Martial Arts Worlds

"She looks like she is doing well. Healthy." Kiernan said, and coughed slightly. "I met her briefly. I told her that I was her son."

"How did she react?" Karma asked.

"Shock," Kiernan said. "She didn't know how to respond, so I planned to leave it there and leave. Then, I met her father—my grandfather."

"Her father." Karma crossed his arms. "Who is he?"

"I don't know, but he wasn't a nice one." Kiernan sighed. "I found out later that he apparently told Bella to have an abortion. When she didn't, he told her to kill me when I was a baby. She didn't, thus she brought me to you."

"What…" Karma's eyes shook in surprise. "I had no idea."

He looked conflicted as he was living with the feelings of long-forgotten love and hatred for her for abandoning Kiernan like that on his doorstep.

He thought that she just didn't want a child, so she just dumped him without a second thought.

"Did she ask about me?" Karma asked.

"No…" Kiernan shook his head. "We barely talked. A few words only. I talked more with her sister, who told me more about Bella."

"Ah? What did she say?" Karma leaned forward as he listened with keen interest.

"The reason why she slept with you. She was apparently supposed to marry some well-respected navy officer. She didn't want to. Thus, she slept with you to sabotage the engagement."

"That's…" Karma sighed deeply. "That's a lot to take in, but it makes sense. I knew she didn't have any sort of feelings towards me. I expected that there was something behind it all, but I guess I just happened to be the first person she came across."

Karma covered his face with his hands, inhaled deeply, then stood up and went to the kitchen to brew some coffee.

It was clear he wanted to stay alone.

'What Bella did to him is pretty unforgivable.' Kiernan thought. 'He'd been living in this dark cloud since meeting her. He didn't know whether he was supposed to feel hatred or love.'

He sighed deeply.

'Karma's life has been tragedy after tragedy. I can't forgive her for doing this to him.'

Kiernan cracked his knuckles and leaned his forehead against his hands. He was also feeling very mixed about his feelings.

The feelings inside him felt like they were messily sorted inside a bag. They were almost bursting out of the bag.

Tap! Tap! Tap!

Julian came running from upstairs and stopped short when he felt the strange atmosphere in the house.

'Maybe I should come later…'

"What is it, Julian?" Kiernan asked.

"I remembered that I have to purchase my school uniform." Julian said with a wry smile.

"Have you registered as a student?" Karma asked as he walked from the kitchen with the coffee machine purring on the countertop.

"I can't." Julian laughed awkwardly. "I need my parent to do it. I thought I could go talk to the principal and get it all sorted."

"I can call Azer for you. The registration period is closed, anyway." Karma said. "You can borrow one of Kiernan's uniforms in the meantime. He has a few pairs, and I believe it will fit you just fine."
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"That sounds good!" Julian smiled. "Kiernan, what's the password to your computer?"

Kiernan slowly stood up and said, "I'll come to type it for you."

"What? Do you have something nasty in the computer I shouldn't see?" Julian asked with a laugh.

"Just go." Kiernan kicked Julian up the stairs.

"Hey, watch it, I almost hit my head on the edge of the stairs!"

"Good!"

As they ran upstairs, Karma wryly smiled. The house hadn't been this energetic since forever because it had only been the two of them.

Kiernan had never been the most talkative kind of kid. He had been pretty soft-spoken and silent. Thus, the house was often quite silent.

He had to admit that he didn't mind the house being more loud.

…

The light from the computer screen brightened the otherwise dark room.

Julian was leaning close to the computer, his one hand using the mouse and the other hand's fingers dancing across the keyboard.

He was wearing headphones, and loud sounds of machine gunfire seeped through the noise-canceling padding.

He was playing a pretty famous first-person shooter game.

Kiernan was sitting on his bed, leaning against the window. The desk was right beside him, so he could easily hear the game sounds coming from the headphones.

He was trying to read some of his newly acquired martial arts books, but it was hard over the noise.

"Sigh." Kiernan rolled his eyes and tapped his feet against Julian's shoulder.

"What's up?" Julian moved his left hand to move the headphones away from his ear, only from his left ear, though, so he could still hear the sounds through his right ear.

"I didn't take you for a gamer." Kiernan said. "You've already been playing for two hours."

"When I was still living with my family, I spent the late-night hours grinding this game. I became pretty decent at it. It's a way for me to shed off some of the stress of the school and martial arts training."

"Oh?" Kiernan nodded.

"What about you? I didn't see any games downloaded to your computer. Are you a mobile gamer?"

"I don't play games," Kiernan said.

"Really?" Julian saw that the game ended and said. "Do you want to try?"

"Hmm, really?" Kiernan raised an eyebrow.

"Sure, go ahead." Julian stepped off the chair and gave the headphones to Kiernan.

Kiernan sat on the chair while Julian started another game for him. He mimicked what he did, so he grabbed the mouse and started pressing one of the buttons to move forward.

He moved through a desolate, ruined building in some kind of battlefield and then saw an enemy soldier running across an open field.

"Shoot him!" Julian shouted from next to him.

Kiernan moved the mouse and started shooting, but all his bullets whizzed over the enemy soldier. The enemy soldier went prone and started shooting in his direction.

"Put the fucking crosshair on him!" Julian shouted while hopping in place. "Move the mouse!"

"I am trying, shit!" Kiernan shouted.

However, then the screen turned red and the words "You're dead" appeared.

"Ah, you're dead." Julian shook his head. "Wow, you suck at games!"

"It's my first time, fuck you." Kiernan tossed the headphones away. "The crosshair is so small. How can you hit anyone with that shit?"

"It looks like there is actually something you're bad at." Julian laughed.

"Let's play a proper fighting game; I'll never lose to you." Kiernan said.

"Oh?" Julian smirked. "Watch out what you're wishing for."

"Bring it on."