Ulmar’s POV:
A few hours passed since I stepped foot in the Revers family house.
And now I found myself watering the banana plants. There were more than a dozen big banana plants, and I must say that the bananas tasted so damn good.
I water the plants not manually but by just operating the water pipe systems that were neatly arranged to automatically pour water to the plants.
Kale was observing me from a distance. He was 14 years old, and he was yet to speak a word with me. He had the same name as one of my friends, the one who attacked me not long ago. So, it feels a bit weird that he has the same name, though I’m not thinking much about it.
After finishing my job, I sat down on a stone bench under a custard apple tree and looked at the evening sun.
“Is the sun I see real, or is this some kind of an illusion?”
[It is real.] Dove said. [Though, it’s somewhat like a hologram.]
“Huh? How can it be real if it’s a hologram?”
[Well, I will tell you more about it when you’re ready.]
“Anyway, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do right now,” I sighed. “These people are talking about having a marriage this very night. If I run away, will they make me a criminal? What will they do?”
[I don’t get it. Fate brought you two together, so why are you resisting?] Dove said. [In the end, you have to marry someone, don’t you? Why don’t you just choose Ayana now itself?]
“Easy for you to say, but I know nothing about her. How can I marry her when it hasn’t even been a day since I met her?” I retorted. “And it hasn’t been long since my parents died. You want me to marry someone right now? Their souls will really be disappointed in me.”
[It’s been nearly two months since your parents died.] Dove said. [On top of that, you said they never really cared about you, so I highly doubt that they’d be disappointed in their graves.]
I frowned.
[Just think about it. It’s not a bad idea to marry Ayana and settle in this city.] Dove said. [You can go back and bring your grandma here. She’ll be happy to live in this type of an environment, don’t you think? You can also slowly find Brianna and get your revenge on her.]
For some reason, Dove’s words made so much sense to me.
My grandmother always worked so hard from a young age. She loved his father so much she would cook for him even if he were to wake her up at 2 AM and ask her to cook a dessert for him. She wouldn’t ask him any questions. It was that type of a blind love she had for her eldest son. Naturally, she also loved me, who was the eldest son of her son. Wouldn’t she be happy if she were to live with me in this type of a house?
But I didn’t know much about this city at all. So how could I already think about bringing his grandma over to this place?
A lot of conflicting thoughts ran through my mind.
The sun was going down, and Robin came over to me. She was slim and looked young enough to be Ayana’s sister.
Come to think of it, nobody in this city looked fat. They were either slim or chubby, but I had yet to see a fat person.
“You look like you’re having a lot of thoughts running through your mind, Ulmer,” Robin sat next to me. “I don’t know anything about the outside world, but nothing happens in this world without a reason. I think it’s fate that brought you and Ayana together. We won’t ask what you did in the past, but after marriage, you can help us run the restaurant we have. It’s not a big one, but we have our dedicated customers. Life will be peaceful, and once you earn some money, you can bring your family over and live in this city, or if you want, we will move to the outside world. We’ll talk about all those things in the future when the time comes, but for now, go and get ready for marriage. Your father-in-law has bought a dress for you.”
“Uh… yeah,” I got up from the bench.
I reluctantly walked over to the front door of their house. I was thinking of taking my bag and running away.
But then, I saw her. In her dreamy pink wedding dress, and eating sugarcane while sitting at the table, not caring how she looked to others. Like my sister and many other girls in the outside world, she was not concerned over her long nails, fake boobs, and high heels.
She appeared like a national treasure, no, something much more valuable to my eyes right now.
Seeing me, she gave me a piece of the sugarcane. I took it and tried to do what she was doing: rip the skin off. But it hurt my teeth on the first try. Even though I was level 51, I didn’t put my strength into it. I could straight away tell that Ayana got strong teeth from the way she was chewing sugarcane like it was cotton candy. There were tiny pieces that stuck to the corners of her mouth. But she didn’t seem to care. She took the piece from me, quickly shaved the skin off with a knife and then gave it back to me.
I crunched on it, and sugary juices flowed into my mouth. It was so much more delicious than any sugarcane I ever tasted.
“Sit and eat,” she said.
I sat down, I found myself watching her more than eating the sugarcane. Her brown eyes, straight nose, rosy lips, and dainty chin… everything was so perfect about her.
My heart kept beating and stopping, beating and stopping as I kept my eyes on her.
Time seemingly stopped as I felt really pulled toward her.
