Charles and Richard Chapter 2

Richard invited the siblings into his home. For the hungry siblings, Richard opened the box of cookies he had just bought from them, and for those who didn’t drink black tea, he brought out Coca-Cola and Sprite, which Richard himself had never touched even once. And thinking it was not gentlemanly to entertain guests with cookies alone, he soon brought out all kinds of cakes and pastries. Emily and Charles literally ate until their stomachs burst. In the meantime, Emily and Richard rapidly became close.

Richard was 9 years old, just like Charles, but because of the extraordinary early education he received and his special living environment, he was somewhat more mature than his peers, and thanks to the aristocratic etiquette education in his household, he was even somewhat peculiar. Emily was three years older than Charles. True to a Girl Scout armed with a thorough sense of mission, she too was no ordinary girl. Richard and Emily got along incredibly well. However, if Richard brought up Rousseau, whom he was reading lately, as a topic, Emily would bring up the Harry Potter series she was reading lately as a topic, and even as their topics flowed in completely opposite directions, the amazing thing happened where their opinions still agreed to some extent.

All the while, Charles just silently ate fruit cake.

Emily and Richard continued their discussion, and finally drew the conclusion that Richard should visit the siblings’ house. The nanny did not object. Having two bodyguards accompany him, letting him play at Emily’s house for about an hour, and then having him return to the mansion was not against the rules. And so, in Richard’s two luxury sedans, the two bodyguards, the nanny, Richard, Emily, and Charles all went back to the house. Charles, who is endlessly honest only when it comes to Richard, says that it was from precisely then that he began to hate Richard.

∞ ∞ ∞

Charles, who grew up under genial parents and three genial older sisters, was the only one who was not particularly genial. In a house where everyone expressed their emotions honestly, he alone was particularly shy, and amidst his family members who all lived in a gentle, smooth manner, he alone was sensitive to even a single breeze stirring among the leaves. He was a boy of few words and a blunt demeanor, but in truth, his disposition was that of a fragile cotton candy, more so than anyone else in the family.

Even without throwing tantrums, someone in the family would always find Charles and take care of him. Even when there was no need to. If Charles was studying alone, Emily would sit across from him and start her homework too, or if he was sitting on the living room sofa watching television, Cherry would come to his feet and spend time with him, gently wagging her tail. At dinner, the quietest one was Charles, but his talkative second older sister talked to him the most. Every morning, his mother would drive Emily and Charles to school, and his father would often bring Charles to the store after his classes, feed him snacks or donuts, and tell him stories about the peculiar customers he met at the store. All of these things were Charles’s exclusive privileges, his rights, and, on the other hand, a daily life so familiar and natural.

Into that peaceful daily life, Richard had brazenly and ruthlessly pushed his way in.

It happened in an instant.

Richard began to share everything that Charles loved.

At the risk of sounding a bit unpleasant, to the young master from a wealthy family, Richard (age 9), who knew nothing of the world and only knew how to study, Charles’s sweet home was an astoundingly shocking place: too many people lived in a house as small as a matchbox. There was even a dog (a gentle Golden Retriever with soft fur) sponging off them. Everything Richard experienced that evening at Charles’s house was shocking to him in every way.

Charles’s parents did not reprimand Richard even when he sat with a hunched back. Even when he put his elbows on the dinner table and shoveled pea soup into his mouth, they only asked kindly, “Would you like another bowl?” Charles’s oldest sister, Christine, tickled Richard’s sides from the very first day he came to the house and, avoiding the nanny’s eyes, filled his mouth with whipped cream from a spray can. If Richard’s nanny or parents had found out, they would have made sure he never saw Christine again. The second older sister, Emma, taught him how to become friends with Cherry. How to brush Cherry’s fur, the treats Cherry liked, even how to tame Cherry. Soon, rolling around on the lawn with Cherry became the happiest thing in the world for Richard. The third older sister, Emily, was Richard’s bosom friend, needless to say. She didn’t know a speck about Rousseau or Camus, but she taught Richard who Superman, Spider-Man, and Wolverine were. Those comic books were the kind that could never appear on the book list Richard’s parents sent, but how could parents who hadn’t come to see their son in over a month possibly notice his little deviation?

Richard soon came to love everything Charles had. He ate dinner at Charles’s house two or three times a week, and some weekends he even stayed the night. He began to occupy the spot of the mischievous youngest child, which had not existed in Charles’s house before. All kinds of manners he had learned from his private tutors were completely useless at Charles’s house. Richard played all kinds of mischievous pranks with the sisters to his heart’s content and rode around the whole neighborhood on a skateboard with Cherry. He would stop by the grocery store and get a bag of jelly from Charles’s father, or go to the auto repair shop where Charles’s mother worked and get showered with affection by the mechanics. He shared everything of Charles’s, and therefore knew more about everything of Charles’s than anyone else. Perhaps Charles and Richard could have become inseparable best friends. They were both boys, the same age, and everything they loved was the same. But although Richard knew everything that Charles had, he did not actually know who Charles was.

Richard suddenly lifted his head and looked around for Charles. By then, it was already too late.

∞ ∞ ∞

Unlike Charles, who attended public school, Richard attended private school. Even the schools they went to were different. Their interests naturally did not match, and neither did their personalities, and most of all, Charles already hated Richard fiercely. Several months had already passed since Richard started coming to Charles’s house to play, and the season was now late autumn.

That day, Richard decided to stop by the grocery store first after finishing ballet class. Richard was in a very good mood. He no longer hated ballet class as much as before. Christine, Emma, and Emily had all said that learning ballet was cool, and Charles’s parents also thought that dance in life was something that was only good and had nothing bad about it. Richard had gotten out of the car at the entrance of the town and was slowly walking toward the grocery store.

He spotted a familiar brown back of the head walking ahead of him. Even though he had been frequenting the grocery store so regularly, Richard had never once overlapped paths with Charles. Richard, almost for the first time, called out to Charles. Charles paused for a moment but did not look back. Richard dashed over to him in a single breath.

R: Charles, why aren’t you answering?

C: ….

R: You’re going to your dad, right? Let’s go together!

C: ….

R: I just finished ballet class. Where are you coming from?

C: ….

Charles did not say a single word until they arrived at the store. Sensing something strange, Richard closed his mouth as well. They entered the store, and the father spotted the two boys. A customer was buying cigarettes in the store.

Father: The little rascals are here!