“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 blacksmithing shop with mine, 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 blacksmithing shop, he would not get a dim for it, or after it was taken!

Cid knew that his father’s old blacksmithing 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 last 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 play 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 blackmail?

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 was 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 wished that things may have been different and that his 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 specific papers!

Not only do they go into his small room without consent, they throw everything around, wreck the small things that he has kept as treasures and just leave 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 blacksmithing shop!

The first time he had tried to get Cid to give his father’s shop to him, Cid had been lucky to at least have the knowledge to not sign anything, as he had only been eleven at the time. He had already been warned beforehand, as Leonard had already gone to his friends to try to claim the business as his own, because of Ella, Cid’s mother, who had been married to him.

He 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 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…

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 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 they 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 later that it was probably because he was mad and wanted a reason to torment him…

All because he didn’t get what he wanted!

Now, what Cid had not countered for, was that if the books were right, they really might have to shut down the business…

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 last 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 something made out of the blue and Cid would be in bed for at least a day to ‘Never make that mistake again!’

“Are you sure that 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 late father’s work?”

Blaming them!? If there was anyone to blame…

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 late father and his business!”

Cid remembered his father’s blacksmithing 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 father’s business, it was instead that of his stepfathers. 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 ‘brothers’ was when he was trying to act nice. It was just too obvious now because other times he would state ‘Steven’ or ‘Freddie’, as though they were his masters and he was the slave!

Steven, Cid’s eldest stepbrother, was intolerably arrogant, but ‘Freddie’ was a lot easier to deal with. In fact, Freddie rarely did anything to make his day worse, it was Steven that tried to walk all over him and order him around like they weren’t related through marriage…

Steven had also done what his father had done and visited the blacksmithing 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 elder stepbrother of his…

It wasn’t like he needed more then two others working for the blacksmithing business and it wasn’t even situated in the capital, like where Leonard's jewellery crafting shop was and where he now lived, but it had done enough for them to live well back then…Back when both of his parents had been alive…

Agitated, because Leonard ‘acted’ like he wanted to do well, Cid knew that Leonard only wanted to own the blacksmithing shop and get all the ‘special and unique’ tricks that had been up his father’s sleeve!

But really, was that all?

Was there really nothing else?

Maybe the blacksmithing shop was on a gold mine or something!

It really can’t just be the so called ‘special and unique’ tricks that was apparently located or hidden in the shop…

Cid found that piece of news quite comical actually…

At first, Cid had been forced to help his stepfather’s business, but never did either of them think that Cid had a natural talent of making fine jewellery!

When Cid had made two things, that came out to become quite popular, Cid had stated that it was a ‘special’ trick of his father’s…And since then, Leonard had been antsy about the blacksmithing shop that had gone in Cid’s name upon his mother’s death.

Cid was sure that he hadn’t made it to become some legendary type of work…But now it seems to have become that over the years.

It was true that his father had tricks, but he had told most of them to Cid…In fact, the knowledge that his father gave him was more generalized, not as specific as he thinks Leonard might think it to be. For blacksmithing, and what Cid was using to make his Jewellery, his father had only stated three points on making a masterpiece…

First off, his father had said that the basic things matter! Like the color and type of wood or how hard the metal was…So, Cid found that to also mean quality, when he grew up.

Then, his father had said that a design needs to have something that stands out from the rest! He had meant something like that of a signature or a type of finishing design on some armor…

Lastly, his father had stated that one size does not fit all! Again, he was talking about armor!

Cid had taken in all this knowledge from his father and just changed some of the words or ideas for jewellery crafting. So, instead of a good type of wood for a hammer, it was a smooth as jade stone or gem. He would also use the same type of thing for the design, making the piece of jewellery one of a kind. And, of course, the last one was something Cid had only gotten better at lately…Because of one certain person and a sudden attraction…

There was no secret notebook, and no secret compartment that had the secret notebook…

Cid really wasn’t sure how that came to be something ‘real’…

It had been a strange situation because Leonard had thought that anything that Ella, his mother, had owned, would have gone to him, after all, he had been the husband...But he did not realize that David and his parents had intervened along the lines, years beforehand, and had made things difficult!

Yes, from Cid’s father’s death, David’s parents had already managed the blacksmithing shop, keeping the shop quite private from Leonard’s eagle eyes…And it still didn’t stop Leonard from making his own books in ‘evidence’ for him to take the shop for himself!

