Chapter 12: 12 - Helping out at home

    When my punch hit him in the face, I felt my right hand stinging slightly, making me think that gloves for moments like these could be good. Seeing him fall to the ground, instead of waiting for him to get up and take revenge on me, I just came closer and put my foot on his chest and leaned my weight on it, making him look at me with his eyes bulging as the air rushed out of his chest.

    "I told you to leave me alone, you piece of shit. Do you think I''m going to keep listening to you talk shit to me while I keep quiet? As far as I''m concerned, you''re just an insect that I could crush at any moment," I said, as he tried to use his hands to get my foot off him, but my weight of 139 kg was no joke. No matter how hard he tried, I just had to push down a little harder to keep my foot on his chest.

    "Please let me go..." he wheezed out with what little air he had, while looking at me with a desperate expression.

    Knowing he was about to break down, I lifted my foot slightly off his chest, allowing him to finally breathe, until I moved my foot to his stomach and stomped down hard, pushing all the air he had managed to inhale in that second back out, even making the rest of the food in his stomach threaten to leak out.

    With a shocked expression, he stared at me without knowing what to think, just feeling the oxygen running out in his head to the point where he almost fainted.

    Looking at him, I said nothing more and just turned to leave.

    As I turned back to my brother and the girl, I imagined I would see both of them with frightened expressions, but to my surprise both Ethan and his little friend were looking at me with eyes as bright as two pairs of headlights!

    "Woah, Noah, that was amazing!" Ethan said excitedly as he ran up to me and imitated the punch I threw at that piece of shit. "Where did you learn to fight like that?!"

    Even his little friend, although a little shy, was looking at me with shining eyes as she clenched her little fists.

    "I learned it on the internet," I said as I rubbed Ethan''s head and left.

    If we had been in a secluded place, I''d have had no problem breaking some of that dirtbag''s limbs, but as we were on a busy street, I''d be arrested if I did something like that.

    Looking around to see if there were people watching was a habit I picked up in my previous life, since at that time I was very used to fighting in the street. Breaking someone''s legs wasn''t something that happened very often, but I had done it once or twice.

    "Can you teach me?" Ethan asked expectantly.

    "Do you need to fight?" I asked while raising an eyebrow.

    At my question, Ethan became silent and didn''t know what to say until his little friend answered.

    "Yes, there''s a boy at our school who occasionally tries to pick fights with Ethan," she said, making Ethan look at her shocked, while turning to look at me worriedly.

    -------- Ethan''s Commentary --------

    On the sofa, Ethan was scared as he looked at the camera.

    "Shit, now that Isabella''s told Noah, is he going to be disappointed in me?" He said a little sadly.

    "The way he fought that bully looked so cool! I imagined myself punching Tony like that when he was fighting with me at school... It would be really cool to punch Tony like that!" he said excitedly, but soon became worried again, wondering how Noah would react to what Isabella had said.

    -------- Commentary End --------

    So I decided to tell him about my art.

    "Dad, I don''t think you''ll have to pay for me..." I started to explain, until he interrupted me.

    "Noah, don''t worry about it, son. This little bit of money your father can afford," he said, trying to remain firm, "You can save the money from the sales of your comics in case you want to buy something else."

    "No, dad, I don''t think I''ve ever told you, but I''ve always had a hobby of drawing characters from the comics I read, and recently I posted a drawing on the internet. Someone came and asked me to draw their own character and paid me for it. Since then I''ve been receiving drawing requests every day and I even have a queue of people wanting drawings," I explained, leaving my father shocked.

    "You mean you''re making money by drawing characters for other people on the computer?" he asked incredulously.

    "Yes, I only started this week, but a lot of people are liking the drawings," I explained with a little pride.

    I took the puppet art I''d done for the cover of the song Numb on my cell phone and showed it to my dad, and he was shocked by the quality of it.

    "Woah, that''s amazing Noah! But still, don''t worry. Save that money you''re earning to buy something you want."

    He tried to stick to buying the equipment for me.

    Shaking my head, I knew that this would be a matter of pride for him, so I didn''t insist any further, but I knew that he still didn''t understand how much money I was making, so I thought of something.

    "All right, Dad, but I want to help with the household bills too. How about I choose some bills to pay? The drawings make me a lot of money."

    Surprised, my father took his mind off the traffic while he looked at me with a mixture of surprise and pride.

    "All right Noah, in the glove compartment of the car there are some bills that I''m going to pay tomorrow. Pick one. I would recommend the gas bill, which is the lowest," he said with a big smile on his face.

    Surprised, I opened the glove compartment and saw several pieces of paper with bills to pay. Leafing through the papers, I found a bill for $130 and I decided to pay it.

    When my father saw that I had chosen the bill I had selected, he was surprised and told me, "Noah, that bill is too expensive. Pick a cheaper one; it''s fine."

    Laughing, I replied, "Dad, now I get $100 for every artwork I do, and I can do 1 or 2 artworks in a day, so you don''t have to worry. I''d even like to pay more bills, but I don''t have that much money on me right now since I just started this week."

    Currently I only had $463 on me, so I couldn''t afford more than that, but considering that if I did one artwork a day from Monday to Friday, that would be $2,000 a month, and if I did two artworks a day that would raise my income to $4,000 every month. Setting aside 20% of that to help with household expenses wouldn''t be a sacrifice for me, but it would be a great help for my parents, and consequently for my siblings too.

    And from the amazed and thrilled look on my father''s face, I could see that it was all going to be worth it.

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