Flip the Coin [BL]-Chapter 442. Family Dispute 1

Henry’s POV

"HOW DARE YOU TALK TO ME LIKE THAT?" Mrs. Howard yelled.

I first informed Kenny that the man wheeled in was ELJ before I sent a bunch of stickers of a dog hugging a human that I had found some time ago, until he told me to put the phone away.

"Haaa. Come out with me now." Mr. Howard secured the wheelchair a few meters into the room and motioned to his mother.

He bent down to Mr. Lawrence, who seemed to be on his last breath.

"I am sorry for yelling, sir. I need a moment alone with my ’mother.’ Please excuse us."

The corpse in the wheelchair made a benevolent hand gesture.

How the tables had turned. Edward had to crawl in front of Kenny’s father to make secure contact with the Howard family, but who was the one crawling now?

I would probably feel a bout of satisfaction if the person he crawled to wasn’t the head of the Lawrence family.

Mrs. Howard seemed so shocked at the way her son was talking to her that she needed a moment to regain her wits, but once she did, she sat back in her upholstered chair and crossed her legs in the most ladylike manner.

"I am going nowhere."

Ethan positioned himself behind her chair to back her up.

"Do you want to have this conversation in front of everyone?" Mr. Howard took a few threatening steps forward.

"You are the one interrupting official business. Were you raised like this? Where are your manners?" She scoffed and leaned back.

"Fine, as you wish." He turned back around to Mr. Lawrence, exchanged a look with him, and, upon the same benevolent hand gesture from before, he faced his mother again to speak to her.

But Mrs. Howard interrupted first.

"Are you his dog now? What is this about?" She mimicked the hand gesture of the corpse in the wheelchair.

I internally laughed; what an insult to call this garbage a dog.

"Are you even Marjorie Evelyn Howard? Or are you rather an imposter?" Her son laughed in her face, a far cry from the way I saw him behave the first time I met him.

"Who are you?" He asked his mother.

"...Have you gone insane??" It was the first time I heard Mrs. Howard so absolutely speechless.

Today was a first of many regarding her expressions.

"My mother did disappear for TWO YEARS, then you appeared but didn’t contact me or your grandchildren. Instead, you went to every newspaper possible to announce the innocence of your grandson?! About doppelgangers?? Additionally, my ’mother’ had become thirty years younger?" He seemed to lose his mind.

"I tried to find you many times! BUT YOU WOULDN’T MEET ME! Why? Because you knew you couldn’t deceive me?" Mr. Howard spread his arms before letting them fall beside his body.

There was silence in the hall, and even the scientists had stopped their work and watched the spectacle.

I stepped closer to the black-clothed man beside me and whispered,

"Get the scientists to work."

He nodded and turned back, and soon they resumed their inspection.

Mrs. Howard also finally answered; she turned absolutely calm, and the disappointment in her voice was audible.

"You think I am an imposter? Why should I do something so low?"

It’s hilarious that the man wheeling in someone who became equally younger through upgrading used the ’youth’ argument to attack Mrs. Howard.

"Isn’t it obvious? He did that, didn’t he? He found someone looking similar to access his grandmother’s assets and plead his innocence! Hell, he even found a doppelgänger to get out of prison!!" Mr. Howard came closer again, while my thoughts ceased and my mind went blank.

I clenched my fist, feeling the shadowy energy thrumming, ready to be released, ready to devour.

But the phone in my pocket vibrated again. So I stopped because I had to stop.

Kenny <3 <3 <3 <3: [Calm down, I don’t care about his yapping.]

I put the phone away after reading his message.

How could he not care?

He cared, and I cared a whole fucking lot too.

Standing here and hearing this fucked-up worm speak like this about his own son, directly assuming the worst possible scenario that nobody sane could come up with, I felt desperate.

Desperate and disappointed.

Was it so, SO difficult to either not have children at all or find them a better home if you ARE SO DAMN INCAPABLE of taking care of them?

