Chapter 139: Fucking Taxes

Aiden blinked once and the man was gone, his eyes still reflecting his stunned disbelief.

Honestly, if it wasn’t for the fact that he had a literal system, he would’ve assumed he’d just imagined it.

Flitting his gaze over to his mother’s tombstone, he realized that the iridescently beautiful flower was nowhere to be seen as well.

It was also in that moment that he realized that everything seemed to have paused for that brief instance of time as the world suddenly clicked back into motion.

"Champ? You good?" Richard curiously asked of his son in concern, the man’s gaze flicking between his wife’s tombstone and his son’s now intrigued gaze.

"It’s... nothing..." Aiden managed to reply, his gaze still studying the spot.

"Just thought I saw someone I knew..." he gave his old man a half truth.

Trusting of his son, Richard simply remarked, a mild curiosity to his tone as his son turned around and resumed walking;

"Huh. I see."

Mentally shrugging it off, the man resumed walking and caught up to his son, both of them making their way to his vehicle.

Through it all, Aiden’s thoughts had begun churning rapidly.

’Was it really a chance encounter?’

’I mean, if he knew my mother enough to visit her grave, it can’t be, right?’

’He gestured to me to remain quiet too. Isn’t that a dead giveaway?’

’What about my mum? How did she get to meet him?’

’Where did they meet and why?’

’And most of all, who is he, and where is he from?’

Long after he and his father had reached the vehicle, settled in and even began the drive home, Aiden continued to ponder over the innumerable questions that kept popping up in his mind.

’He can’t actually be the Emrys of old, can he? That’d be crazy--’

’What do you mean crazy, you dolt?! You literally have a system and you saw him freeze time?’

’I wonder if he purposely came knowing we would as well?’

’Wait, wouldn’t that mean we’re under surveillance from his 24/7???’

’I don’t know how to feel about that? I mean, given he pushed me to overcome my fear of failure, I would assume it’s a good thing...?’

’Almost like we have our own guardian angel?’

’My goodness, Aiden! I haven’t heard you think this much about anything in forever! But then again, I have loads more of unanswered questions without a single answer in sight! You can’t blame yourself for being curious?!’

Ruffling his hair slightly as he leaned his head against the frame of the window, Aiden let out a deep puff of hair, several strands of his coal-locks reactively flaying away from his forehead.

Then he suddenly remembered that he did in fact have an ?FAQ? function.

Unfortunately for him, all of his questions were met with ’???’, indicating that the Life System didn’t have any access to information of sorts.

’Well, that was a bust,’ Aiden massaged his temples briefly then let out a resigned sigh as he continued his mental gymnastics.

By the time they’d arrived at the street of his house about an hour later, Aiden had realized overthinking about something he didn’t remotely have any answers to would only give him more headache than was worth.

In fact, with how much questions and theories his mind had outputted, churned and ruminated upon these past couple minutes, he was in fact starting to feel a headache settling in.

An experience he hadn’t even experienced ever since he’d gotten the system.

It was also why, after greeting and briefly interacting with his buddies whom were still around and were currently on a co-op game on their handhelds where their chained characters climbed up a platforming obstacle course together to reach the peak, he didn’t even bother to joining.

Instead, he told them he was feeling rather drowsy and would much prefer to hit the sack for some shut eye, and that was exactly what he did.

Richard was much the same, though his was more in line with the fact that he just wanted to spend the rest of his Saturday morning lazing around.

Roughly an hour later though, Aiden found himself wide awake and his mind at its usual state of tactile sharpness and tip-top alertness.

At the same time, he’d come to a decision that whatever the deal between his mother and Emrys may had been, if he was bound to know, he would.

That alone had given him all the clarity he needed, hence why he tossed all the thoughts that were threatening to surge to the forefront in the bunker of his mind.

Slowly bleeding into his ears though, was the general chatter of the gang as they seemed to have pivoted to playing a game of scrabble, Casper currently cackling like an evil overlord to boot.

Clearly, he was dominating the scoreboard by a chasmic gap, one that had Aiden shaking his head slightly in amusement as he inwardly remarked;

’You guys may have stood a chance before, but now I doubt you’ll manage much of anything with his recent upgrades.’

At the same time, he had swiped his phone off the bedside table and proceeded to head over to join them, only to notice a new notification on its screen.

It was a credit alert.

Smiling with pride as he saw the whopping five million plus deposited into the company account, Aiden quickly made his way downstairs as he declared to all and sundry;

"Payday has arrived boys!"

No sooner had the gang heard that, they immediately sidelined their game of scrabble as they turned to face him and exclaimed with unrestrained fervor.

Having already informed them of his plan to put aside two million dollars for company operations-- a good chunk of which they would ultimately spend on not just securing a good studio in LA, but also sprucing the place up--it meant that they were left with three million to divide as planned.

It was also why it didn’t take long before Aiden distributed it.

$840,000+ for Aiden.

$690,000+ for Theo.

$480,000+ for Casper.

$330,000+ each for Clyde, Larry and Benjamin.

Granted all six were glad to get their funds after roughly three months of waiting, they all soon found themselves frowning a couple seconds after.

Though they were expecting it, now that it was in their hands, it was even more annoying than they’d realized.

Then, like bees of a hivemind, they looked to one another, Aiden and Casper echoing everyone’s sentiment as they cussed;

"Fucking taxes."

It was already annoying enough that the publishing platforms were already eating into the funds of a game that had now sold a little over two million copies, hence why they only had five million dollars in the first place.

It was that much more upsetting that they had to remove another 30% on top of their gains when all was said and done to pay off their personal taxes if they wanted to be upstanding citizens.

Which, in reality, meant;

$588,000+ for Aiden.

$483,000+ for Theo.

$336,000+ for Casper.

$231,000+ each for Clyde, Larry and Benjamin.

Though they still had a lot on hand, clearly, it didn’t stop it from feeling they were being robbed blind nonetheless.

’Now I understand why all these millionaires and billionaires love to keep all their assets in shares and never pay any taxes!’ Aiden’s gaze narrowed.

Worse still, Aiden couldn’t help but be concerned by how the common man was living.

If even they, as they were--youths with little to no responsibilities on their heads, and with all these funds in their back pocket were evidently ticked off--how was a salary worker coping?

’Maybe people’s general bitterness at the state of the US is justified...’ the youth couldn’t help but see things again from a whole new perspective.

Though he’d love to believe that all these funds were actually being put to good use, he highly doubted that those funds were being used as they should.

"Welcome to the world of adults in a first-world country, kiddos," Richard yawned out the words with a stretch as he stepped out the corridor and slipped into the kitchen.

"Trust me, it never lets up in wringing you dry of every last cent." he added as he pulled out the homemade brandy from the fridge with a resigned shake of his head.

Hearing that, the six youths found themselves letting out a wry smile. The kind that came with knowing there wasn’t much one could do about an already established framework.

Deciding to look on the brighter side of things, they soon let out resigned sighs.

Afterwards, they resumed their game of scrabble and Aiden joined in for the next round.

The rest of the day whiled away following that, a general mundanity in the North household as Aiden simply spent the rest of the last few days before he went to college, chilling.

Then, when the first week of September came around, the youth, much like his buddies and girlfriend, found themselves at the airport, all of them ready to start a new Chapter in their lives.