The surrounding onlookers stood frozen on the spot, holding up their phones, though none of them were sure if they had actually caught the action—because John had been too fast, far too fast for the naked eye to capture anything.
They had merely seen a child suddenly materialize in front of his father, and then the thug flew backward like a trapeze artist.
But John knew, Martha knew, and Jonathan knew exactly what had happened.
They exchanged a look, coming to a silent understanding.
Jonathan was the first to act, placing a heavy hand on John’s uneasy shoulder.
“Let’s go.
They threw the first punch, and Old Ford will handle the rest.”
The drive home was silent.
Once home, Martha went straight to the kitchen to boil water for tea.
John stood in the hallway, leaning his back against the wall.
He was waiting—waiting to be called over, waiting to be interrogated…
“What kind of freak are you?”
“What did you do?”
John already had answers prepared for questions like these.
Just then, Martha came out of the kitchen carrying a cup of hot tea.
As she passed him, her footsteps paused.
She looked down at him, placed the tea on a small table in the hallway, and crouched down.
Meeting his eyes at eye level, her gaze was remarkably serene.
“Little John…
you must have been frightened today.”
She was as gentle as she had always been.
John parted his lips in confusion, not knowing how to respond.
“Don’t be scared.
Go on over to your father,” Martha patted his shoulder gently.
“He has a few things he wants to say to you.”
The lights in the bedroom were dimmed low.
Jonathan was leaning against the headboard.
“Sit down.” Jonathan pointed to the chair beside the bed.
John climbed up, but his feet couldn’t reach the floor, dangling in midair.
Jonathan fell quiet for a moment, appearing to reach a decision.
Then, from the bottom drawer of the nightstand, he pulled out an object and placed it in John’s hands.
John recognized it—it was a pillowcase with a charred, burnt hole.
Seeing the scorch marks on the pillowcase, John was ten thousand percent certain it was the handiwork of his heat vision.
Only…
What?
When had this happened?
The hole had been patched over with a piece of floral-patterned fabric.
John knew it was cut from Martha’s apron.
“Looks familiar, doesn’t it?
Your mom stitched that.”
Jonathan sat back on the edge of the bed and flipped the pillowcase over.
The hole was tightly mended with the floral cloth.
The stitching wasn’t perfectly even—crooked in a few spots—but every single thread had been sewn with painstaking care.
“This must have been left behind during one of your nightmares…
I still remember the night your mother showed this pillowcase to me.”
Jonathan held the pillowcase, his thumb rubbing over the stitches on the floral patch, remaining silent for about ten seconds.
Finally, he looked up.
“Tell me…
John, when did this start?”
*Sure enough, my worst fear came true!*
*Are they going to drive me away…
just like those ungrateful beasts in my past life?*
John grit his teeth, forcing down the uneasy agitation churning inside him.
“I…
I’m not sure,” John’s voice trembled more than he expected.
“Maybe…
it’s always been there, it’s just recently that—”
“I’m talking about what happened today,” Jonathan interrupted.
“How many times has it happened?”
At those words, John gripped the edge of the chair tight.
“Twice.
If this pillow counts as one, today was the second.”
Jonathan nodded slowly.
He set the pillowcase on his lap and folded his hands over it.
“Listen to me, John.” His voice was kept low, not wanting Martha in the next room to hear.
“About today…
I’m not going to ask how you did what you did.
None of that matters.
What matters is what you do next.”
He looked up, locking eyes with John.
“You exposed yourself today.
I know you didn’t mean to, and that thug moved first.
You just wanted to protect me, and I really am touched by that.
But have you thought about what it means to expose yourself at a gas station right in front of half a dozen people?
Do you think none of them recorded it, or that they’ll just believe the bald guy threw himself across the lot?
You can’t count on everyone thinking like that.”
He flipped the pillowcase over and pointed to the floral patch.
“This…
I can stitch it.
Your mom can stitch it.
No matter how many pillows you burn up at home, we can patch them up.
But not out there.
The people out there won’t mend things for you.
When they see a four-year-old kid knock a grown man flying with one punch, they won’t think the kid is protecting his dad.
