Recommended Song: “What Was I Made For?” (There is a recommended song for every chapter!)
Martha said he was found in the wheat field.
Honestly, it took John a whole year to mentally accept this fairy-tale bullshit.
I mean, wasn’t it complete nonsense?
He had clearly fallen from the sky.
The deep ditch that the crashed cockpit had plowed into the cornfield east of the Kent farm was still faintly visible.
Even though Jonathan had mostly filled it in with dirt.
But what John couldn’t stand was the damn near pure tenderness in Martha’s voice whenever she said it.
Did she really think a flying monster falling from the sky was some kind of gift from God?
It was like waking up in the middle of the night to find E.T.
standing at the foot of your bed, and instead of screaming, you asked if he was hungry and offered him a late-night snack.
As if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.
“You know, I heard a huge crash that evening.
I thought Jonathan had flipped his tractor again,” she would say with a laugh to a neighbor who had come to town to buy seeds, pinching John’s grumpy, collagen-rich little face.
“And guess what?
There was a cute little baby sitting right there in the wheat field.”
The neighbor burst out laughing, saying the Kents were incredibly lucky to have found a son dropped straight from heaven.
John sat on the steps nearby, listening to all of this with a blank expression.
*I, Homelander, have been glorious my entire life!*
*Sigh…
whatever.
It doesn’t fucking matter anymore.*
In his past life, if anyone had dared to talk about him like this—even in such a doting, harmless tone…
He would have slapped them into red fertilizer in less than a tenth of a second, then blasted them into the cracks of the wall with his heat vision so thoroughly they could never be scraped off.
He was Homelander.
The strongest, the best, the most supreme being!
*(A nod to the original speech from the show)*
He would never allow himself to become gossip for these stupid mortals, let alone be treated like some poor country boy named “Jack” from a wheat field.
Who the fuck gave you the balls?
But now, stripped of his right to set the record straight, he could only sit obediently on the steps.
Clutching a cob of corn Martha had stuffed into his hand, he gnawed on it furiously, utterly powerless.
Because right now, he was John Kent.
The only, and most well-behaved, son of the Kent family.
To John, maintaining a public persona was crucial; it was a basic skill every Supe should master.
This skill had kept his “good boy” image flawlessly intact.
At least, in the eyes of Martha and Jonathan, he was indeed a perfect angel.
In addition, he had hidden a small, combination-locked iron box, buried secretly under the old oak tree deep in the wheat field.
What was inside?
The very first fruit candy Martha had ever given him.
The wrapper was so worn from his constant touching that the edges were fraying.
There was also a wooden spinning top Jonathan had given him for his birthday, its edges chipped long ago when John had accidentally used a bit too much “miraculous super-strength.”
But that wasn’t all.
There was even a single strand of Martha’s golden hair, which had fallen to the floor two weeks ago.
John had picked it up with his fingernails and carefully tucked it between the pages of a notebook.
These were his treasures.
His amazing treasures.
They were the ironclad proof that he had actually been loved in this world.
Every night, as soon as Martha and Jonathan fell fast asleep, John would slip outside.
He would jog all the way to the oak tree, dig up the iron box, and like a miser, greedily inhale the scents clinging to his treasures.
Having lived two lives now, John was actually terrified.
He was terrified that all of this was a fucking illusion.
He feared that when he woke up tomorrow morning, he would find himself back in that miserable, godforsaken world, greeted by that thug of a dog Butcher swinging an American crowbar at his face.
So he had to keep these proofs.
Evidence that “someone once loved me.”
But then again…
It took John much longer than he expected to adapt to his new body.
It wasn’t physical.
Although an infant’s body was weak, his basic motor skills returned quickly.
He was walking along the walls at six months and running by the age of one.
Jonathan said the boy would definitely grow up to be an athlete, while Martha just shook her head with a doting smile, saying she only wanted him to be safe and healthy.
What John truly struggled to adapt to was something else entirely.
It was his worldview, the clash of his core values.
When he first arrived at the Kent farm, Martha noticed his obsession with milk and would frequently hand him cups of freshly warmed milk.
Even though the way John stared at those cups of milk was always a bit bizarre.
