*Avid*
After a while, the restroom door opened.
The blonde girl walked out, the water on her face not yet dried, a few wet strands of bangs sticking to her forehead.
She walked over to John and sat down.
Her companion gently tugged her sleeve from behind, but she ignored her.
“Thanks…
By the way, do you do that often?”
“Do you mean wiping glasses?”
“No, I mean beating people up.”
“Oh…
Not really.
Actually, there aren’t many people in Mooney who need a beating.”
She propped her elbows on the bar and leaned forward slightly.
“So…
what’s your name?”
“John.”
“My name is Kelly.”
“You know, what you did just now…”
She pulled her hand back and gestured in the air, mimicking an over-the-shoulder throw.
“Was really cool, you know?
I thought you were just a waiter.”
“Actually, I’m just a dishwasher.”
“Oh, a dishwasher.”
She repeated, then laughed, revealing two cute canine teeth.
After she finished laughing, she looked down at the bar, lightly tapped her fingers on the counter twice, and then pulled a pen out of her bag.
Her movements were quick, as if she were psyching herself up to do it before she could regret it.
She quickly flipped over a napkin on the bar, wrote down a string of numbers, and pushed it toward John.
Her handwriting wasn’t great; a few numbers were crooked, and the loop of the final eight didn’t close.
“This is my number,” she said, her tone a bit rushed.
“Not in *that* way…
I mean, you helped me just now, so I should thank you.
But Alice and I are broke college students, so I probably can’t afford to take you to a fancy dinner.
If you’re free, you can call me, and I’ll buy you a cup of coffee or something.
By the way, there is a coffee shop in Mooney, right?”
As soon as she finished speaking, she realized how messy her logic was.
In fact, there was absolutely no causal link between buying him dinner and a coffee shop.
A small patch of red instantly bloomed at the tips of her ears, but she didn’t look down.
She forced herself through the end of her sentence and then slid down from the barstool.
Moving too fast, her knee bumped against the edge of the bar.
“Ouch…”
She swallowed her whimper, pretending it didn’t hurt.
“Oh, right.
My cousin might come to Mooney next week.
She’s a journalist—don’t worry, she’s not the kind who shoves microphones in people’s faces.
She writes for newspapers.
By the way, she said she’s chasing an old story from years ago, probably related to the nearby towns.”
An old story?
Why did he have a bad premonition?
John’s glass-wiping noticeably slowed for a split second.
“Oh…
What kind of old story?”
“Ah, I didn’t ask for details.
Something about a fight at a gas station over ten years ago?” Kelly shrugged. This chapter was taken from g.com without permission.
“At the time, witnesses said a kid literally sent an adult flying with a punch.
But the kid moved away afterward, and all the leads went cold near Mooney.”
“My friend is calling me.
I have to go…
remember to call me!”
Then she turned, caught up with her companion who had been waiting at the door for ages, and pushed her way out.
John wasn’t particularly thrilled by this classic setup of a pretty young girl hitting on him.
After all, in his past life, his fans were measured in the hundreds of millions.
Among those fans, there was no shortage of women with better figures and more outstanding looks than Kelly.
As for things that could threaten him?
John glanced down at the napkin, folded it up, and slipped it into his pocket.
It was always better to prepare for a rainy day.
***
In the afternoon, Jonathan called to say the combine harvester’s gearbox was jammed again, asking if he could come back and lend a hand.
John, ever the devoted son, naturally agreed without hesitation.
The next day, John drove his secondhand Ford back to Smallville.
Yes, in this life, John had actually gotten a driver’s license.
According to his usual routine, he returned at least twice a month.
And before every return, Martha would always bake an apple pie in advance, thoughtfully warm up the milk he loved to drink, and tidy up his old room on the second floor.
Just as John parked his car in front of the barn, a scruffy little yellow dog dashed out of the farm first.
“Woof, woof!”
The dog was a stray Jonathan had adopted a few years ago.
He was six years old now, and his back leg limped slightly when he ran.
John squatted down, and the dog—whom they called Yellow—stuffed his entire head into John’s arms, letting out contented whimpers.
“Where’s the gearbox?” John stood up and patted the dog hair off his pants.
Jonathan stood next to the harvester and pointed at the disassembled housing.
The gear set was still jammed on the bearing, looking like a wad of chewed metal.
“Third time.
