Aaron groaned as he opened the front door to his apartment. It wasn't about school though. Aaron was one of those kids who didn't hate school, but didn't love school. School was where he went to learn. Nothing more, nothing less. No, this groan was due to whom he didn't see in the apartment: his father.
Aaron's father, Jeff, was once a decent person or so Aaron heard. He didn't really know his father during that time, what with being a baby and all. All he knew from then was that his mom had disappeared and that his father had tried to pretend that life was still normal while refusing to ever speak of the woman who gave birth to Aaron. That lasted till Aaron was five.
Aaron, from that age on, found a variety of different babysitters watching over him on what seemed like random nights. Aaron looked around the apartment to double-check that his father had not remembered to call a babysitter now. He was 15 now, after all. He could handle himself with slight thanks to his father. As Aaron aged, his father had shown up less and less. When Aaron had asked, his father brushed him off. He claimed that work had been making him stay later and later.
And I actually believed him, Aaron thought to himself as he checked his father's room. I was an idiot back then. It took Aaron till he was 12 to learn that his father's work had been letting him off on-time most of the time. His dad just had an interest in something different: The Laughing Bunny.
Their town was rather nice in many ways, but The Laughing Bunny was not one of those ways. The Laughing Bunny was the strip club/gentleman's club and bar in the heart of town. In other towns, it would have been torn down or forced to move. Other towns, however, had other bars in them though. The nearest bar, if you wanted just a drink, was many miles out of town and had far worse drinks than The Laughing Bunny. It was practically a rite of passage for the males in town to go to The Laughing Bunny when they turned 21 and attempt something they had never done before. The meek ones stuck to watching girls dance on poles and drink a new drink and the more audacious ones tried pushing their luck with the girls and drinks. One particularly fool-hearty drunk kid had gotten up on the stage once with one of the girls and performed with her. The bouncers dragged him to the manager's office and he wasn't heard from again. The boys had enjoyed the new girl who started performing a couple days later with large DD breasts and a remarkable amount of flirtation.
The Laughing Bunny should be brought down, Aaron thought. It hooks idiots like my father in and makes girls in bad situations deal with them. He had no doubt that his father leered a great deal over all of those girls. In fact, a rumor had started spreading that Jeff might be one of the first men banned from The Laughing Bunny. Apparently, he had been insulting the waitresses and strippers on a fairly regular basis for at least a year. Some claimed he did it out of bitterness over the woman who charmed him to have Aaron. Others claimed he did it out of anger over his life. Aaron's guess was that his father was just a jerk.
Aaron grimaced as he looked over the sparsely occupied kitchen.
"You know, it wouldn't kill you to actually buy some groceries every once in a while." Aaron mumbled as he looked through for an apple, some yogurt, or just anything that could be a snack really.
He looked at the table and sighed loudly at what he saw. Another letter and a 20-dollar bill lay upon the table. He could already recite the letter word for word because it was the same letter every time. It would claim that he was going to have to work late tonight and that Aaron would have to use the 20 to take care of himself. The thought that his father seemed to believe that Aaron still believed his excuses made Aaron want to punch the walls while yelling. It was testament to Aaron's character that he hadn't done such a thing yet.
Aaron decided to empty his backpack and do something productive like his homework. He had almost finished emptying his pack when he found a single golden coin in the bottom of his backpack. He started in surprise before he stopped and remembered where he had gotten it. It seemed a bit surprising to forget it since it had been the most exciting part of his day. He had been on his way to school when he had come across an old woman whose groceries had spilled due to her bag splitting. He had stopped going on his way to school and had instead proceeded to help her get her groceries back to her apartment. She had given him this gold coin in exchange with the claim that it would improve a life just as much as aid like his did her. It had made him a half hour late, but it had been worth it. Leaving people in need was something Aaron could not stomach doing.
He took a closer look at his payment for the first time. It had an eight-pointed star in the center and small writing on both sides that read 'I grant one wish of your heart'. Aaron blinked and looked at his coin again before coming to the conclusion that he had not read it wrong. It sounded like some sort of wishing coin. Of course, Aaron knew magic was not real.
Then again, if it was real though, Aaron wanted to think about his wish carefully. That is until he looked back at the table and saw the letter on it again. Then he gripped the coin in anger and muttered a desire that had been burning away over the years that he had known his father considered looking at half-naked women more important than raising his own son.
"I wish my father would pay attention to me instead of any of those girls he has been paying attention to." was the quiet angry desire given to the coin. The coin heated up and then turned into copper. As Aaron stared at the coin, wondering if it had been a hoax or not, he felt an urge begin to rise on the back of his mind. It was telling him to go somewhere, but he couldn't tell where. Then it suddenly became clear where the urge wanted him to go.
It wanted him to go to..
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