Inside of a car workshop, where Andy's father, Lee Kang, is working.
"Oi, Old Lee. You should take a rest. I'll finish that for you."
"Thanks."
Both of us then switch our place with each other. Thanks to him, I can take a break.
As soon as I sat down I lit up my cigarette.
I wonder how is Andy doing in school?
Judging from the time right now (1 P.M), his school must be almost finished already.
"Hey, Did you know? Recently computer games have been quite trending. Especially for the youngsters."
Computer games... Of course, I know it.
Andy has been playing it and nothing good came from playing it.
He even dares to ditches school to play computer games.
"...Yeah, I know."
Puff*
But was it the games that caused him to become like this?
Maybe, It's me.
I have no right to scold him, do I?
"Bro, do you want to stop working in this filthy place?"
His friend suddenly asked him a nonsense question.
"Hm? You want to quit this job?"
"You don't want to?"
To be honest, the pay is quite nice, the boss is also generous.
I don't think it's a good idea to quit this job.
"I have a friend of mine that can fund money, we can open an internet cafe ourselves and leave this filthy place."
Internet cafe, a place to play games?
"Can that place really earn us money?"
"Think about it... all we need to invest was the computers, mouses, keyboards, speakers. A friend of mine can supply it with a decent price since we ordered them in a batch."
Computers? Mouses? I don't know what are those.
"We also need the Internet, allowing them to play games. If we have no internet they can only play offline games."
I didn't understand a single word came out from his mouth.
Since when he knew so much about a computer?
"Um, what's a keyboard? What is the internet? What is offline?'"
"...Nevermind, there's no need for you to know all this stuff. Either way, after we invest in those gadgets, we can easily charge people 5000 Rupiah for every hour they want to play."
"Isn't that magnificent? It's much better than being a mechanic right?"
5000? Now I know where Andy spends the money to.
"But, how much do we need to pay for the weird gadgets?"
"Don't worry about those I'll handle it, so you want to join me or not?"
It sounds suspicious.
Not entirely believing his friend, Lee can only reply "I'll think about it."
It's 6 P.M already and the workshop is closing.
Today the business went quite well. The boss gave us extra money before we went home.
I rode my old motorcycle home with a confused expression throughout the ride.
I was still thinking about the offer.
'Leave the workshop and run a business myself. Can I do that?'
Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.
Right, the Chinese new year is coming.
I guess I'll use this money to buy some food.
-----
Arriving home the first thing I did was put the groceries in the fridge.
I bought a package of eggs that could last a few months, a sack of rice, a few cabbages, and a whole chicken.
After putting the things I've bought, I then went to fried myself an egg and started to eat.
By drizzling the rice with sweet soy sauce and put some anchovies on the top with an egg on the side.
That is my dinner.
'Hm, his room still lights up?'
I noticed that Andy's room was still on. Usually, at this time, he would go to sleep already.
Walking slowly toward Andy's room, I found my son was...
My eyes almost bulged out, Andy was holding a book!! Is he studying?!
While I was peeking at Andy through the small crevices of the door.
Fortunately, Andy didn't notice it at all as he was immersing himself in the textbook while at the same time writing at an incredible speed which made me very surprised.
I wonder what he's writing?
Nevermind, there's no point for me to know it.
I have never go to school before, even though I saw it, I won't even understand anything.
I guess it's a good thing if he's studying.
Should I ask him to sleep right now? It's late already.
-----
[Andy's POV]
What the heck...
I know that I sleep in the class but this is something that I never imagined.
I didn't know that I didn't write a single thing in my notebook!
They're completely empty!
I thought it's only history's notebook that's empty.
But it turned out every notebook of every single subject was blank.
Currently, I'm filling my notebooks with important notes from the first topic to the current topic I've studied.
I need to fill them up as fast as possible.
At the same time, since I need to read them before I write them in the book. This can counts as me studying.
Another reason that I need to fill my notebooks was that I knew what will happen later on, at the end of the semester.
