“Can’t you see, Cid, it no longer shows that there is a profit! How is it that you say you don’t need my help?”
Cid frowned, looking as though he was really listening to his stepfather, Leonard. Really though, Cid couldn’t wait for this conversation to be over, even though it just started. “My friend is helping me with it, so don’t worry.”
Just stick your nose out of my business, that would be muchly appreciated, old man!
“Then don’t you owe your friend quite an amount? Your father’s business is a bust and it has been for a very long time! If you let me merge your father’s bcksmithing shop with my business, there will be a profit once again! I grant you that!”
A profit for whom? Cid asked his stepfather quietly.
It has been obvious to Cid for so long now that if he handed over the rights of his father’s bcksmithing shop, he would not get a dim for it, or after it was taken!
Cid knew that his father’s old bcksmithing shop had not done well since his father’s death, but it wasn’t like they had to shut it down completely…Well, not in the past…
And just signing it away like this!?
No way!
In Cid’s eyes, his father’s shop was priceless, and he found his stepfather really stupid to think that he’d sign something and get nothing for it in return!
Not once had Leonard offered anything for it! Did he really think I’d say yes!?
What a senseless, old man!
Looking upon the books, that his stepfather seemed to obtain without approval, Cid frowned again.
If the books had been done properly, then it really was a problem!
In the st six months, it had gone completely backwards!
Only quickly skimming over it, narrowing his eyes to the words and numbers, Cid quickly looked away, not wanting to show that he understood what was going on.
This wasn’t much of a trick that he could py for too much longer, showing that he was ignorant and someone that had troubles understanding things, but he had to use it for as long as he could…God knows what Leonard would do if he knew Cid understood!
Would he then try to give him money for it? Would he just take it? Would he use bckmail?
Would he make him sign the papers in his sleep?
It gave Cid the shivers just thinking about it…
“You see it now? The minus means backwards, it means you are spending more money! You aren’t getting anything! Is it not a predicament!?” Leonard stated through matter of fact.
Cid took in a breath and sighed in his heart. His father’s business had been managed by his best friends’ parents, but it had been at least once every two or three years that Leonard would try to obtain the business rights to it, although it was getting more and more often these days…Cid swore that it had only just been a month that this conversation had been had st…
Cid wished that things may have been different and that his biological father had left his business in his friend’s name, instead of his, but now…Now that he really was of age to hand over the rights to it, Leonard was becoming something that seemed to stick to him, and he couldn’t get rid of it!
Cid’s small room had become a mess multiple of times and the so-called reason behind it was that ‘thieves had come’, or ‘dogs or wolves’ had come and that it was his fault for having food in there!
At first Cid had accepted the so-called reasons like an idiot, but no, it was most likely because a search had been done for a specific lot of papers!
Not only do they go into his small room without consent, but they also throw everything around, wrecking the small things that he has kept as treasures and just left it in a mess for him to clean it up!
This family, all of them seemed to annoy him and the worst one of them was this stepfather of his!
…What in the world did his mother see in him all those years ago!?
It already was such a hassle because Cid knew that if there were times that he was abused in a way, it was most likely because of the bcksmithing shop!
Leonard had never thought that the business management had been the only thing that his friend’s parent’s, Pauletta and Benjamin, did. No, the one that owned the shop, was the poor kid that no longer had any biological parents!
Pauletta and Benjamin looked after the rights of the shop all these years but when Cid came of age to take possession of it, they had given it back to him, as he was the rightful owner…Granted the shop was running backwards but Cid had told them a long time ago that they didn’t have to do anything to it. They absolutely insisted to help and did help a few years ago, but Cid was adamant, telling them to stop worrying about it. All that mattered was that the two people working there were still able to keep their jobs, otherwise Cid actually didn’t want it to stand out too much…
Back then, with his stepfather’s made-up version of transferring the shop into his hands, Cid had been able to read it, even though there had been some big words, and so he didn’t sign it, stating openly then that he was told not to sign anything that he didn’t understand.
His stepfather had tried to make him understand afterwards, changing some already known facts to benefit himself from what Cid had already learnt but...Cid made himself look stupid and that was the first lot of painful punishments that he had received from his stepfather…
At the time, he was still mourning his mother’s death and never thought that life could have gotten worse…But it did…
‘This is for not paying attention and understanding what is being taught to you!’ His stepfather had said back then, but…Cid found out ter that it was probably because he was mad and wanted a reason to torment him…
All because he didn’t get what he wanted!
Who was the child here?
Through hell though, there was a slight light…Because he had been cimed as ‘stupid’ in his stepfather’s eyes, he had been able to learn from the teacher that his stepbrothers also learnt from…So, it had not been a complete loss…
Enduring through his stepbrothers taunting ways while trying to pay attention to the teacher was just another story though…
Now, what Cid had not countered for, was that if the books were right, they really might have to shut down the business very soon…He wasn’t really surprised though, since he had not put effort into it for a long time…What worried him was the loyal men that worked there…Those men, whom he’d known since he was young, may have to look for another job soon…
But that is still not reason enough to just hand it over! Even if his stepfather could make the business profitable again!
“Here, just sign it and I will get the business back up again, guaranteed!”
Already, a piece of parchment was ready for Cid to sign.
It wasn’t his, no, he had hidden it! Obviously, he had hidden it well enough that his stepfather hadn’t found it yet!
The parchment stated clearly that the real ownership papers were lost and that this renews it, so on and so forth. It was only slightly different to the st time he had done it…
“I will see David…I mean David’s parents.” Cid stated, knowing that he sounded a bit like a child.
Some of the time, if he acted like he didn’t know what to do, Leonard would get annoyed and just walk away in a huff. The other times…Well, there would be the obvious punishments, for ridiculous reasons, and Cid would be in bed for at least a day to ‘Never make that mistake again!’
“Are you sure that ‘seeing’ David’s parents will help, Cid? They are managing it right now and yet look at it! Do you think it wise to continue to tolerate what they are doing to your te father’s work?”
Bming them!? If there was anyone to bme…
Taking a moment, before looking at Leonard, Cid smiled, “Perhaps there’s a mistake?”
Leonard frowned at Cid and pointed at the books, “This is a mistake!? Unlikely! Sign this so that I can bring it back to its former glory! Surely you would want the same for your te father and his business!”
Cid remembered his father’s bcksmithing business and never really thought that it had too much glory to begin with, he even wondered why his stepfather was so keen to take it from him so badly!
Cid wanted to state logical points like this to his stepfather, that the business might not be making a profit but it wasn’t making much to begin with anyway…Yet, he did not wish to get into a debate about who’s right and what’s wrong to do…And so on…Much ‘til the time of dawn and getting a lecture of how to do business…Oh, and not his biological father’s business, it was instead that of his stepfather’s business…Oh, and how his stepbrothers understood ‘exactly what I’ve told you!’
‘Your eldest brother’ this, ‘Your eldest brother’ that…Yet the only time he called the stepbrother’s his ‘brothers’ was when Leonard was trying to act nice. It was just too obvious now because other times he would state ‘Steven’ or ‘Freddie’, as though they were Cid’s masters and he was obviously their sve!
Steven, Cid’s eldest stepbrother, was intolerably arrogant, but ‘Freddie’ was a lot easier to deal with. In fact, Freddie was more of a nuisance simply because he was still young and hardly being looked after properly, it was more so Steven that tried to walk all over Cid and order him around like they weren’t reted through marriage…
Steven had also done what Leonard had done and visited the bcksmithing shop, even going as far as asking for it himself!
Yeah, Cid has tried logical, practical, basic and emotional…None of them seemed to work though with the greedy stepfather and that elder stepbrother of his…
