I Married Three Calamities (And Got A System For It)

Chapter 28: Chapter 28: Believable lies

Mars didn’t answer immediately. He simply looked at the woman in front of him, his messy silver hair partially hiding his eyes.

All kinds of thoughts swirled inside his mind in a dizzying circle, yet no clear solution surfaced. Nothing at all.

He sighed inwardly, the headache still aching somewhere deep inside his skull, then decided to just go with the flow.

Just like always.

’Another one.’

"Who is she? That’s a question I’d like to know too, Captain...?" Mars replied, his voice cracking, trailing off as he fished for the woman’s name.

The woman, however, ignored the attempt. "You don’t know who she is? Really? Is that what you’re trying to tell me, Mars Fox?"

"I thought I knew her," he replied. "But after today, I can’t say that anymore."

"How did you meet her?"

Mars paused at that for a heartbeat, then closed his eyes as if ashamed of what he was about to say. "I see that you... you’ve investigated me, Captain."

"We did."

"So you know where I live. What did you find when you went there?"

The captain frowned, wondering where Mars was going with this, but decided to answer anyway, curious. "We found an old woman and her daughter there." She glanced at one of the files. "According to the woman, you let them use your house while you were away. Which makes me ask, obviously, where have you been?"

"If you know all that, it shouldn’t be hard for you to know I’m behind on my rent for a few months, and that I have other debts that refuse to go away," he looked steadily at the captain, trying to steady his own heart. "Debts that have followed me since, as you so coldly pointed out earlier, my mother died. So do you wonder how, even after six years, I still haven’t managed to pay it all off?"

The captain smiled humorlessly. "The interest climbing higher every day?" she said flatly. "We know, Mars. But we’re not here to discuss your financial troubles."

"Maybe we should be, actually," he said. "Because only money could push an 18-year-old boy into becoming a gigolo."

"Hm?" The woman paused at that, surprised. She leaned forward, elbows on the table, chin resting on interlaced fingers, her eyes locked on Mars. "What did you just say?"

"Why are you surprised?" Mars said, his lips trembling as he clenched his fist to keep his emotions in check. "You know how — and what — my mother was. So why does it surprise you that I decided to sell my body for money to pay off my debts? That’s exactly how I met that woman I called girlfriend. She was a client who promised me money. And she wanted me available to her at all times."

He paused, lowering his head in visible shame.

"That’s why I went there today to resign, so I could... serve her, earn money, pay off my debts, and finally be free."

"Free?" the captain retorted coldly. "How can you call yourself free when you sell your body for money?"

"Because you think I had another choice?" Mars hissed, glaring at the captain, the act made all the more convincing by how vividly he remembered what his mother had gone through to put food on the table, with no one else to help. "You think I enjoy being used? That I enjoy standing in front of someone and feeling like an object for their twisted pleasure? Tell me, Captain. Of course I don’t. But what am I supposed to do? What other options do I have right now?"

He asked, and the question seemed to echo through the room.

"There’s no help for people like me."

"There is. There’s a system meant to help people in difficulty."

"You put it in place. But is it working? How many times have I asked for financial help? How many hours have I waited for meetings that went nowhere? I’ve gotten none of the help you’re talking about, because every time someone looked at my file, all they saw was that my father was a servant and my mother was a courtesan." He smiled bitterly. "I was alone. Alone, with a job that didn’t even pay what the contract promised. So tell me, if you were in my place, what would you do?"

"I’m not here to talk about me," the captain said, her expression unmoved, though her voice had softened unexpectedly. "I’m here to talk about what happened today. Who killed Loris? Was it that woman?"

"You think it was me?" Mars said, looking down at his cuffed hands. "I awakened days ago, and my Gift is D-rank with no combat ability. Do I look like I have fire powers? Or the strength to beat, let alone kill, Loris?"

"So it was the woman. What was her name?"

"She told me her name was Sophia." He lied easily.

"Where did you meet her?"

At that point, Mars decided to use the moment to throw those damn gangsters under the bus. "A gangster, she goes by Melinda, is the one who dragged me into this gigolo business. She introduced me to Sophia one day, at my apartment. I don’t know where she came from."

"A gang, huh?" The captain tapped a nail repeatedly on the table. "Which gang?"

"The Wilted Gang."

"Oh. That one," she said, and seemed to sink into deep thought.

Mars said nothing, though his heart pounded loudly. He did his best to control it, just as he was already trying to keep his emotional instability from breaking him.

In fact, he was using that very instability to make his story sound even more genuine.

And it worked, the captain herself seemed fairly convinced. Mars had no criminal record, and his explanation was oddly solid and logical.

He had no fire powers, and he was too poor to buy artifacts that could grant them. He also lacked the strength to kill Loris himself.

It was also true that the Wilted Gang ran a brothel under their control, which gave the whole story a reason to hold together: why Mars would resign, and how he’d ended up there.

He needed money, and decided to do what his mother had done: sell his body. Then, through selling his body, he’d crossed paths with someone working for the Reds, who’d used Mars to get to Loris — when all the Protectors were nearby — in order to kill Loris and slip away.

