"Huh? I thought you were paying." 

"What? You were the one who asked to treat me?" Jayden said surprised. Alex, are you just making me buy food again?

"Yeah I'm treating you with these vouchers. How could I pay, you know I don't have a job."

"..." Jayden hesitated. 

"Come on, I'm so hungry."

"Fine..." Jayden agreed, though it was after a long moan.

"Tricked. Ya. Again." Alex said, laughing, while showing Jayden his wallet. "I got plenty of cash"

Alex took out a thin stack of bills and passed them to the register.

As they came out of the restaurant, they decided to take a bit of stroll around town. Jayden questioned Alex regarding his source of income. He first thought that it might had been Alex's parents again, giving him luxurious funding. But it doesn't make sense since Alex's parents would be trying hard to get him to come home right now, and he doubted Alex would accept their help.

After a bit of walking, they've reached the district that housed and served those with higher incomes. You could tell because even the houses seemed to rise a layer higher than that of the poorer suburbs. The cars were shinier, the food here, fancier, but to Alex, the people were equally dirty. If not dirtier.

*** 5 years earlier***

"You can either pay us, or we'll trash this place." Karl said to the leader of another much smaller gang. He stumbled upon their hideout while drunk last night. Not knowing who he was, they tried to rob him, only for him to pay them a visit the morning after with his men. It was also Alex's first raid.

"We will! Please just leave us alone." The man said, grovelling before the leader of the Watson Brotherhood. His defeated hooligans lying unconscious around him.

"Convince me." Karl said, reaching out his hand. Then rubbed his finger tips, then opened his palms again.

Money.

Hurriedly the man told them to check the locker in the side room, taking out his keys and passing them to Karl, who gave it to one of his men, asking him to investigate.

"And this, is how we deal with pieces of shits around here", he said, turning around to his little brother. 

Alex nodded.

When the guy came back with a couple of cardboard crates, he whispered to Karl. Alex glanced at the crates that were left outside. Whatever was inside them, it was too heavy to be cash. But he saw that Karl was satisfied, he smiled and got up from the desk he was sitting on.

"NICE RAID MEN!" He shouted to the people in the room. "DRINKS ON ME TONIGHT AT THE GILDIN BAR."

Alex watched beside him.

...

It was a fun night, or so it was that Karl said to Alex as he took his little brother to visit a hobbies and toys store. Karl had a habit of buying the model version of every expensive car he has in his underground collection.

"See Alex, cars are like sexy men, looking at them is sometimes more fun than riding them." He said to Alex outside of the shop. Alex was definitely not at the appropriate age to hear that, but what did he expect from a brother who also doubled as the boss of a crime syndicate.

"Just the CX-267 today, sanguine red model" He said, while greeting the shop owner.

The owner was an old man who has retired from teaching last year. Looking back, he probably had a few more years of work left in him, but he was the primary supervisor during their field trip, and someone had to be fired... well for the fire; so he took the blow. Looking around Alex saw missing person posters still hanging on the posts around the streets. He was young then, but still at that age he felt the reaches of the incident and the remains in its wake.

"Alright Mr Watson come along with me to the back." The owner replied, leading Karl away after asking the assistant to tend to the front counter. "We have the one with the glossed finish, and I'll show you the other one as well."

He said while taking both of them out for Karl to inspect. 

"How much is the second one."

"Aha you have a good eye as usual. This one's handle and wheel are made of a special gold alloy. It'll be 3.5 k, on card. But of course I am happy to offer you a discount if you can pay us with-"

"I don't got money! Give me it right now, or I'll trash this place!"

The voice came from the front. Someone was shouting to the cashier. Karl turned around to find it was Alex, who was shouting to the cashier, apparently wanting one of the model guns displayed on the walls.

"Alex! Come 'ere." He called out to Alex, who walked over, looking grumpy.

"That's not how we treat people," Karl said, smacking his younger brother on the head. "Takes this money and go buy the model politely."

"Huh? But bro that's-"

"Just shut up and get your gun." He waved the cash at Alex. Alex noticed there was blood on the corners of some of the notes, and took them reluctantly.

....

Not long after leaving the shop, Karl stopped tending to his new model, and checked on Alex. Alex was mostly fine but he had traces of confusion here and there.

"Yo Alex, this way," Karl said, and lead Alex into a side alley. "Listen, you can't go around saying that you'll trash somewhere. We keep what we do in raids a secret, but if you say things like that people will start to become suspicious."

"Okay." Alex said, rubbing his head. "I'll keep it a secret, but only if I get my share.."

"Deal," Karl said laughing. "You get a share of every raid. But only if you come with us."

"Deal"

***

"So that's basically how I got the money." Alex said, slurping on his udon noodles.

"As if! There's no way you spend any time at all working in children's hospitals." 

"It's true tho, I also volunteer at pensioner homes, and their family pay me in return."

Nope, Jayden still don't believe Alex, but at this point he figured Alex is just gonna tease him until he gave up. He saw that Alex finished his bowl already. 

"Hey Jayden, you want another bowl?" Alex said as he got up, ready to jump in line again. The heaving breaths of the chefs indicated how busy the restaurant was. Or it could be just hot, Alex thought, seeing the customers were sweaty from the kitchen. It was heated up by the fire that cooks the woks. The manager did a good job of selling an exotic cheap cuisine as an "economic classy meal". Sure the meal was economic, but to Jayden who has a relatively small stomach, it was almost too economic.

"You could just have mine." Jayden said, pushing his bowl to Alex's side of the table.

At that moment their phone both lit up with an vibration. 

CHAPTER END

XXX

"I enjoy coming back for the udon here." Jayden said with all honesty, to Alex who cheered for being given extra food.

"Yep, and you know what I like about this place?" Alex said, as he wound the noodles around his fork, "it always gives alot of food, and you'll always offer the leftovers for me." 

"Yeah cause you're always hungry," Jayden said, as he watched Alex place the noodles on his tongue, closing his lips around the fork, then pulling the steel utensil back out again.

"Yep, always hungry." Alex said, as he tangled more noodles around his fork, getting ready to savor the flavor.

"Haha, also you forgot to change the forks." Jayden said, laughing, passing Alex his fork back; his sweat dripping into the bowl in front of him. 

"Oh this is your fork?" Alex said, as he placed what was revealed to be Jayden's fork, wrapped in noodles, in his mouth, and taking it back out, clean. He grinned, licked his lower lips, placed it in the soup and went for a third round.

....

"YOU LITTLE." Jayden shouted in a whisper, snatching his bowl back.

"Come on... I'm running low on electrolytes." Alex said, grabbing Jayden's wrist. Jayden saw him smirking. "And high on hormones. Don't deny me of my daily prescription of your bodily fluid." 

There were people all around, though they took little notice in them. 

"I suppose we can go for a jog," Jayden said. "There's a park on the way home."

"You meant, like a medicinal jog?" Alex asked, winking with a smile on his face.

"I wouldn't call it medicinal," Jayden said, whispering back. "Medicinal doesn't sound like it'll involve having a lot of fun."

XXX