"After Hours"
In September in Kansas, the sky was so blue it looked as though someone had splashed paint across it, without even a single cloud.
Every year around this time, Smallville held a small agricultural fair.
Farmers from several nearby towns would bring their best produce to set up stalls and make money.
Jonathan's family was no exception. The pumpkins he had grown this year were bigger than in previous years, and Martha said they had to enter them in the fair.
So Jonathan drove his sputtering old pickup and took the whole family to the market in town.
And the town's gas station was on the way to the market.
Jonathan stopped for gas, while Martha took John into the convenience store to buy water.
John stood at the convenience store entrance, clutching a bottle of orange soda. Condensation on the glass trickled between his fingers and dripped straight onto his shoes.
He wasn't drinking. He was watching Jonathan pump gas.
In his previous life, he had held a lofty position and naturally had never paid attention to the trifling little tasks such "mortals" performed.
Instead, during these years of enjoying an ordinary life, John had learned quite a few things from everyday living.
Now, everything he looked at seemed to interest him.
Not far away, Jonathan held the nozzle with one hand, his other hand on his hip, leaning to one side as he chatted with the gas station owner.
The owner was a greasy fat man. One button on his overalls had popped off, exposing a large stretch of the gray undershirt beneath.
"Hey! Jonathan, do you know how much gas prices are going up next month? Fifteen cents! Fifteen! Fucking oil companies."
Jonathan smiled and shook his head, utterly helpless.
But just then, a pickup barreled into the gas station.
John, who had been watching the place all along, naturally noticed something was wrong and lowered the soda in his hand.
"Screech-"
The pickup braked hard beside the pump, its tires biting into the concrete and grinding out two black scars.
The acrid stench of burning rubber immediately drifted through the air.
Once the truck stopped, three men of different builds sprang out.
The one in front was bald.
His scalp gleamed in the sunlight, and an old scar stretched from his brow ridge to the crown of his head.
He looked particularly disgusting.
He walked up to the gas station owner, stopped abruptly, leaned forward, and slammed his left palm onto the counter.
Smack!
"Old Ford."
When the bald man spoke, the corner of his mouth habitually pulled to the right, exposing tobacco-yellowed teeth.
"Time to pay up today, isn't it?"
At those words, the station owner, Old Ford, went deathly pale.
He backed up a step, his back bumping into the shelves.
"Mike, I told you, I can't lend you this money. It'll get investigated."
But before the owner finished, the bald man lifted his hand from the counter and seized him by the collar.
He deliberately pressed his knuckles beneath the man's Adam's apple, then hauled upward.
The owner was dragged bodily across the counter, his feet almost leaving the ground, one hand instinctively grabbing at the bald man's fingers.
His other hand could only flail through the air, knocking down an open bag of chips and scattering crumbs all over the floor.
"Hahaha-"
The bald man's two companions burst out laughing behind him.
One had a full beard and narrowly set eyes.
He glanced around, then reached over and snatched a bottle off the shelf, hefting it in his hand.
Tap, tap-
The other, a tall, skinny man, leaned against the gas pump with a cigarette between his lips, exhaling a great cloud of smoke he had drawn back in, his narrowed eyes fixed on the owner.
Just then, Martha came out of the convenience store, holding two bottles of water.
She saw the commotion over by the station, paused, then thrust the water bottles into John's hands and took a step forward.
"Joe!"
She called out.
Jonathan had already lowered the nozzle, shifting from his crooked lean against the truck door to standing with his feet apart.
He first glanced at Martha, then at the bald man's hand gripping the collar by the counter, before hanging the nozzle back on the pump.
"Hey, buddy..."
Jonathan's voice wasn't loud, but it was strong and steady.
"Let him go."
The bald man turned and looked Jonathan up and down.
Well... a plaid shirt, old jeans, leather gloves stained with motor oil.
He sneered.
"Redneck... who the fuck are you?"
"Someone passing through."
Jonathan didn't back away.
"Talk it out. There's no need to get physical."
The bald man released the owner and turned around. He was half a head taller than Jonathan.
