Art Trade (2)

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGHHHH!!!”

Yue was yanked away from sleep at the distressed scream coming from his son’s room. He sprung up from his bed. His breath became rapid. Drops of sweat formed on his face. He clutched his chest in an attempt to calm himself down. Then, he opened the drawer on the side of his bed. Inside was an old knife – the one Yue trusted with his dear life. He grabbed the blade from its containment, threw his blanket off to the side, and moved about to the bedroom door. Thoughts raced through his head as he twisted the doorknob:

What happened? What caused him to scream out such a distressed cry? Did someone break in? Was he hurt? Oh god, is he going to be okay? What if he’s not going to be okay? Oh god, oh god.

The voices inside Yue’s head danced along with his footsteps, swiftly stepping towards the teenage son’s bedroom. Suddenly, Yue found himself in front of the door of his son’s bedroom. He gathered himself, took a breath, and barged in.

SLAM!

To Yue’s… confusion, there was no intruder, no bloodshed. None of it. Well, there was his son laying on the floor, but it wasn’t out of injury or something like that. No, he was just there, clutching his phone with both his hands on his chest. He rolled around, shrieking and crying words like NO and WHY, seemingly not noticing his father standing totally dumbfounded at the doorway.

“What’s going on here?” Yue tried his best to calmly ask. Puzzled look in his face.

“Oh, hey dad, didn’t notice you there,” the son faced his father, still on the floor, “you are not going to believe this!”

“Believe what?”

“The webcomic! It’s been-” the son paused, overwhelmed by emotions, “it’s been put on PERMANENT HIATUS!!”

Yue stood still with a completely blank expression. He remembered his son raving about a webcomic a while ago. He still didn’t quite understand what a webcomic is.

“So… you screamed like someone attempted to murder you… because your ‘webcomic’ got dropped?” Yue asked one last time.

“Yeah…”

Yue scratched his head with an empty hand. He rolled his eyes, unsure how else to express himself at the moment. He had something he wanted to say, something along the line of I’m way too old for this, but decided it’s probably best not to. So instead, he quietly backed out of the room and closed the door, leaving his son crying alone in a muffled tone.

He looked down to his hand, still holding the trusty old knife. He chuckled. Upon realizing he might not need it anytime soon, he set the blade inside the drawer in front of his son’s room.

And as swiftly as he came, he walked off to his painting room.