Once, as he reached for a cup, it slipped through his fingers before he could even touch it.
With a sharp shatter, ceramic shards sprayed across the floor, and the warm milk instantly soaked the hem of Martha’s dress.
*Oh no!*
John’s first instinct was to freeze.
Back in the laboratory during his childhood in his previous life, any mistake he made was meticulously documented.
Breaking a petri dish meant at least three hours of solitary confinement.
Dirtying a lab bench meant his “tolerance therapy” in the incinerator chamber that day would be doubled.
And if the researchers happened to be in a bad mood…
oh, it was far worse than solitary confinement.
They would strap him down, hook him up to electroshock therapy, and lock him in a pitch-black storage room until he “adapted.”
So he stood there, frozen like a statue, his lips pressed into a tight, nervous line.
His eyes were glued to the shards on the floor as his mind conjured up hundreds of different ways Martha would scream at him.
That was how it always went.
“Did you cut your hand?”
Martha knelt down.
Far from scolding him, the very first thing she did was anxiously grab his wrist, turning his small hand over to examine his palm.
John froze, staring blankly at Martha’s face.
“Let me see…
thank goodness, no blood.”
Martha let out a long sigh of relief, then carefully nudged him half a meter away from the mess of broken glass.
“Stand right here and don’t move.
Mommy’s going to get the broom.”
Mommy.
Even though John had been hearing that word for over a year, every time Martha referred to herself that way, John’s brain would short-circuit for a fraction of a second.
Like a program hitting an undefined variable, his mind would crash, leaving him completely at a loss.
After all, in his past life, no one had ever let him call them “Mom.”
The scum in the lab weren’t worthy, and that lactating bitch Madelyn only deserved to be called by her name.
So…
Martha bent down to pick up the shards one by one, the hem of her floral apron brushing against the wooden floorboards.
She didn’t care at all that it was soaked in milk.
Her movements were slow and meticulous.
Once she finished picking them up, she even swept her hand across the floorboards to ensure no tiny splinters were left behind.
Throughout the entire process, she didn’t look at him even once.
It wasn’t out of deliberate neglect.
It was a quiet, trusting peace of mind.
Realizing this made John feel as if something was blocking his throat.
He awkwardly turned his face away, staring out at the wheat field through the window until the stinging sensation in his eyes finally subsided.
This was his mother, Martha.
As for Jonathan, to John, he was a quiet, practical man.
He possessed a grounded, earthy silence.
But John never dared to underestimate this silent farmer.
In fact, from the bottom of his heart, he couldn’t read him at all.
John had seen too many people in his previous life.
Politicians, businessmen, Supes—he could see through what was on their minds almost at a glance.
And don’t forget, he had actual X-ray vision.
He could gauge their emotions by their heartbeats.
*(Just a little bragging from the kid, don’t take it too seriously.)*
Yet he couldn’t read Jonathan at all.
To be precise, he couldn’t understand this man’s logic.
This hardworking man woke up at five every morning, started up that ancient tractor in the barn, and rumbled off to the fields.
At noon, Martha would make sandwiches and have John carry them in a basket to the edge of the field.
Jonathan would sit in the shadow of the tractor, wipe his sweat with a mud-stained sleeve, take the sandwich, and bite into it.
He would say, “Thanks, son,” and go back to chewing in silence.
This silence made John very uncomfortable at first.
Because in his previous life, there was never any quiet around him.
That bitch Ashley was always buzzing in his ear about some public relations crisis or branding strategy bullshit.
Those two idiots, The Deep and A-Train, spent their days testing and guarding against each other, which looked like child’s play to him.
Madelyn would only brainwash him with her sickeningly sweet voice (compared to Martha, she was a devil; Martha was an absolute angel), whispering how important he was.
Although the John of that time, trapped in her gentle trap, was seemingly “at her beck and call,” he actually knew better than anyone—
A corporate boss lady like Madelyn had a purpose behind every word she spoke, calculating his value every single second.
He wasn’t sure what silence meant, and uncertainty usually meant danger.
So, John constantly watched Jonathan from the shadows.
He watched how Jonathan would habitually pat the doorframe when leaving in the morning.