Naturally, Kenny had to have been born; he had to go through all this, even if it pains me, because WE NEEDED EACH OTHER in our lives, BECAUSE I NEEDED HIM. But why not leave this ’cursed’—this wonderful child—to someone else to be loved?

"...I should have really taken him to me." I heard Mrs. Howard mumble, full of regret.

Yes. You should have.

The state attorney stepped in.

"Oh? Identity theft? That would be no small matter. I have indeed seen pictures of Mrs. Howard, and it’s true the age doesn’t match at all."

The state attorney stepped further forward, patting Mr. Howard’s shoulder as if to calm him down, as if they were friends.

"Did Mrs. Howard find an excellent surgeon?"

His smile widened.

"No... that couldn’t be it..."

I saw the man in the wheelchair smile and pulled out my phone to write a message to Ethan.

I saw him check his phone while the state attorney spoke.

"How about ’Mrs. Howard’ accompanies us to verify her identity?"

The situation nearly escalated, with the air standing still and everyone freezing.

Judge Kroh, who had sat down at one point, stood up in anger again, but Ethan spoke first.

"Please don’t say this; how horrible. Mrs. Howard had indeed turned younger while imprisoned in another world. I am myself a witness to that change; it is indeed unbelievable, but so are portals opening. We can naturally provide a DNA sample to a..."

He glanced at the man in the wheelchair.

"...neutral institution. And regarding good surgeons, if Mrs. Howard had needed them, which she naturally does not, then she would have naturally gone to Dr. Liam."

The smile of the man in the wheelchair fell as he pressed the oxygen mask against his face, his breaths becoming labored as Ethan continued.

"Oh, but this wonder surgeon had disappeared, hadn’t he? Together with many other people—what a tragedy. How sad their families must have been."

’Disappeared,’ better said, ripped apart by the same bone dragon they wanted to gain youth and health from by destroying their bone counterpart.

’Their families must be sad.’ Rather, the families of the prestigious people were livid and eager to find the culprit behind their loved one’s ’disappearance.’

This operation had most probably been top secret; I bet that not even their families knew that these individuals traveled to another world, and even if they did, surely not ALL were informed, because then the Lawrence family would have already experienced some backlash.

There was no real evidence, but because we knew the truth, evidence could be fabricated. A connection to the Lawrence family could surely be found as well.

"By the way, who is this gentleman that came with Mr. Howard? I didn’t hear the name clearly." Ethan motioned to the corpse in the wheelchair.

The state attorney furrowed his brow.

"What are you talking about? If you speak about the famous Dr. Liam, he isn’t a plastic surgeon—"

Eugene Lawrence Junior took his mask off and coughed, as if to stop the apparently clueless state attorney from speaking.

"Enough..." He finally brought it out.

He motioned to one of the people wearing fencing masks, and one woman stepped forward. She opened the netted part of the mask while bending down to hear whatever Mr. Lawrence was whispering.

Nobody was able to hear, but I did.

"...Make sure your face...is shown...cough."

The woman looked up as if contemplating what she just heard, at the same time presenting her face not only to the cameras but also to me.

Chelsea.

Not as easy to recognize by just seeing her expressionless face, but I was dead sure.

I looked at the other people with fencing masks—two more girls with the same body, one male on the shorter side, and one male skinny and on the taller side.

The twins, Harry, Patrick and Chelsea.

They really used every bait possible, didn’t they? What the fuck did they expect?

That they could really capture Kenny?

Even if he showed up, WHAT EXACTLY DID THEY THINK WOULD HAPPEN HERE?

I instantly pulled my phone out, and without reading the messages Kenny had sent, I wrote,

’Don’t come here!’

He answered fast.

Kenny <3 <3 <3 <3: [Don’t worry, I won’t come personally. Don’t worry and be good.]

Two times a ’don’t worry’ said it all.

FUCK.