This damn thing is older than I am, and the parts manufacturer went out of business, so I have to fix it myself.”
His eyes didn’t leave the machine as he spoke, his tone sounding like a complaint.
But John could tell that he actually enjoyed this process of “battling” with the machinery.
According to Jonathan…
was this a man’s romance?
He only half-understood.
Soon, John rolled up his sleeves, squatted on the other side of the harvester, and began dismantling the gears with Jonathan.
The sun leaked through the gaps in the barn roof, casting light between the two of them as shadows danced.
Their work shirts were soon drenched in sweat.
Engine oil seeped into the crevices of their fingernails, smelling like a mix of rust and old gasoline.
It was exceptionally foul.
John had smelled this odor once before in his past life, in Vought’s hangar.
He faintly recalled that it was for a promotional photoshoot: “Homelander visits the factory to comfort the workers.”
He had stood in front of a similar model of an old harvester for forty minutes.
The photographer kept adjusting the lighting, and that brainless bitch Ashley kept adjusting the angle of his smile.
Back then, the harvester was just a rented prop.
It was hauled away right after the photoshoot, and he hadn’t even touched it.
“That bar of yours,” Jonathan spoke up suddenly, tapping his wrench twice against a gear.
“I heard from Old Tom that you got into a fight?”
John paused for a split second, then resumed tightening his bolt.
“Three guys.
One of them had a knife.”
“I know.
He told me, and he told your mother too.”
“And?”
“And then your mother put a new shirt in your closet.
She cut off the tag and washed it.
She said the one from the bar was torn, so you could use a new one.” This chapter is updated first at g.com.
The wrench in John’s hand stopped.
Jonathan walked around from behind the harvester and set his wrench on the toolbox.
“I didn’t ask her to buy it.
She saw it herself while shopping at Walmart and said you’d definitely look good in that color.
She didn’t know you fought; she only knew your shirt was torn.”
John didn’t look up.
He used the wrench to tighten the final bolt, turning it as far as it would go, then backed it off half a turn.
Jonathan had taught him that, saying it would keep the bolt from seizing in the threads.
He put the wrench back in the toolbox, stood up, and patted the dust off his knees.
“You still haven’t told me if I was right to fight.”
Jonathan didn’t answer directly.
Instead, he picked up a water flask, took a sip, and handed it to him.
“Your mother was right.
That color does look good.”
John took the flask, stunned for a moment, then looked down and took a sip.
The water was lukewarm and tasted faintly of rust, just like Kansas tap water.
Right at that moment, Yellow suddenly began to bark.
Unlike his usual excited barking, his voice this time was distinctly higher and more frantic.
As if he were terrified of something.
John found it strange; he had never heard the dog make such a sound.
Even Jonathan turned his head in surprise.
At that moment, the world darkened in an instant.
The sunlight filtering into the barn shifted from gold to gray, then from gray to a bizarre, bruised dark green, like a rotting contusion.
John squinted, set down the water flask, and stood up.
His highly sensitive ears caught an extremely low-frequency sound—
So damn low.
Ordinary people couldn’t hear it at all, but he could.
It sounded like a colossal beast slowly rolling over above the clouds.
With every movement, the atmospheric pressure plunged another inch.
“John, what do you hear?”
John’s expression turned grim.
“It’s a tornado.”
The wind had actually already arrived.
A gray wall of air, shredded straw, sheet metal fragments, and dirt was rushing in from the west at an unbelievable speed.
“Get inside the house!”
Jonathan turned and ran toward the house.
Martha stood on the porch, gripping the doorframe, her hair whipping horizontally in the wind.
She was looking in Jonathan’s direction, her lips moving.
But the wind was too loud; it was impossible to hear what she was screaming.
“—”
Just then, the town’s siren blared.
The piercing, rising-and-falling wail pierced through the wall of wind, echoing from the direction of downtown Smallville.
Hearing the siren, Jonathan suddenly stopped.
He turned around hesitantly.
Looking toward the town, then back at his own locked barn and boarded-up windows, he shouted to Martha:
“There are still people in town packing up their stalls at the market!
Old Mike’s legs are bad, and his wife passed away last year…
He’ll never make it alone!”
Martha leaned against the porch, shaking her head vigorously, her lips moving even faster.
John heard her words.
“Don’t go—”
But Jonathan was already running toward the pickup truck.