Cid wasn’t stupid, he knew that Leonard had already started to ‘manage’ the place, slowly at first, going there once a month, to now going there once a week.

He’d ordered for the books for him to read and ended up making a copy for himself, yet, it had not been enough!

Secretly, it had been six months that he had been able to get a hold of those who were using the blacksmithing shop to stop using it, to make this ‘evidence’ of the shop to state it was now something that Cid should give to him to ‘help’ because of no profits coming in anymore.

Being too busy to do much about his shop, it helped that David and his parents had stated that he wasn’t to worry about it until he was to get to the point of moving out and getting his own life together.

The problem was, even if Cid was thinking about moving out, Leonard seemed to have no intention of letting him go, only wanting him to work harder and harder!

Yes, he was more of a slave to this added family of his, not a stepson or stepbrother…

Leonard never used to be so popular, only having done jewellery with stones and had made bracelets and necklaces. He hadn’t been that poor, but he had been far from rich, yet, Leonard seemed to able to be known about and sometimes able to see the ‘rich circle of friends’.

But now, now that rings, tiara’s and even earrings were being made, the demand for his jewellery had risen more then double in the last five years!

The problem was, anything new that came out, was because of Cid and his ‘special’ trick, which meant that Leonard was depending upon Cid to continue to bring out more different varieties…Which meant, never letting him go!

Cid could only shake his head to Leonard still believing him that he was still using a special trick from his father…How many tricks could his father had made in the way for jewellery, when his father had been a blacksmith…

Could a man be this gullible?

His father’s ‘special’ tricks had run out long ago!

About two years after doing this job for most of his day, nearly every day, Cid had been coming up with ideas all on his own! It was only the guidelines of what his father had left for a masterpiece in blacksmithing that Cid was using now!

…It seemed that if Cid told Leonard that though, things would probably take an even worse route then the path he was on now…

“Oh! Ethan, nice to see you!” Cid stated, really glad to see the person who was sneakily poking their head around the side.

“How could you! You know that is the Princess, yet you dare call her a male’s name!” Leonard stated, hitting Cid on the back of the head.

Cid frowned and put a hand to his head and then nodded to the princess, “Bethany.”

Again, another hit to the back of the head from Leonard, “It’s Princess Bethany, Boy! My…I sincerely apologize, Your Highness! Quick boy, get on your knees!”

“Please…Sir, it’s fine. Let me punish him myself!” The Princess stated, with all her strangeness coming away from the corner of the room.

“Yes, of course, Your Highness!” Leonard stated very formally, then, before walking off, he glared fiercely at Cid. Whether he wanted to or not, he had to stop the conversation…Which was a big reason why he disliked the Princess constantly coming to see Cid…

He had to go and find Steven or Freddie, to try and get them to somehow get the Princess away from Cid again…

For…As long as the Princess is there, he could only act like the stepfather…But, as soon as the Princess goes away today, he was going to tell that boy to work longer tonight! He was angry! He was always angry when it came to Cid!

Cid let out a deep breath and smiled at Princess Bethany, “You have come at a good time!”

The Princess smiled and sat down, not having to bother about a dress, because she wasn’t wearing one today! It wasn’t the first time, nor did Cid think it would be the last!

Princess Bethany had dressed up as a male and come out to play, which indeed was something strange to everyone else but him. No one seemed to be getting used it like him…No one seemed to accept her as she is…Unlike him…

No, he liked her very much the way she was!

“I’m glad you think so!” She stated happily, “When I left last time, you were cranky!”

Cid nodded and hummed a reply, putting the books from the shop away, not wanting them to attract the same conversation again anytime soon.

“And when Cid is cranky, I think it would be good that he stays away from everyone!” The Princess continued to state, looking at two people nearby as though she wanted them to get the message.

“I stay away from everyone? I shouldn’t have to be the one to leave!” Cid stated, busying himself with getting his table ready to continue on with his job.

“But if you leave, everyone will be fine…Do you expect everyone else to leave? How is that fair?” The Princess asked with innocent eyes.

Cid looked up at her for a moment, then looked away. Her eyes were too…Pretty, so he shouldn’t look and loss his concentration! “This is where I work, everyone else can leave!”