You and a feline mountain beast, really? Next thing you are going to tell me that the kennel have learned to fly, old man?

Sigh, I obviously can’t say that seeing that I am currently invading his turf with my presence. Instead let’s just be keep being diplomatic:

I put on one of my practiced business smiles and hand him my answer:

<<A feline mountain-beast, you say? Wow, that’s incredible, Uncle Hyoran. Thank you very much for the offer but I will have to decline. This stretching exercise is something that I want to do on my own, so please forgive me.>>

Groan, I still think that persuading the guy to let me address him as Mr. Astaros would have been worth it but oh well. Can’t cry over spilled beans.

<<Oh come on, little Imog. You need to come out a little more so let me help you with your stretching, no backtalk, alright?>>

Breath in and breathe out, Imogyeran. You are better than this. You don’t need to get angry at someone, who is obviously that much less competent than you. This is nothing more than a temporary place to stay, so just keep your cool and-

..

<<OK, since you still seem to be unwilling, how about I throw in a nice massage for you after your training, my boy? Hahaha! >>

The old man was proudly making this suggestion while making rapid steps in the direction of the cornered child.

This was the final straw and the sense of emotional control in the still largely immature Imogyeran snapped. His following actions were purely based on emotion and instinct.

..

<<YUN! Blast!>>,

my first order of business is creating a safe space, so I decide to call for ‘Yun’ in order to create a wind barrier that slightly propels the old man from me. Obviously I signal ‘Yun’ to hold back sufficiently and simply repel him back a few steps.

I use the time that ‘Yun’ has bought me to bring my two hands together and push them down close to my center of gravity and I use my acquired muscles as well as a wind blast from ‘Yun’ in order to propel myself a couple of centimeters from the ground. Simultaneously, I thrust my two legs into the sky while bringing them together during their trajectory to the top.

Next, I jump off from the ground using my pure arm strength and land back on my two feet.

Good, this process is working smoothly at least.

..

<<WHAT THE HELL IS YOUR PROBLEM, OLD MAN?>>, this were Imogyeran Ashenwald’s first words once he regained a stable posture and a decent distance from Mr. Astaros.

<<WHEN I SAY NO, THAT MEANS NO, YOU OLD DECREPIT GEEZER!! I DON’T WANT YOUR HELP, I DON’T WANT HEAR YOUR STUPID LANGUAGE AND I DON’T WANT YOU TO DEGRADE ME LIKE THAT, ARE WE CLEAR ON THAT? >>

Imogyeran paused for a moment to take a deep breath and continued.

<<It is true that you have given me shelter for the last few nights and it is true that you have shared your meals with me… But!

IF I EXPERIENCE EVEN ONE MORE ACT OF HUMILIATION THROUGH YOUR ACTIONS THEN YOU CAN BE SURE THAT I COULDN’T CARE LESS ABOUT THIS PLACE, DO YOU UNDERSTAND THAT YOU OLD FOOOOOOOL??>>

This burst of rage was in fact the first strong act of emotions that Imogyeran has shown to another person in his entire life, which is why it came out as strongly as it did.

Mr. Astaros was utterly shocked by this new side to his little friend.

<This is the first time I have seen him like that...>

The fact that he was showing off spiritual control over the element of wind was the least surprising thing about today. Hyoran Astaros was simply shocked by the boy’s strong feelings in this one short speech he gave him.

While he is utterly shocked and in the long process of understanding the situation, Imogyeran was in the process of calming down again.

Back in the present, Imogyeran is deliberating on his future course of action.

..

I further widen the distance between the old man and myself and escape my cornered situation until I have enough of a safe-space around me and afterwards I sit down to think about the things I said for a while.

I thought that saying everything that was annoying me and venting my anger would somehow satisfy me and bring me happiness or at least a sense of closure but this feeling in my chest is terrible.

I don’t like the fact that I hurt this old man by going overboard on my speech and faulting him for everything that he has said or done.

