Your Family Is My Family

The backyard of his house wasn't very spacious, barely enough for a small-scale neighborhood barbeque party – if Damien ever decided to host something like that.

Wild growths of rampant weeds had long since taken over the entire place, left alone without anyone to clean things up. Most of the wooden planks that fenced off the place also had their paint chipped off in multiple places, screaming of its owner's neglect.

It was pretty dark and quiet out here at the moment, with only the sound of chirping crickets accompanying Damien's rapid footsteps as he approached the farthest dark corner of his house, staring at an inconspicuous corner hidden under a dense thicket of tall bushes.

"Huff... This is where I stashed it, right?"

Under the dim illumination of the scattered rays coming from nearby street lights, he tried jogging his memories of the time he was under heavy drug influence, seeking to remember where exactly he put all of his money.

Unfortunately, though, all he managed to come up with were broken, disjointed pictures of his own misery.

"...Dammit, all those freaking drugs really messed up my head pretty bad." 

He grimaced a little, before slowly taking in a deep breath and swiftly diving into the bushy thicket. He decided to simply brute-force it.

"Where the hell is it...?"

He fumbled around in the dark for a while, grabbing various parts of the house wall while sharply focusing on his sense of touch, when suddenly, he felt an unusual crease on the wooden exterior of the house, one side of which felt oddly cold against his skin.

...Clearly, it was the texture of something metallic, completely different from the wooden texture that surrounded it. 

He then softly knocked on it twice, just to be sure. 

*Tang!* *Tang!*

Smiling in satisfaction, Damien patiently located all four corners of the metal plate, before loosening the screws that attached this plate to the wooden house wall. 

Next, with a little bit of prying and pulling, the metal plate easily came off the wall, revealing a dark, lightless cavity behind it.

"Hmm, this should be it. Let's see now..."

Vaguely recognizing the spot, he immediately slipped one of his arms deep inside the cavity, blindly feeling around for the few next moments before strongly tugging on something that seemed to be stuck inside. 

When he finally pulled out his arm from inside, he was holding a dirty, black-colored duffle bag in his grip.

"...Hah, got it!"

Damien grinned widely as he unzipped the bag, finding a bunch of thick stacks of dollar bills stuffed inside. 

...It was all still there, safe and sound.

From a quick sweep of his glance, his rough estimates told him that there had to be at least fifty thousand lying around in that bag!

...And just like that, the financial problems his transmigrated self was heavily sweating over till now had been effortlessly resolved with a single move. 

Well, maybe not effortlessly, to be exact. Since in reality, all of this was the result of the original Damien's life-endangering efforts to rise up in this society. 

...Not like it mattered to him anymore.

Knowing what he knew about the true nature of this world, none of this money would be of any use to him soon enough – whether he remained alive at the end of his plans or died miserably in an unknown ditch somewhere.

'...But for now, I won't need so much. Taking around a thousand for the next few weeks should be fine.'

Mentally contemplating his expenses for the next month or so, he took out a bunch of banknotes from one of the stacks, before putting the remaining portion back inside and starting to zip up the bag once again.

As he was closing the bag, his gaze briefly lingered on a shiny metallic barrel peeking out from underneath all the stacks of money, causing him to hesitate for a short moment.

'Should I...?'

It was an unlicensed revolver, one that he got himself after getting entangled in a sticky mess one time and luckily making it out alive, while in the process of carrying out his usual business.

'...No, there's no need.'

Though he was definitely half-tempted to take it with him, he didn't want any trouble finding him because of it. Who knew if Sierra's mother had already called the police or not?

He quickly packed up and restored the scene to how it was before. This money retrieval mission of his had already eaten through quite a bit of the remaining time, and he hadn't delivered those washed clothes to Sierra yet.

'Damn it, only half an hour left...'

Cursing internally, he made his way to the basket where he shoved all the dried clothes from this morning, before changing into a comfortable pair of pants and a grayish hoodie himself and picking out Sierra's clothes from the bunch to bring them inside.

****

Inside the room, Sierra was wearing one of his t-shirts while scrolling through her phone with a grave expression on her face. 

All this time, she had no clue where her phone was, thinking that Damien probably threw it somewhere to make sure it couldn't disturb them. 

That was also the reason why she hadn't looked for it yet, knowing that he would try to stop her anyway.

...But to think that he was using her phone to send all these messages to her mother, and in one of those messages, he even posed as herself!