The fact that Mars had been found burned and badly wounded only made the story more believable.

In short, Mars had been manipulated.

Yet the captain felt like something was still off about the whole story. Something didn’t quite add up, though she couldn’t pin down what.

She looked at the boy in front of her and saw someone tired and afraid, yet still trying to steady himself enough to speak.

She noticed his silver hair, so similar to her own, and felt a flicker of sympathy that made her shake her head inwardly.

Every time she wanted to sympathize with someone, she always found something they shared in common with her.

It was an odd habit the captain couldn’t quite shake.

Once more, she sighed and continued questioning Mars about everything, gathering as much information as she could.

Mars answered as carefully as possible, trying not to unravel everything with an obvious lie or slip-up.

It was nerve-wracking, and his mind was growing dizzy.

It was only after an hour and a half that the questions mercifully stopped. The captain leaned back in her chair, studying him.

"I’ve asked all my questions, and I’ve gotten most of my answers," she said. "And for now, you look innocent. My conclusion is that you were used and manipulated by them."

"But... is it safe for me?" Mars asked, fear in his voice. "Would I be targeted for having been around that person? I’m just an 18-year-old trying to survive. I... I know nothing about this world of drugs and murder and everything else."

"I know, Mars. I know," the captain said. "But you’re already caught up in it after today. We’ll hopefully learn more once we reach the Wilted Gang. For now, though, you’re one of our few leads into finding out more about the Reds."

"What... what does that mean?" he asked nervously.

The captain smiled, a cold, threatening smile. "It means that from now on, you’ll be closely watched by the Protectors."

’No! Fuck, no! All my lies will be found out then!’ Mars immediately panicked inwardly, though outwardly his smile stayed stiff but shaky.

"...Watched? I... I don’t think I like the sound of that, Captain."

"You just said you were afraid, Mars Fox."

"I did. But being watched closely by the Protectors would only pile more stress onto what I already have. I won’t survive everything happening at once."

"You don’t have to worry about your financial problems anymore," the captain said. "Your situation exists mainly because our systems and government have failed commoners like you. Because of that failure, you were pulled into a very high level of danger, and you nearly died. Many people like you exist all over the world. But I suppose, Mars Fox, you’re lucky enough to be the one who was seen, and who’s about to be helped."

"Helped?"

"You’ll be assigned someone who’ll stay by your side for the next month," the captain said. "A Protector, an agent, who’ll report to me if and when you’re threatened, and who’ll protect you. At the same time, your debts will be forgiven and paid off by us, and you’ll receive a scholarship to study at a college. With your Gift, you could make a fine psychiatrist and earn a real living."

She paused, smiled as if proud of herself, then caught herself and wiped the smile away. She found herself unexpectedly moved by Mars.

Maybe it was the silver hair, so much like her own. Humans were strange creatures, able to relate to anyone over a single point of similarity.

But maybe it was also because she understood what the young man had been through, and wanted — even if only to feel good about herself — to give him the chance the world had denied him.

And honestly, Mars would’ve been overjoyed, kissing the captain’s feet, if all this had happened four days earlier.

But now?

’Come on, are you serious? I don’t need this, damn it! It’s too late. And college? Are you insane? I have three wives whose emotions I have to manage, money to make, and monsters to kill. Who cares about being a good psychiatrist? I’m already one for my wives!’

Mars was shaking, literally, his head bowed as if fighting back tears. Watching him, the captain believed it was the emotion of finally daring to hope for a better future.

She felt secretly proud of herself, finally feeling like she was doing what a Protector should. Just what her little sister would want her to do.

’Little Alissa will be proud of me once I get home and tell her this. But first, I need the strength to actually go back to that house.’

The captain shook the thought away, gathered her stack of files, and stood up from her chair. "I’ll give you a moment to collect yourself, Mars Fox. I’ll be back in a few minutes to confirm everything we discussed and release you with the Protector assigned to you." She said, about to leave, then stopped abruptly. "Oh...what about the old woman and her daughter living in your apartment? How do you know them?"

Mars replied, his voice defeated and fearful, "From the street. I didn’t want Hope and Aunt Mari to stay outside. They’re two women, and we both know the kind of cruelty that could be done to them, especially unprotected. So I gave them my apartment while I looked for the money."

The captain was instantly moved by Mars’s words. Her body actually trembled, and she knew it was true, because the old woman, Aunt Mari, hadn’t stopped praising how kind and compassionate Mars was, once she’d learned they were Protectors looking for him.

All of it convinced the captain that a man like Mars... truly couldn’t kill. Not easily, at least.

She smiled faintly. "Veronica Snow," she said. "That’s my name, Mars Fox. Wait for me."

The captain, Veronica, finally left the room, leaving Mars alone.

He’d actually succeeded — he’d escaped being blamed for Loris’s death, and even earned the captain’s sympathy — but... but at what cost?

’Fuck me.’

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