They’ll just think he’s a freak.”
“And the world doesn’t tolerate freaks.”
John’s hands tightened their grip even further.
Yet when the word “freak” fell from Jonathan’s lips, there was nothing in his tone except deep, overwhelming concern.
“So from now on…
you have to learn to hide it, John.
No matter what happens, you can’t use that power out in public again.
At least not until you grow up, until you learn to control it, until you can bear the consequences.”
He stood up, walked over to John, and crouched down in front of him.
He placed his hand on John’s shoulder—in the exact same spot as at the gas station, but pressing with noticeably more firmness.
He needed John to look him in the eye.
“I’m not telling you to stand by and let people die.
But if you use that power to save someone, you’re very likely to destroy yourself in the process…
Do you think Martha and I could handle that?
Or do you think we could take it if we saw you dragged away by those people—by scientists, doctors, government men—do you think we could stand that?”
The words “scientists” and “doctors” came out of his mouth laced with the distinct distrust typical of a Kansas farmer.
The things Jonathan trusted most in his life were weather forecasts and corn prices; what disgusted him most were those folks in white lab coats who claimed they could explain everything.
They were all backed by damn corporate money.
“You are my son, John.” He moved his hand to the back of John’s head.
“I am your father first, before I am anything else.
So you have to promise me—this can never happen again.”
“Because the world isn’t ready for what you are.”
John looked up, staring with shocked, complex emotion into those brown eyes, searching for something that felt foreign to him…
Fear?
Anger?
Neither.
It was fear—fear of losing him.
“Okay.”
As the word left his mouth, John realized that this was perhaps the very first genuine promise he had ever made in his life.
In his past life, he had promised plenty of things in front of cameras…
but almost all of them were backed by teleprompters, PR drafts, and high-priced legal teams working behind the scenes.
This time, there was no teleprompter.
Only a dimly lit bedroom and a world he had yet to fully understand.
Jonathan looked at him with a trace of relief for a few seconds, then nodded softly.
He lifted his hand from John’s head, stood up, and pushed the drawer back into place.
“Oh, and one more thing.”
“What is it?”
Jonathan turned around, the corner of his mouth tweaking slightly.
“That punch you pulled today…
it was too damn fast.
If you ever really have to get into a fight, use your left hand to guard your face first.
Remember, that’s your old man teaching you.”
“Why?” John looked up, staring earnestly at Jonathan’s face.
A question had been lingering in his mind all along: now that they knew he was special, an “outlier” among the people of this world…
why did they keep accepting him, time and time again?
He had wanted to ask questions like this from the very day he crashed onto the farm…
he just hadn’t known how to say it.
And the Kent couple seemed to have sensed something as well, keeping tight-lipped and tacitly remaining silent.
“Why aren’t you afraid of me?
Someone like me coming from who-knows-where…
aren’t you afraid that one day you’ll wake up and I’ll—”
He couldn’t bring himself to finish.
Jonathan was silent for a moment.
Then he stood tall and looked into John’s eyes:
“Martha isn’t unafraid, John.
She just chose not to be.”
John’s fingers rubbed the floral patch on the pillowcase, feeling the delicate rise and fall of the fine stitches beneath his fingertips.
When he thought about it, he had possessed so many things in his past life—custom superhero suits, luxurious furniture, floor-to-ceiling windows on the top floor of the Vought Tower overlooking all of New York City.
Yet not a single one of them had ever given him the feeling he had right now.
The feeling of being mended by someone.
“Dad.”
He spoke, and the word came out far more naturally than he had imagined.
At least a whole lot easier than calling Soldier Boy that old popsicle.
“No matter what happens in the future.”
“You will always be my son.” Jonathan reached out, gently pressing John’s head against his chest.
Through the thin fabric of the shirt, John could hear the steady, strong heartbeat—exactly the same as the moment he was first lifted out of the ship.
“That will never change.” Jonathan’s voice resonated from deep within his chest, low and raspy.
Outside the window, the wheat fields rustled in the night wind.
The last trace of evening twilight had faded from the horizon, and stars began to shine brightly across the vast Kansas sky.