i - the emperor

Dev is ten years old.

The eyes of an old man stare at him, his thin rosy lips giving him a knowing but mischievous smile. His hair is black, with a couple of grey strands, but it's not black enough.

He messed that up, Dev knows. The black is too brownish. It should be a cooler tone. But there's no time to fix that anymore. The canvas is placed into the hands of a man who looks just like what Dev painted, just with a cooler tone of black in his hair. He shakes dad's hand, then leans down towards Dev.

"What a beautiful piece, Dev!" His grin is almost encouraging. "I'm completely blown away. You painted that all by yourself?"

Dev nods, attempts to smile back, and the man ruffles through his dark hair. He turns the canvas to face himself, and looks at the piece. Dev is scared that he might see the wrong colours he picked, but he doesn't seem to notice. Instead, he smiles, and something in his eyes sparkles a little.

That's Dev's favourite thing. When someone looks at what he's made, and their eyes begin to sparkle. Maybe he did fine, after all.

"How much do I pay you?" the man asks Dev, but dad responds.

"Three hundred and fifty. You can give that to me." Dad looks down at Dev, smiles with his lips but not the rest of his face. "I'll put it somewhere for you"

Dev nods, and watches the man pull money out of his pocket, placing it into dad's hands. Dad counts it, and now his face looks happier after all.

"This is fantastic, Mister Ansari. I hope you continue to nurture this boy, he could make a fortune one day with work like this!"

There's something almost proud in dad's eyes when he hears that, and he leans closer to the man, his voice a little more quiet.

"I sure hope so. We're going to enroll him in Oakwell Abbey. They have excellent classes, especially for realism." Quieter. Not quiet enough for Dev to not hear him though. "He doesn't quite have the dedication yet. He gets distracted with other work."

"He's a child. Let him have fun, will ya?" The man pats dads shoulder, and dads voice drops even more.

"Fun doesn't pay as well, you know that yourself."

The man laughs, and shrugs, "True that," then pats Dev's shoulder as well. His eyes still gleam a little, but it doesn't make Dev as happy as it did just a minute ago.

"Great work, little guy. Keep it up, yes? I'll ask you to paint my wife some day."

Dev nods. He's never drawn a woman that wasn't his mom, but he could learn. The man shakes hands with dad once more, then he leaves. It's just Dev and dad now. He hates that.

"Three hundred and fifty... Can't believe he actually paid that." Dad counts the money again, shakes his head. "That wasn't really worth the money, you know that, right?"

"Why not?" Dev asks, careful to keep his voice quiet. Dad doesn't like it if he speaks too loudly.

"Do you think that was worth so much money?" Dad holds the money in front of Dev's face. "I wouldn't have paid a fraction of that. You seriously need to put in more work. You're selling that stuff. You want your customers to be happy."

"I think he was ha-"

"You think that? Dev, do you seriously think he was happy? He just told you that because he thinks you're a little child, come on. Do you understand how embarrassing this is for me? That man is my co-worker, and now I'm going to have to apologize to him for my very own son scamming him out of his money."

"I'm sorry," Dev says. He looks at dad, looks him in the eyes, when he says it. It hurts a little, leaves something hot and itchy under his skin, but he's adamant on looking dad in the eyes. "I'm really sorry. I thought it was okay. I thought he was happy."

"Of course you did. Pay more attention. Now get back, you still need to finish your portfolio to submit to school. Don't waste your time, boy. Unless you don't want to go to Oakwell Abbey after all?"

"No, I wanna-" Dev is too loud, and he adjusts his voice instantly. "I want to go."

"Then work for it. Go."

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