Fate Online: Shadow

"That kid is really asking for a good beating isn’t he?" Michael grinned coldly as he walked out of the grocery store.

"I’ll deal with that f*cker later if I have time, and I’ll also need to buy a dagger" Michael held his chin as he slowly walked towards his apartment with his grocery in hands.

While on his way home, he noticed some people staring at him.

"So that’s the reason why I always had the feeling of being watched whenever I’m outside, and can’t seem to locate who it was that’s watching me, and it’s because I can’t locate him, but because there are a lot of people watching me" Michael grinned widely.

"It seems there would be trouble in the upcoming few days, and It seems I won’t even need to look for that brat" Michael laughed coldly, along with a dark look on his face

"But for now, I’ll have a little feast with gran and gramps"

"It’s been a long time since I had a long talk with them" Michael smiled warmly, and rare smile that he had only showed to Amanda from his original timeline

A few minutes later, Michael finally arrived back at the apartment.

Michael immediately headed towards the third floor through the stairs and stood in front of the apartment at the left side of the stairs, where the old couple lives, and their place entirely occupies half of the third floor, and at the edge of the corridor is a door that leads towards the emergency staircase.

*Knock!* *Knock!*

Michael knocked on the door twice.

"Who is it?" a hoarse voice sounded from the other side of the door.

"It’s me!"

The moment Michael said those words, clicking sounds of the door opening sounded, and the door before him swung open and he was greeted by an old man with a stocky build despite his age of sixty years old. He has short black hair, a short mustache and he has sharp eyes.

He stands tall without a hunchback, he’s around the same height as Michael, six foot, three inches and he has the air of a former military man around his body.

And his name is Tom Grey, but people familiar to him calls him Old Tom instead, and he was a retired Colonel from the army.

"Morning gramps!" Michael smiled at him.

"Oho, what brings you here lad?" Old Tom happily smiled at him, he is clearly happy with how huge his smile is.

"Tom! Who is it?" suddenly, a voice of a woman sounded from the living room of this apartment, and it might as well be called a house.

"It’s Michael, and it seems he’s here for something!" Old Tom answered back as he glanced at the paper bag that Michael’s been carrying.

"Really!?" a surprised voice sounded, and then Michael heard some shuffling and footsteps coming from the living room.

A woman appeared from the corner that leads to the living room, she has long blonde hair, deep blue eyes, pointy nose and thin lips, and some wrinkles on her face, but it doesn’t hide the fact that this woman was once a beautiful lady, and even around her age, she’s still beautiful.

She is Tom’s wife, Alice Grey, a gym enthusiast despite her age of fifty nine, and because of this, she still has the look of around early fifties.

And aside from them owning an apartment building, they also own a gym near here. It’s where Michael had met Amanda the other day, called "Grey Gym".

Their young appearances that doesn’t match their age sometimes even baffles Michael.

"Michael! It’s been a long time since you came to visit us! Come in!" Alice walked over with a smile on her face and gave him a quick hug before glaring at her face husband with a face that says "Why haven’t you invited him inside yet, and let him stand outside!?".

Towards his wife’s questioning look, Tom just smiled helplessly and shrugged his shoulders.

Michael then followed the couple inside, and started looking around.

The couple’s place is bigger than Michael’s room by at least five times its size!

When Michael passed by the front door, he saw a rack of shoes, slippers and a coat rack. After that, there would be a small wash room on the right side just after the racks, next to the right is a short walk towards their living room, then beyond that is another short corridor and at both sides are two guest rooms and one bathroom in the middle.

And at the left is the kitchen and dining room, and the side that’s almost facing the front door is their master bedroom where the couple sleeps.

And their place has everything, from the latest T.V, a huge refrigerator that cost over $40,000 called Meneghini La Cambusa Fridge, their place is always in AC, and they have huge bathroom etc.

And they have a lot of plot lands that they rented to businesses around the city. In short, they are low key rich people.

And this has always been one of the questions of why people like them are so nice to him, is it because they couldn’t have children or they just pity him?

But he never asked them about it, he was just grateful that they treats him as family.

But even when he knew that they were rich, he had still left them some money before he died, as it was the only that he knew that he could show his thanks to them after looking after him for almost five years.

Tom went to the living room and continued to watch his favorite show, while Michael and Alice stood in between the kitchen and living room.

"So what brought you here today? It’s been quite a while since you came to visit" Alice turned around and faced him.

"Uhh..it was only a day since I last visited gran" Michael smiled stiffly, but inside, he can’t help but have a rush of emotions within him.

Sometimes, he just wished that times like this wouldn’t end, but sometimes, everything doesn’t always goes the same way that you want it to.

His life on the run, made him realize that every happenings in your life, is that you just need to make the most of it, either good or bad, because you don’t know when those kind of days would disappear.

"But for me, it’s still long enough!"

"Anyway, what is that thing that your brought over?" Alice said, as she addressed the thing that Michael’s holding in his arms.

"Ohh..I wanted to have a simple feast with you guys because I just received my first paycheck last night, so I went out and bought ingredients, as I want to make you favorite-"

"Spaghetti bolognese!? Oh my, you’re great at making that one! I almost can’t get enough of eating those!" Alice suddenly clapped happily when she heard him!

"Make sure to make a lot, okay!?" Tom yelled at them from the living room.

"Quick! I can’t wait!"

Alice rushed him towards the kitchen.

So Michael started preparing the ingredients for his Spaghetti Bolognese, and for a side dish, an Eggplant Parm Casserole, from which he directly took the ingredients from the couple’s refrigerator like it was only natural.

Well, it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to call this place as his second home, as a lot of his time for three years has been spent here.

Even the couple wanted to adopt him before, but in the end he declined as he thought that it wasn’t a good idea as he was already imposing a lot on them, and the Michael in the future had always called his younger self then as a stupid idiot for thinking like that.

So this time, if they ask him again about it, which they would certainly ask him about it later in the future.

Michael would definitely agree, after all, he’s a very practical person, and he had always seen the two of them as family, that their importance in his life is the same as Amanda.

Only an idiot would decline something like that, which is certainly a huge blessing from getting adopted into a great family, that literally treats you like their own blood kin.

The Michael this time is not the naive fool he used to be, but a cold blooded assassin with a warm heart...and also for being a great cook.