Chapter 324: A Head Start

Chapter 324: A Head Start

"Don’t look at the ones beside the academy," Jin said.

His mother turned the tablet toward him. "I only wanted to see."

He saw the monthly rent and immediately wished he hadn’t.

"That one comes with furniture," Elena pointed out.

"For that much, it should come with someone who apologizes every time they collect the payment."

Arthur took the tablet before Jin could close the listing. "Your mother is allowed to look at a room."

Jin subsided, embarrassed. He had offered to help them move, and within ten minutes he was telling them how to search.

Elsa added something to the handwritten list beside her.

"What was that?" he asked.

"Brother not in charge of everything."

Elena laughed and returned to the map.

They had come over from the visitors’ guesthouse after breakfast. Jin’s new desk was covered in housing listings, transit information, and the notes his parents had made about possible work transfers. He hadn’t expected to be using it like this so soon.

Glitch was awake when Jin checked on him afterward.

He could lift his head for longer now, and the surface wounds were healing beneath the dressings. That morning he had managed to settle onto his chest with assistance, though the technician had helped him lie back before he tired himself.

The internal strain was improving more slowly. Jin had learned to ask about the trend instead of hoping each visit would bring permission to do something new.

"He’s progressing," the technician said while showing him the day’s readings. "The cuts will look much better before he’s ready for exercise. Don’t use those as your measure."

"I won’t." Jin glanced at the untouched practice equipment outside the stall. "He’s going to be annoyed."

"Then we’ll deal with an annoyed lizard."

Jin’s own blood count had risen at his follow-up appointment. He was still taking the prescribed supplements and resting when told, but he no longer needed help getting across his room.

He wanted to celebrate that by doing everything himself. Instead, he let the attendant bring Glitch’s feed on a trolley.

The bucket was substantial enough to make his restraint feel sensible.

Flicker reached Glitch before dinner did.

Jin stopped at the connecting doorway. She was standing beside his jaw with a pellet from her own dish held carefully in her beak.

Glitch looked at her, then at the pellet. She moved a little closer and held it out again.

Very slowly, he opened his mouth.

Flicker dropped the offering onto his tongue and hopped back. The pellet disappeared so completely that Jin doubted Glitch could have found it again if he’d tried.

He swallowed anyway.

Flicker fluffed her feathers, plainly pleased, and gave a small chirp.

Then Glitch turned toward the door. He spotted Jin, looked past him at the feed trolley, and waited.

Jin laughed before he could help it.

"Yes, yours is coming." He stepped aside for the attendant. "Don’t look at me like she was the whole meal."

Elsa appeared at his shoulder, having heard him.

"What happened?"

"She brought him dinner." Jin pointed to Flicker’s dish. "One pellet."

His sister looked from the tiny dish to Glitch and covered her mouth. "Did he eat it?"

"Very politely."

They watched while the attendant served his actual ration. Flicker returned to her perch, and Glitch began eating with enough concentration that neither of them seemed especially interested in their audience anymore.

Jin sat beside the bedding for a few minutes after Elsa went back upstairs. He had been watching Glitch for warning signs so closely that an ordinary greedy look felt like a gift.

"You can keep doing that," he murmured.

Glitch nudged the trough with his snout.

"Not asking for more. Being you."

By the next afternoon, the family had narrowed the search to three areas.

Arthur pointed to a neighborhood roughly two and a half kilometers from the academy. "This has the best access. There’s a transit connection to the work districts, and the security arrangements look reasonable."

"Have you asked about jobs?" Jin said.

"I’ve asked about vacancies. That’s different from having an offer." Arthur moved a printed reply across the desk. "There’s a depot position I can inquire about. Your mother’s waiting to hear whether her experience would transfer to the local facility."

Elena leaned forward. "I want to visit before I decide anything. The listing makes the rooms look bright, but I’d like to know what the ventilation’s like."

Jin hadn’t considered that. He added it to the list.

The closer option was more expensive and less convenient for Elsa’s school arrangements. The cheapest had poor transit connections, which would make the savings less impressive if his parents spent hours traveling to work.

"So we look at this one first?" he asked, touching Arthur’s choice.

"In person," his father said. "And we ask about the school before signing anything."

"I’ll help with the deposit."

"We know," Elena said gently. "Let us find out how much it is first."

He sat back and let them talk. They were making an actual plan, with questions and possible difficulties, and he liked it much more than imagining himself handing over a set of keys.

They would return to their current jobs while the inquiries continued. Moving would take time. At least now they were deciding how it might happen rather than whether they could ever afford to consider it.

The clinic replied that evening.

Jin had compared three licensed providers with his parents. The one they chose offered a suitability assessment before the supervised procedure, gave clear information about its follow-up care, and charged forty-six thousand Credits for the serum.

Elena read the appointment details before passing the phone to Elsa.

[Private Awakening Service — Appointment Confirmed]

[Candidate: Astor, Elsa — Age 15]

[Medical suitability assessment: fourteen days from confirmation.]

[Supervised awakening appointment: provisionally reserved, subject to assessment clearance.]

Elsa read it twice. Then she checked the date against her school calendar.

"I can go," she said. "That’s fine."

Jin expected her to start talking about what her talent might be. Instead she handed the phone back and sat on the edge of his bed, twisting the cuff of her sleeve.

"What if it’s bad?" she asked.

His parents went quiet at the desk.

Jin moved his chair closer. "We find out what you can do with it."

"That’s easy to say when yours—" Elsa stopped, glanced at Glitch’s doorway, and tried again. "You’re good at yours."

"Not because someone bought me a better grade."

She looked at him. He had to be careful here. His public talent wasn’t the whole story, and she deserved reassurance that didn’t depend on pretending he had managed everything through ordinary hard work.

"You don’t have to do what I did," Jin said. "You don’t have to enter the League or win three bouts because I paid for an appointment. That’s not what this is."

"But forty-six thousand—"

"Is within what we set aside." He showed her the budget, including the untouched reserve. "Dad checked."

Arthur nodded from the desk. "More than once."

That earned a small smile from Elsa.

"I want you to have time," Jin continued. "To learn it, make mistakes, choose a beast that suits you. If you hate the idea of doing it early, we can wait. The public session will still be there."

"I don’t hate it," she said quickly. "I want to know. I’m just nervous."

"That’s allowed," Elena told her.

Elsa leaned against Jin’s shoulder. He let her stay there, though she was pressing on the arm he had just had blood taken from.

He could complain about that later.

After his family returned to the guesthouse, Jin filed the latest medical results with the records requested by the specialist.

There were no Engine notes among them. His private suspicions stayed private; the clinical history and the visible change in Glitch were enough for an honest first consultation.

He still didn’t know why his blood had fallen so sharply. Better readings meant recovery, not an explanation.

From the stall came the scrape of Glitch adjusting his head on the bedding. Jin went to check, then stayed in the doorway while Flicker settled on her rail.

"The egg comes after she awakens," he told them. "We’ll find something that fits."

For once, he wouldn’t be choosing under the pressure of an approaching entrance exam and an almost empty account.

His phone sounded behind him.

The specialist’s office had accepted the referral. The first consultation would review records only; Glitch could stay in his stall.

Jin looked between that message and Elsa’s confirmed date.

He added both to his calendar, then opened the specialist’s preparation form.

The first question was about the awakening that had nearly killed them.