Fueled by liquor, he pressed a step closer, his chest almost touching Jonathan's.
The reek of alcohol and sweat mingled, fermenting beneath the midday sun into a nauseating odor.
"Do you know who I am?"
Jonathan didn't answer.
"I asked if you know who I am!"
The shove came without warning. The bald man slammed both hands into Jonathan's chest.
Jonathan staggered back two steps, his back striking the gas pump's metal casing.
But the bald man didn't stop.
His right hand released the owner's collar, and his arm swung to the side.
Spreading his fingers, he grabbed the rim of the iron trash can by the convenience store entrance and swung it straight up.
The sheet metal sliced through the air with a dull whoosh, flying straight at Jonathan.
Danger!!!
John's pupils abruptly contracted in that instant. At the end of his gaze, there was only that descending stretch of metal and Jonathan's profile, which hadn't quite turned back yet.
For three years, he had walked beneath the Kansas sun every day, and aside from changes in his bodily functions, there had been no other "mutations."
The layer wrapped around his body was like some transparent cocoon, sealing everything from his previous life inside, beyond his reach.
But at that moment, a distinct surge of heat exploded from the base of his spine.
It raced up his spine, then violently surged into his limbs.
John didn't even realize he was moving.
He hadn't even formed the thought, I need to get over there. There was only a "wish"-
(I say, the person before my eyes shall appear before me.)
He only wanted to stand in front of Jonathan, and then the air actually fucking exploded.
Boom-
It really did explode.
The air around his body compressed in an extremely short span of time, then was pushed outward.
A ring of white air, visible to the naked eye, blasted outward from its center in every direction.
"Whoosh-"
When John flashed in front of Jonathan, the bald man's foot hadn't even risen yet.
John's face was exactly level with the bald man's chest.
He was four years old, his height only just reaching an adult's waist.
But his face held none of the expressions a four-year-old child should have.
His lips pulled back, neither crying nor quite smiling, somewhere between the two, but closer to the terrifying curve before a bite.
His upper and lower teeth were clenched tightly together.
The force of his bite made his jaw tremble, and the veins at his temples bulged like two earthworms, twitching and writhing.
His eyes were wide with fury!
Then red light burst outward from within his eyeballs, the red of dark, heated branding irons.
"Whoosh-"
In an instant, a ferocious right fist whipped out from John's waist and slammed straight into the bald man's face.
Crack!
The sound of breaking bones was as crisp as crushing an entire box of crackers underfoot.
The next second, the bald man flew backward, his body flipping twice before smashing straight through the pickup's windshield.
The entire sequence took less than two seconds.
John stood where he was, his right hand still raised, a faint trace of heat lingering in his palm.
Fuck... looks like a little of my power has recovered...
But why now!
Fuck this body, fuck this power, fuck that bald guy and his two idiot lackeys, fuck me for doing this every damn time-
Act first and think about the consequences afterward, only to finish thinking and find those consequences already written across Jonathan's and Martha's faces.
I let my guard down!
To keep his "specialness" hidden, he had spent three whole years pretending to be a good little boy.
Three years pretending to build sandcastles in a sandbox, napping with a bunch of little brats who wet their pants, smelling their snot and the sour, day-old milk on their bodies.
Why pretend?
Precisely because he feared that once his abilities were exposed, Martha and Jonathan would see him as a mutated freak who killed indiscriminately.
He absolutely could not follow those overturned tracks and repeat the past!
John had already spent three full years with the Kende family, and he hadn't simply stood still during those years.
He had studied middle school textbooks, received a basic education, and gained a general understanding of this world.
Superhumans? Not a single fucking one!
There were only politicians as disgusting as the Department of Defense, and a history much like his original world's...
It was like some fucking absurd replica.
And now look...
All that fucking pretending, wasted!
But... as long as Jonathan was all right.
He lowered his head with some regret, staring fixedly at his right hand.
Blood stained his fist, and the blast of air had torn a slit in his cuff.
Heh... in my previous life, who knew how many people's throats I'd crushed with this hand.