How, after dinner, he would sit leisurely on the porch, silently smoking a pipe.
And the quiet, unhurried tenderness in his eyes whenever he looked at Martha.
It was only much later that John realized silence could also mean reliability.
When he was three, Jonathan broke a promise to him for the first time.
They had agreed to go to the town fair on Sunday, and John had been looking forward to it since Friday.
It wasn’t because the fair was so fucking fun.
After learning to fly in his past life, John had long grown sick of the most luxurious places in the world.
A primitive town fair in some Kansas backwater?
It wasn’t worth a damn.
What he was truly looking forward to was the passing remark Jonathan had made: “I’ll take you on the roller coaster.”
What a contrast, right?
Yes, a roller coaster.
John loved the idea, looked forward to it, and was incredibly excited.
This was because Homelander had never ridden one in his past life.
He had gotten bored of supersonic flight by the time he was eleven.
But right now, he was just an ordinary human, so a roller coaster was a completely novel experience.
As it turned out, a heavy rainstorm hit on Saturday night, washing away the drainage ditch on the east side of the wheat field.
Jonathan left before dawn with a shovel and didn’t return until evening, covered in mud and so exhausted he could barely pull off his boots.
Standing by the kitchen door with a dark expression, John watched Jonathan panting on a chair and sneered in his heart.
*Of course.*
*Promises are all fucking bullshit.*
*The Vought bitches were like this, and this old country farmer is no different.
No exceptions.*
Completely disappointed, he turned to head back to his room, intending to forget the whole thing and pretend it had never happened.
He would never believe anyone’s lies again.
*Never.*
Just as he was about to step into his room, Jonathan called out to him.
John stopped.
He didn’t turn around.
He was prepared to hear ten thousand excuses about family financial struggles or force majeure.
“Come here for a second, son.”
He slowly walked over, his head lowered and his face completely blank.
Jonathan strained to sit up, placing his large, mud-caked hands on John’s shoulders.
“I’m sorry.”
His voice was heavy, with no unnecessary embellishments.
“Daddy broke his promise today.”
*What?!*
John’s brain buzzed, going completely blank for three whole seconds.
*He’s…
apologizing to me?*
In his forty-odd years of life, aside from that cowardly bully The Deep groveling and apologizing to him daily, this was the first person to ever sincerely say “I’m sorry” to him.
Excuses?
Justifications?
None of it.
Only a simple, straightforward “I’m sorry.”
Wish fulfilled.
In an instant, a hot rush of tears surged into John’s eyes.
He hurriedly buried his face, refusing to let Jonathan see him looking so pathetic.
“It’s fine…” His voice was dry, taking half a day just to choke out a sentence.
“The drainage ditch is more important.”
“No.” Jonathan shook his head, his voice quiet but as firm as a rock.
“The ditch could have waited until tomorrow.
But a promise made to you is not something to be brushed aside.”
“Next Sunday, Daddy will definitely take you.
A man’s word is his bond, and a promise is a promise.”
This was Jonathan.
His father.
That night, John didn’t cry.
He was Homelander; there was no way he would cry over such trivial, insignificant bullshit.
He merely lay on his narrow wooden bed, clutching the corner of his blanket, tossing and turning for three hours.
The insects chirping in the fields outside were deafening, Martha was humming an out-of-tune lullaby next door, and Jonathan’s snoring was like rolling thunder.
John buried his entire face in the soft pillow, pressing down hard on his burning eyes.
*Fuck…!*
*Is this what a home is?*
*Is this the family that I spent over forty years desperately searching for, but never even got to touch before I died?!*
In the darkness, a manic, pathological cold light flashed in his eyes.
*They are all mine.*
*Martha…
Jonathan…*
*You are all mine!*
*If anyone dares to touch a single hair on Martha’s head, I’ll stuff them down a toilet and flush them away!*
*If anyone dares to lay a hand on Jonathan, I’ll grind their bones to dust, inch by inch, and dump them all into the septic tank!*
Perhaps John’s obsession had triggered something.
After he fell asleep clutching his pillow, an incredibly faint, warm current quietly spread along his meridians, gradually diffusing throughout his entire body…