Quote:
takes place after a social battle
After classes were done, Melody took her normal spot at the little cafe just off the main part of campus. She was tucked back in the corner close to the pick-up side of the bar. Now she could start following up on things for Liam with that net she had cast out for info. It was nice to be back in her element of gathering gossip and looking for things. She may not enjoy the overall social experience, especially in large groups but she was good at it. She had to be good at it because of her situation with the family to keep things afloat.
Aloysius wasn't the mini version of their father that their mother made him out to be after the divorce but, that was probably so she could justify leaving him behind in that situation. When they had been growing up he had never seen as anxious or skittish as he did now. In fact, he was kind of full of himself in the past and loved to take the spotlight of their grandfather's attention and praise. Sighing a bit to herself, she thought about how that was probably why he had been so wholly destroyed over the years. They had both lost their grandfather but she had never really been close while Aloysius had been.
Sometimes she had wondered what would have happened if they had stayed all together, would things have been better or worse for everyone involved? Aloysius never really talked about what happened and she doubted that was something worth trying to pry out of him. Family problems were always hard and this current one she was researching was like watching a trainwreck in slow motion.
Tapping on the keys of her laptop as she sipped her tea, she started reading messages from her "friends". Some of them mentioned they had heard about something weird going on lately and how there was a scene at one of the grocery stores that they all collectively leave felt embarrassed about. It was embarrassing that someone of a higher standing would tarnish their reputation like that in such a public way. "Such an a*****e.." She spoke quietly to herself as she watched the various videos of the event on youtube. Poor Liam was just being harassed by someone who should know how to behave and have a conversation without throwing a fit. After a few videos, she found one with the clearest shot of his half-brother's face.
Does anyone know who that dude is? I don't think I've seen him at any socials or other events that I attend. I would like to avoid someone with that much of a lack of dignity if possible.
She watched as the dots in her group chat wiggled as a few people were typing. One by one various family names came up, a few she had recognized and some that she had never seen. Rumors began to pour from the mouths of this group like water from a dam breaking. Rumors of sick family members and abrupt disappearances for social events that had been otherwise attended like clockwork. Those would be more important for finding out who his mother actually was. All sorts of gossip and social conspiracies popped up one by one, at least when it was through a group message she wouldn't have to deal with people trying to speak up over one another like she would have had to in person if she had asked in the bathroom during an event.
It would take some time to sort through things but at least she could make a list to review and cross-check against once things moved forward with Liam and the testing. That in itself was something she was glad to see had become a simpler and less invasive process, science and medicine were something she admired but knew were outside of her comfort range of skills. She knew how to find info but in the end, when it came to figuring out what some of it meant, she was as clueless as the average person who could use Google.
Hopefully, after all this was over with Liam would be a little more at ease with things which would in turn help Aloysius be more at ease as well. He was constantly stressed anymore it seemed with how he was juggling being a teacher and being a General in the Negaverse. She partially knew he was doing something related to youma and sound from what Benitoite had mentioned in their meeting but she still had yet to bring it up to her bother. They weren't quite on the easiest speaking terms one-on-one but maybe over time Liam would continue to play mediator and help fix the shattered family that the Sharps were.
She wanted things to be better in a way, mostly so the family business could rise back up and be more notable again. The other reason was that she was finding out more and more of the things her mother had said were done in anger and to just turn her against her father and brother during the divorce because she had been screwed out of most things due to Aloysius being the inheritor instead of their father. Even now when she called to talk to her mother about things, the tone would turn sour when bringing up that she and Aloysius were trying to make amends. Their mother had the same opinion of him as Melody did when she first tried to drain him. In the end, things were seemingly a bit better and hopefully one day most of the poisonous lies would be behind them. Although the image of a happy family like things had been in the past was probably not going to happen, she was content in being witness to something better coming out of the shitstorm that their father had left in his wake.
Liam was a good person who had bad circumstances and even with all that he still managed to move forward and strive for a better future, even with the past trying to drag him back into another shitstorm. Nodding to herself as she saved more rumors to a notepad on her laptop, she smiled thinking of how she would rain hell down on the family that had abandoned poor Liam.