The school will be implementing a new rule, which is 'End of the year, Notebook Inspection.'
The inspection will heavily affect student marks accordingly to the subject.
If the students properly take notes of everything the teacher said then it's good. Otherwise, they will have to stay for another year.
There were some cases where they did take notes but lost their notebooks. They thought that nothing serious will happen so they grab a new book and continue to take the note of what was left.
In this case, There's nothing to be said, he/she still need to be punished but not too severely since there are still notes.
In the worst case, Few of them are like Andy, who has a blank notebook.
Nothing was noted from the first till the last.
Immediately these types of students stayed back and didn't advance.
Three topics finished, three more to go.
I didn't feel bored at all, writing all of the theories in the book.
I've experienced something worse than this.
During the time where I research about VR-MMORPG. It required me to understand how the brain works, not just the parts but everything.
The research was very tiring and time-consuming, each day I need to consult a professional doctor to obtain deeper knowledge from them and it's obviously not easy since the brain was the most complex organ of the human body.
In the end, not only I have to study the brain, but the whole human anatomy to fully understand everything.
Even so, for VR-MMORPG I was willing to do it.
Yet in the end, before I could finish my research the company went bankrupt.
Remembering the past again, made me wanted to hit myself.
Slap*
Get it together.
Now that you're back you can fix your mistakes.
Right now, I should focus on this.
There's no use dwelling on past.
Before this, Andy only plans to study for only a few hours and then go to bed without worrying about his family.
But time passed quicker than he thought, it was already very late but he hasn't noticed it since there are no windows showing that outside has become dark.
-----
[Lee's POV]
What is he doing?
For the first time, Lee saw Andy making such weird expression and then suddenly out of nowhere slapped himself.
What in the world?!
Should I stop him and ask him to rest?
What should I do?
Time passed slowly, I can only continue to watch Andy with the bowl of rice on my hand the entire time.
I was too shocked to eat at this point.
...
...
Mervin finally returned from his work and the first thing he saw when he returned home was that his father creepily peeked into his bedroom. (Andy and Mervin share their bedroom.)
"Dad, what are you doing?"
Lee signaled Mervin to be quiet and then waved his hand, asking Mervin to come over.
"Shhh..."
'What did Andy do this time?'
Following his father's instructions, Mervin walked over but not intending to be secretly at all.
When he finally gets a good view of Andy, Mervin was just as shocked as when Lee saw it.
But unlike Lee, Mervin can't keep quiet.
"What the f*ck are you doing?"
Seeing how Mervin was agitated, Lee quickly pretended he didn't see anything, ran to the living room, and resume to eat normally.
As for Mervin, he still was dumbfounded to see Andy was actually holding pencil and is using the study desk.
"Ah, Big Brother. You're back!"
'Wait a minute... Mervin is back? What time is it!'
"It's ten P.M already?!?"
Andy turned his head over to see the clock and was surprised to see the current time.
Seeing that Andy was just as shock as him, Mervin can't muster any of his anger.
"Um, it's late already, go to sleep, you have school tomorrow."
Andy quickly tidies up all of the books and put them in his backpack.
While Andy was doing all that Mervin has long left the room.
Mervin didn't make a fuss of it and directly went to eat but he is still curious as it was a rare occasion.
"How long? Did he study?"
"...About the time when I returned. So at least two hours"
Lee answered expressionlessly but was very happy inside.
On the other hand, Mervin was counting something in his hand.
'This means there's a possibility that the moment he came home he was studying too. his school finished at 1 P.M, he should be arriving home at 2 P.M at most. So, he could be studying for...'
'One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight!'
Eight hours!
Nope, there's no way he would study the moment he arrived home. What could possibly happen to him to make him study?
I would be grateful if he stops ditching his school and stop playing games.
...
I'll leave work early tomorrow and check him out.
We'll see if he is just pretending to study.
After eating his dinner, he then immediately went to bed, sleeping together with Andy.
At the same time, Lee was sleeping on the sofa outside, in the living room.
Both of them were smiling happily in their sleep.