As for the consequences...
Then John slowly turned his head toward Martha.
At that moment, Martha happened to be looking at him too.
But to John's disappointment, there was no fear in her eyes, nor the horror of someone seeing a monster.
Just then, the gas station owner poked his head out from behind the counter, his face filled with shock.
The surrounding onlookers were all frozen in place, phones raised, but even they weren't sure whether they had captured that movement-
Because John had been too fast, so fast that the naked eye hadn't caught any image at all.
They had only seen a child suddenly appear in front of his father.
Then that thug had gone flying off on his own like an aerial acrobat.
But John knew, Martha knew, and Jonathan likewise knew exactly what had happened.
They exchanged a glance, and after communicating their answer to one another.
Jonathan was the first to place his hand on John's uneasy shoulder.
"Let's go. They started it. Old Ford will take care of it."
No one spoke on the way home.
After they got home, Martha chose to go to the kitchen to boil water and make tea.
John stood in the hallway, his back against the wall.
He was waiting, waiting to be called over, waiting to be questioned...
"What kind of freak are you?"
"What did you do?"
John already had answers prepared for questions like those.
Just then, Martha came out of the kitchen carrying a cup of hot tea. As she passed him, her steps suddenly paused.
She looked down at him, then set the tea on the little table in the hallway and crouched down.
Her gaze was level with his, her eyes exceptionally calm.
"Little John... you got scared today, didn't you?"
She was still just as gentle.
John opened his mouth in some bewilderment, not knowing how to respond.
"Don't be scared. Go to your dad."
Martha gently patted his shoulder.
"He has something he wants to tell you."
The bedroom lights were dimmed low, and Jonathan was propped against the headboard.
"Sit."
Jonathan pointed to the chair beside the bed. John sat down, but his feet still couldn't reach the floor and only swung back and forth in midair.
Jonathan pondered for a while first, as though making some decision.
Then he rummaged something out of the bottommost bedside drawer and placed it in John's hands.
John recognized it: a pillowcase with a charred, blackened hole burned through it.
And at the sight of those scorch marks, John could be ten thousand percent certain that they were the work of his Heat Vision.
Only...
What?
When had this happened?
The hole had been patched with a piece of floral fabric. John knew it had been cut from Martha's apron.
"Looks familiar, doesn't it... your mom sewed that."
Jonathan sat back down beside the bed and turned the pillowcase over.
The hole had been thoroughly covered with floral fabric. The stitches weren't quite even, and a few were crooked, but every stitch had been sewn with exceptional care.
"This must be a mark you left during a nightmare... I still remember the night your mother brought me this pillowcase."
Jonathan held the pillowcase in his hands, his thumb rubbing the stitches on the floral fabric, and fell silent for about ten seconds.
Finally, he lifted his eyes.
"Tell me... John, when did it start?"
Sure enough, the thing I feared most had happened!
Were they going to drive me away... just like those ungrateful beasts in my last life?
John gritted his teeth, struggling to suppress the restless unease inside him.
"I'm not sure."
John's voice trembled even more than he had expected.
"Maybe... it's always been there, and only recently-"
"I mean things like what happened today,"
Jonathan interrupted him.
"How many times has it happened?"
At those words, John immediately tightened his grip on the edges of the chair.
"Twice. If this pillow counts as once, today was the second time."
Jonathan nodded, very slowly. He laid the pillowcase on his knees and folded both hands over it.
"Listen to me, John."
He kept his voice very low because he didn't want Martha in the next room to hear.
"What happened today-I won't ask you why you could do it... none of that matters. What matters is what you should do next."
He raised his head and looked John in the eyes.
"You exposed yourself today. I know you didn't mean to. That thug attacked first, and you only wanted to protect me. I really was touched.
"But did you ever think about what it meant to expose yourself at a gas station, right in front of five or six people?
"Do you think they didn't film it, or that they thought the bald guy went flying all by himself... you can't expect everyone to think that."
He turned the pillowcase over and pointed at the floral patch.
"This, I can sew. Your mom can sew. However many pillows you burn at home, we can sew them up.