It is true that I am majorly dissatisfied with his behavior toward me and everything but is it not true that I had already understood this during our first meeting 4 days ago:

He is not a bad person. During no point in time have I ever felt that Mr. Astaros has had any malicious intent on my direction and everything he did and said can be interpreted into him trying to make me comfortable in this new place.

In the first place, it is true that I could have declined his invitation at any time I wanted. I could have simply said no and this entire set of interactions would not have happened, so why did I agree to come here in the first place?

The answer is simple: He seemed like a nice person.

..

Imogyeran Ashenwald has lived a special life. It is one, that not many can relate to and one, where he does not have many people, he is close to. In total, there are around 7 people he has met that he has any kind of positive feelings toward:

Elise and her grandfather Esteban from the Blueseva-family were the ones he got along the most but due to some deep emotional ties to their place he could never stay there and instead chose to leave them for the coming future. There are his two spiritual friends Dogogo and ‘Yun’, who are the closest thing to a family, he has got. Then there are the two kids from the

tournament in Medalia village, whom he is going to be revisiting around 3 years from now.

Aside from his inhumane companions, the boy does not have any strong or filial bond to any of them. Elise’s grandfather may have some feelings as such for him but Imogyeran only ever experienced the entirety of the Blueseva-family as a big, homogeneous pile of humans that he never felt the need to distinguish between until the very last second.

None of them could replace the parents that the boy had lost. None would be able to give him a feeling of unconditional liking the same way that he felt during the time before the boy’s consciousness had even developed. As a result of this past Imogyeran has developed a psychological trauma that resulted in a deep longing for figures of parental affection; Imogyeran wishes to have a pair of parents looking out for him.

This very notion was the cause for him accepting the invitation of the 7^th person, Mr. Hyoran Astaros, who aroused some of the very feelings he was longing for all this time.

..

Yeah, maybe I was simply too hard on him. Maybe it’s my fault for not talking to the old man about this and asking him what we should do. If I did that, what would he say to me?

Well, he would either accept the situation and try to help me by changing himself

or he would not be able to comprehend what I am saying and in the worst case, the situation would not change a bit by doing that.

Yeah, maybe I should have done that. But now it’s too late, isn’t it?

I also did just call him things like an old and decrepit fool, so that certainly didn’t help the situation at all.

You know what, I think that I should apologize to him. Yeah, I think that’s what I should do.

I have decided and am now going to formulate an apology:

First things first, I recall ‘Yun’ back so that the old man is able to freely move inside the room.

<<Please listen, Mr. Astaros. I think that I went too→>

As I start talking, I freeze up because my gaze was wandering from the old man’s feet up to his face and what I am seeing now is a face with a bright smile on it.

I am shocked.

Next thing I know, the guy is storming at me, not even giving me any time to react and squeezing me into a tight embrace while hysterically laughing.

<<FINALLY! YOU FINALLY SAID YOUR MIND TO ME! Hahaha! I am so happy that you have finally opened up to me!!! Now nothing stands in the way of our bright future together, Imog! We can do all sorts of things together! I can teach you how to farm, how to hunt, how to use the market! I can finally teach you all the things I wanted to teach you from the start!>>

He says while swinging me around and ruffling my hair.

What? Am I dreaming right now? Is this a nightmare?

..

The current scene is one of an excitedly and happily dancing Hyoran Astaros, hugging and twirling around the young boy Imogyeran Ashenwald, who has currently become a soulless version of himself due to the completely incomprehensible situation.

In the future after this fever dream of a conversation, Imogyeran continued to stay with the old man and his farm. He started becoming more lax around ‘Uncle Hyoran’ and they eventually really got along more and more with each other. Though he never directly admitted it, Imogyeran truly learned to see Hyoran as an important father figure, that he didn’t want to lose and Hyoran saw him as a sort of son that he never had. Unlike ‘little Imog’ however, he definitely did not keep his thoughts a secret.

After this incident, Imogyeran still oftentimes complained about the old man’s choice of vocabulary but he never again would threaten to leave him simply because of that. The two of them continued their live as a ‘non-family’ family for the coming two and a half years, living a happy life.