It takes a step
Aennin felt sick for the entirety of his walk home. He had just given up on the only place that mattered to him besides the clock shop in a fit of passion that, in hindsight, simultaneously felt liberating and terribly wrong. By the time he reached the front door, he had already discarded his fifth plot to talk himself out of what he had just done and was thinking of another. Before he could ponder the details for much longer, he opened the door to find his mother standing in the kitchen, with a brass mail tube open on the counter in front of her. Upon seeing the boy, her eyes narrowed into slits. Aennin was unnerved to notice that she appeared to be sober, causing him to marvel at the sights he missed during the day.
"Tell me, Aennin," Anera growled imperiously. "There must be a reason you're back so early in the day. Should we talk about that?"
Aennin's heart sank as he prepared himself for the coming censure. He had been hoping to sneak by his mother and hide from her until his attack had blown over completely. He had pursued his education partly because his mother had wanted him to, so he knew walking out of the school in the way he did would particularly upset her. Still, avoiding her wrath took luck he didn't seem to have that day.
"It was the same guy yesterday. I found out he was stealing from the shop," Aennin grumbled defiantly.
Anera swatted the mail tube to the floor and snarled, "You sabotaged your place in school for that? Fuck the shop!"
"It's not about the shop," Aennin said without looking at his mother. "He stole from us."
In truth, Aennin felt stung by Anera's dismissal of the family business. She had never had any more regard for the shop than Kana had, but Aennin had never criticized for his devotion to it before. As far as he had known up to this point, the store was the pride of their whole family, even if they rarely showed it.
"Your father's money is not worth your future!" Anera snapped angrily. "If you were to graduate, you could have applied to be reassigned to a new caste! You needn't be stuck in this hellhole!"
Aennin frowned and shook his head. "Why would I want to move? This neighborhood isn't the greatest, but I love the work I do!"
Anera pounded her fist on the table. "Fuck. The. Shop! It's not worth being tainted by this greedy caste! I gave up an important part of myself when I married your father that you still need to find for yourself! You are wasting your life in this cesspool!"
Aennin turned his back on his mother, having officially heard enough. "I don't have to listen to this. I take pride in everything I've ever crafted. If you want me to give up on this life, I hope you're prepared to strain your voice on wasted words!"
He made for his room, but Anera grabbed his wrist and wheeled him around to face her glare. "You wish to be like your father so badly? On the road you're going, you'll end up gambling with your family's future too! Gods, I hope you never have children to raise in this city!"
Aennin felt as if he had been slapped in the face by Anera's final remark, but the rest of what she had said required clarification. "What are you talking about?"
Anera threw her arms up and began to pace the room impatiently. "Oh, you are so in love with those damned clocks that you don't even realize what your father's doing with you and your sister!"
Feeling no desire to comment, Aennin looked quietly at his mother and waited for her to continue. At this moment, he was overcome by an unusual sense of foreboding.
"Oh? Finally decided to listen to your mother for a change? Well, he's using BOTH of you and I can't do anything about it because the son of a bitch has turned you against me!"
"How is he using us?" Aennin said with his eyebrows knitted in confusion.
"Your father hasn't taught you damned thing in over a year, has he? Did your father ever tell you that the store makes most of its money from the clocks YOU make? He's been working you at making almost all of the merchandise, selling it off in his ratty establishment, and keeping most of the money your work has earned for him! It's what merchants do!"
Aennin shook his head in disbelief. "He's preparing me to take it over!"
Anera laughed at this weak rebuttal. "If he gave a damn about the store, he wouldn't be dipping so deeply into its coffers for money to waste at the card tables. I don't care what he says, that man is miserable at Towers!"
"He wouldn't do that! The shop is his legacy! Our legacy!" Aennin sputtered in denial
"He's going to lose that gold trap by the end of the year, with the way he's going! I'm sorry to have to tell you like this, but that boy you attacked isn't the one destroying the shop. By the time you turn twenty, there won't be a clock shop for you to take over! All because your father is a greedy fool!" Anera gasped as she tried to tone down her shouting. "Marrying into this caste was the biggest mistake of my life and, by wasting your opportunity to join another, you have just made yours."
Without a word, Aennin tried to leave again, and this time, Anera left him. He climbed the stairs in silence, pondering the true weight of this lecture. He had always enjoyed the work he did with his father, but if there was any truth to what his mother said, what was the point? It was tempting to ignore what she had revealed; to write it off on the poor value of her word in general, but his denial was hard to maintain. She had damaged her credibility many times over with her mountain of drunken mistakes, so why was he so ready to believe her?
Just before the boy could step into his bedroom, his older sister poked her head out from her own room. Beckoning quietly to him, she stepped back and waited for him to enter without even considering that he might be tempted to ignore her and go lay down. These temptations were very real at that moment, but he accepted Kana's invitation with a click of his tongue regardless. When they stood alone in the room, Kana dropped onto her four-poster bed and Aennin closed the door.
"It sounds like mother finally told you what an asshole our father really is," Kana said quietly, her voice devoid of any trace of her usual mischievous charm
"You know, she doesn't really have much any more credibility with me than father does with you," Aennin replied stonily.
"Mother has an illness," Kana said with a scowl. "One that has caused her to make a lot of mistakes. She's not a bad person. It just feels that way because you only think of how her drinking affects you."
If Aennin had been poorly prepared for his conversation with his mother, this defense of her character was a complete stunner. He hesitated to say anything, which seemed to annoy his sister.
Kana sighed and rolled her eyes. "Well, if you don't believe her, believe me. I know more about what he gets up to whenever he isn't here or at work than anyone else!"
Aennin looked up from his toes to meet his sister's eyes. "She says that father uses my talent to enrich himself with money that he keeps losing at the card tables."
Kana nodded sternly. "That's completely true. Now he's so far in debt that he had to get a loan from fucking Katim of all people and he's not paying it all back!"
"How did you know about that?" Aennin asked as he sat down on the bed beside her.
"Everyone keeps their eye on Katim and if you're not watching out for him too, you are taking a stupid risk," Kana said in a firm and serious tone. "People notice who he and his thugs shake down!"
Aennin's heart felt like it was about to stop. Hearing about his father's deeds from his sister essentially confirmed them as truth. How selfish could a man be, the boy thought, to give someone a dream, only to destroy it with their own vices?
"I was there when he came by yesterday," Aennin mumbled in angst. "He and those other guys came in and just destroyed hours of our work to make a point!"
Kana's eyes widened and she instinctively threw her arms around Aennin. "Shit! Listen, brother. Katim and his gang are dangerous people. Do not get involved with them in any way if you can help it. If you ever find him nearby again, get the hell out of there."
Aennin nodded bitterly. "You don't need to tell me that! I just wish someone had told our father."
Kana squeezed her brother gently and said, "I'm glad you're smarter than he is. If I were you, I'd prove it by going back to the school and begging them to take you back."
Aennin turned to his sister with a look of despair and said, "That's a good idea."
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