When she saw this, Sierra suddenly felt like a cold bucket of water was splashed on top of her head. She was once again reminded of what kind of person she was dealing with here.

'...But, how did he make it past the lock? Did he use my face when I was sleeping?'

Once again looking at the time when Damien sent these messages, she knew her guess was probably right. 

What she didn't know, on the other hand, was why he suddenly decided to send that last message to her mother, saying that he was going to meet as well as have a talk with her. 

Knowing her mother's personality, she might just close the doors on his face the moment she saw his thuggish appearance. It was the same as digging his own grave!

"—Hey, sorry for being a bit late! I already got your clothes here, so quickly get dressed while I call for the cab. Your mom is probably going to eat me alive if I'm late.... Uh, what happened?"

It was at this moment, when Damien stormed in with her washed and dried clothes. 

Hearing his voice, Sierra slowly looked up from her phone, before blankly staring at his face as she raised her phone into the air, prompting him to look at it in apparent confusion.

"...What? Did your mom call again? Tsk, even after I told her that we would be there in an hour—"

"—No, mom didn't call. I just saw what you did with my phone."

"Oh, I see..."

Damien first put the clothes down next to her, smiling a bit sheepishly as he did so, before sitting down next to her and beginning to speak in a low voice.

"So, uh...you see, I really didn't want you to leave. And when I saw your mom repeatedly calling you when you were sleeping, I didn't want to worry her either. It's not like you didn't know that your mom would be worried about you not returning home, right?"

The corner of Sierra's eyes twitched a little. Because of all the tension and nervousness earlier, she had indeed forgotten about informing her mother of her whereabouts.

Still, she couldn't look like a fool here. Not to mention, sending a message to her mother while impersonating her was way too over the top!

"...So you didn't even think of telling me about it later? You could've let me talk to her, at least! And now you want to meet her in person? What was the point of posing as me, then?"

"Haa... Can you calm down a little? I've already made a promise to your mother. You don't have to worry about it, I'll take care of the talking. Your mom won't be mad at you, I promise."

"—It's not about her being mad at me, it's about you! She's going to go ballistic on me if she ever sees you!"

Hearing this, Damien raised a confused eyebrow at her.

"Hey, I don't think I'm anywhere near being that ugly."

At his words, Sierra sighed in exasperation, before starting to rub her forehead.

"...It's your freaking tattoos, you oaf. Not like all those shiny piercings of yours are going to help your image. I'm sorry to say this, but you have dug your own grave with this one! Mom is never letting me out with you, ever again."

The look on Damien's face immediately changed. 

'She's right. I forgot about those...'

Who would've thought that all the tattoos he painstakingly got to look more mature and intimidating a year ago would come back to bite him in the ass like this?

This time when he spoke, his tone had a little bit of uncertainty in them.

"...No, that won't happen. You don't have to worry about it, I'll talk it out with her."

Seeing the strangely serious look on his face as he said that, Sierra immediately jumped to her feet, feeling scared out of her wits for her poor mother.

"W-Wait, you can't intimidate or threaten her, you know? If you do something like that, I'll never—"

Damien made a strange face as he listened to all the nonsense she was talking.

"Hey, just listen to yourself. Why would I do something like that to her? What the hell do you even think I am?"

"...Someone very bad?"

"..."

He was left speechless. It wasn't that he didn't want to deny it, but it was already very clear to Sierra that his character was more than a little wicked. It was pointless to deny it now.

Damien took a deep breath, before shaking his head at her.

"Okay, you got me. But at least believe me when I say that I would never do something so reprehensible to my own family."

'...Well, maybe if it was before the transmigration, I would've thought about it. But now, I'm a changed person at heart. I have my own bottom lines too!'

The second part wasn't said out loud. There was no need for him to bring up unrelated matters in front of her right now.

Sierra almost heaved a relieved sigh, before frowning as he picked up on a small detail in his words.

"...Wait, did you just say 'family'? What do you mean—"

"No, I mean, sooner or later, she's going to be my mother-in-law, right? Plus, I don't really have a family, so I'll have to make do with yours in the future, I guess."

Sierra's eyes went round as she started blushing like a ripe tomato, while Damien had a wide grin on his face, like he was a prankster whose prank just succeeded. 

She realized that she had unwittingly fallen into his trap once again.

"Okay, now get dressed quickly. I'll be waiting for you outside!"