn't seem to be bothered by such a massive tangent, clinging to my arm with her hands as she locked her eyes on my face and prickled her ears, all the while leaving the task of guiding her through the night-time streets all within my grasp and responsibility.
"The thing is, my uncle was someone who didn't really share my father's values. While for my father, a hard day of honest work repeated over and over again was the true measure of a man's enduring spirit, for my uncle, results were always all that mattered."
I sighed as one scene, in particular, surfaced to the top of my memories, filling my soul with the same sense of awkwardness I felt back when I witnessed the aftershocks of the falling out between my father and my uncle.
"And on a certain day, they simply decided they were so incompatible, they could no longer have any sort of relationship, save for edge cases of emergencies," I revealed before sighing.
"Tim…" Claire muttered, her fingers clinging just a little bit higher on my arm as she gave me a concerned look. "If it's too hard to talk about it, you don't really have to…"
"Don't worry," I dismissed Claire's concern with a smile and another wave of my hand, "it's not hard to talk about it. I simply can't figure out some details of what made them grow apart so much, but…"
I shook my head.
"Moving on, from the day I turned thirteen, my family and my uncle grew apart. And it only changed when I hit the peak of my puberty and entered my rebellious stage."