"But not out there.
"People out there won't sew things up for you.
"When they see a four-year-old send an adult flying with one punch, they won't think that child is protecting his dad. They'll only think he's a freak."
"And freaks are not tolerated by this world."
John's grip tightened further.
When the word "freak" left Jonathan's mouth, his tone held nothing but deep worry.
"So, from now on... you have to learn to hide it, John."
"No matter what happens, you can't use that ability out there again.
"At least not before you grow up, before you learn to control it, before you can bear the consequences."
He stood, walked over to John, and crouched before him.
He placed his hands on John's shoulders, in the same spots as at the gas station, but with noticeably more pressure.
He needed John to look him in the eyes.
"I'm not telling you to stand by and let someone die. But if you use that ability to save someone, you could very well lose yourself in the bargain...
"Do you think Martha and I could bear that news?
"Or do you think, if we watched you being taken away by those people, by those scientists, doctors, government people-
"That we could take it?"
The words "scientists" and "doctors" left his mouth carrying the distrust peculiar to a Kansas farmer.
The things Jonathan trusted most in his life were weather forecasts and corn prices. What disgusted him most were those people in white coats who claimed they could explain everything.
That was all fucking capital.
"You're my son, John."
He moved a hand to the back of John's head.
"I'm your dad first, before I'm anything else. So you have to promise me-
"Something like this must never happen again."
"Because this world isn't ready for your existence yet."
John raised his head and looked, startled and conflicted, at something unfamiliar in those brown eyes...
Fear, anger... no.
It was being afraid-afraid of losing him.
"Okay."
Only after the word left his mouth did John realize that this might be the first promise he had made in this life, and a genuine one at that.
After all, he had made plenty of promises to cameras in his previous life... but most had come with teleprompters, PR scripts, and a top-notch legal team hired at great expense to back him up.
This time, there was no teleprompter.
Only a dimly lit bedroom, and a world he had yet to understand.
Jonathan watched him for a few seconds with some relief, then nodded gently.
He took his hand off John's head, stood up, and pushed the drawer shut.
"Oh, one more thing."
"What?"
Jonathan turned around, the corner of his mouth twitching.
"That punch you threw today... that move was too fucking fast. Next time you really have to fight someone, use your left hand to guard your face first.
"Remember, your Old Joe taught you that."
"Why?"
John raised his head and looked earnestly at Jonathan's face.
He had always had a question in his heart: since they already knew he was different, an "outsider" among the people of this world.
Why did they keep accepting him, time and time again?
He had wanted to ask questions like that on the very day he crash-landed at the farm... he just hadn't known how to put them into words.
And the Kents, as though they had realized something too, had kept their lips tightly sealed, maintaining a tacit silence.
"Why aren't you afraid of me? Someone like me, whose origins you don't even know-aren't you afraid that one day you'll wake up and I'll do it to you too-"
He couldn't go on.
Jonathan was silent for a while.
Then he stood up and looked John in the eyes.
"It isn't that Martha isn't afraid. She just chose not to be afraid."
John rubbed his fingers over the piece of floral fabric on the pillowcase, his fingertips feeling the rise and fall of the fine stitches underneath.
Come to think of it, he had owned so many things in his previous life-
Custom-made battle suits, luxurious furniture, floor-to-ceiling windows on the top floor of Vought Tower overlooking all of New York.
But none of them had ever made him feel the way he did now.
This feeling of having been mended by someone.
"Dad."
He spoke, and the word came out far more naturally than he had imagined.
At least it was easier than with that old popsicle Soldier Boy.
"No matter what happens in the future."
"You'll always be my son."
Jonathan reached out and gently pressed John's head against his chest.
Through the thin fabric of his shirt, John could hear that steady, powerful heartbeat, exactly as it had sounded when he was first lifted out of the spaceship.
"That will never change."
Jonathan's voice rose from his chest, very low and a little hoarse.
Outside the window, the wheat fields rustled in the night wind.
The last trace of sunset had faded from the horizon, and the stars began to shine in the vast Kansas sky.