Ulmer got married that same night.He never even expected this before coming to this city, but he ended up marrying whom he believed was the prettiest girl he ever met. He just didn’t want to miss this opportunity, and so he changed his mind and did not run away.The marriage didn’t happen grandly, but it wasn’t boring, either. The Revers family called those they were close with, and the wedding happened in the presence of about fifty or so guests in the backyard itself.The one thing that Ulmer was not able to forget was that the groom had to personally serve guests fruit wine and sweets.It was a custom followed in the city to humble males during the marriage.But what disappointed Ulmer was that he didn’t get to kiss Ayana during the wedding because kissing on the lips in public was actually seen as obscene in this city. So, everyone was expected to keep their romantic and sexual life hidden from the public.And last but not least, Ulmer wished his grandmother was with him to see h
“How can you betray me like this, Ayana?” A loud voice reached everybody’s ears.Ulmer was very surprised to hear those words, but he also saw that everyone else at the table looked even more shocked and anxious.Many men entered the house, with a short-haired, long-bearded man entering the house first. He was wearing a brown uniform with star-badges, making Ulmer wonder if he was some sort of military or police or something.And he began to look at Ayana and Ulmer and saw that both of them were wearing the same golden rings. And his blood boiled immediately.“What is the meaning of this?” he shouted.“Senior Henry,” Dustin tried to calm him down. “Please don’t do this in front of our son-in-law.”“Don’t do what? I’m supposed to marry Ayana!” he shouted.“What do you mean?” Ulmer asked.“Don’t listen to his words, Husband,” Ayana quickly said. “He’s been chasing after me for years, trying to marry me, but I rejected him because he’s a pervert. If he wasn’t an officer, he would be in j
A few minutes passed since Henry and his men left.Dustin was definitely still anxious but he had to hurry to his restaurant as it was already seven o’clock by then. He forgot to take Ulmer with him.“I’ll go out and take a look around the neighborhood,” Ulmer said.Robin only allowed him to leave after he wore the local clothes so that others wouldn’t be able to easily tell if he was an outsider or not.On top of that, Robin told Kale to accompany Ulmer.Kale just nodded in return.“Why doesn’t he say anything?” Ulmer asked openly.“Uh, about that…” Robin smiled and said, “he can’t speak. He’s born that way.”“Oh…” Ulmer suddenly felt foolish for not approaching Kale to talk with him. Just because Kale was silent, he assumed that Kale didn’t want to speak with him.“But he can use sign language,” Robin added and then spoke with Kale using signs.Kale smiled back.“What did you just say?” Ulmer asked.“I told him he can introduce you to his friends,” Robin said. “He’s happy about it.”
“Dustin isn’t home, either, so he can lick Robin’s feet, too,” another man said, making the rest laugh even more.Ulmer stopped.Kale waved his hands in a cross-manner, telling him to don’t do anything stupid and just keep going.However, Ulmer turned around and walked toward them, looking at the one that just spoke, “Take back what you said.”“Or else what?” all of them stopped playing and surrounded him quickly.It was so obvious that this was their plan from the beginning. Kale quickly rushed away to ask help from the other adults around, but because of Henry, nobody helped him. Kale came back in about two minutes, and everybody except Ulmer was gone.And Ulmer had no injuries on his body or face.“Where did they go?” Kale asked in sign language.“They learned their mistake and apologized before leaving,” Ulmer said.Kale could see that the poker cards, water bottles, and meat packets were still there under the tree. Why would they leave these things here? It didn’t make any sense,
Dustin came home in the afternoon, looking half the man he was in the morning, in terms of happiness.Without Dustin saying anything, Ulmer understood the situation of the restaurant.“If this continues for another couple of days, we won’t be able to pay the rent,” Dustin was telling Robin and Ayana. “We’ll be forced to shut down the hotel business.”Their family was producing lots of vegetables and fruits. Their hotel business was a way for them to use those fruits and vegetables. If they couldn’t do that now, they’d have to sell them from the house itself.But who would come to their house and buy these things when nobody came to the hotel to eat food?In the end, they might be forced to throw away the extra vegetables and fruits.“It seems I might have to become a porter once again,” Dustin was telling Robin.Ayana heard that from outside and frowned.She came to her room and wrote a letter.Ulmer was sitting on the bed right now, and he could somewhat see what she was writing. Her
Ulmer, Ayana and everyone in the house ate the same food in the afternoon and at night because not a single customer came to their shop.Dustin and Robin felt so depressed and ashamed that they didn’t even come out of their room to eat. Ayana had to take the food to their rooms and make them eat.After they ate the food, Ayana stored some food in an advanced yet earthly refrigerator that was in the shape of a giant pot with doors and many compartments. Then, she tossed the rest of the food in the dustbin.There wasn’t a single street dog present in this neighborhood because Henry had his subordinates hunt every single one of them down. It was only the birds and squirrels that came to eat from the leftover food.At night, after Suki finished her reading, Ulmer asked her to tell him about Henry because he wanted to hear a child’s perspective.To his surprise, Suki told him about Henry’s role and authority as an officer. The gold-badged Senior Officers were ranked from one to five stars.
Later that night, both Ulmer and Ayana slept in the same room, and on the same bed.But neither of them did anything other than sleep because the mood in the house wasn’t good.The next morning.Dustin and Robin would always wake up at around three o’clock to cook the food for the restaurant, but today, they were both sleeping even at seven o’clock.This never happened before, so Ayana was so afraid she had to enter their room and make sure that they were both actually still alive and sleeping. Only after silently confirming to herself, she was relieved.Ayana was about to cook breakfast, but then Ulmer entered the kitchen and asked, “What are you doing?”“I’m cooking breakfast.”“Why? Didn’t we store a lot of food in the refrigerator yesterday?” Ulmer couldn’t help but ask.“Yeah, but you don’t have to eat that,” Ayana replied. “I’ll make fresh breakfast for you.”Ulmer smiled. “Thank you, but I’m used to eating food stored in the fridge for days if not weeks. So, don’t strain yourse
The name of the bank situated in this village was called the Bright Moon Bank. Every village bank had a different name, and their managers were different, but they all still answered to the authorities.The banks signaled status in the city.Not just anybody could enter the bank because there’s the rule of paying 1 silver coin every time one entered the bank. This was why the crowds never rushed to the banks, and only those who could afford to waste a silver coin easily would use the banks often. This would include big businessmen.But the likes of Dustin who only had a small restaurant would not dare to enter the bank any more than once a month or once in two months as one silver was not a small amount for the Revers family. And also Dustin was not the kind of person to waste even a single copper coin.As Ayana kept telling Ulmer about the city and about her parents, Ulmer understood that Dustin and Robin weren’t depressed just because there were no customers coming to the shop but a