While Andy is asleep in his bedroom, Lee told everything to Mervin.

"Mervin, your little brother..."

"Hm? What? Did he does something weird?"

"He's working at a convenience store."

"Andy? That's good then."

"Should I stop him? It can disturb his study. I mean, he's been very weird too, the sudden changes and things."

Mervin stopped for a second, thinking of how to answer his father.

"True, but Andy changing his behavior and attitude is good right? You should let him do it. With that, he'll know how hard it is for us. It allows him to mature like me."

"Haha, which matured person will call themself matured.

"Aren't I mature?"

"Yes. Yes. You are and it's a bad thing. I'm sorry."

...

...

The atmosphere got awkward between both of them.

Lee breaks it by mentioning and talk about Andy again.

"Anyway, you are harsh toward him aren't you?"

"Me? Harsh? You're the one that's too forgiving, not that it's a bad thing but you're spoiling him."

At that time when I found out he ditches school.

At that time when I found him playing games in an internet cafe.

And that time he throws unreasonable fits

A lot of things that he has done which hurt both of our feelings.

Mervin wanted to say something about Andy's past but stopped himself to do so.

Thinking of Andy right now, he decided to drop down the past.

Sigh*

"Nevermind, I'll try to be nicer to him."

"Thank you, Mervin."

"Oh yes, do you like snacks? I bought a few of them. They're on the closet."

"Dad... why did you buy snacks for? They are unhealthy and it's wasting money too. Next time, don't buy them anymore."

"Really? I thought that you guys will like it."

"Where is the snack? I want to see them."

"...There."

Lee pointed to the closet that he kept the snack, unlike what he expected, Mervin didn't just see them.

He opened the bag of Chuba and drop all of them on top of his rice.

When food is delicious, Mervin eats them slowly. At least that's what Lee discovered as his father.

'He likes it.'

"I guess... you can buy them for Andy. I don't want them."

Pffft.

"What! I really don't like it."

"Ah~ Look at the time, the match is starting. I'll go and watch my television."

-----

The next morning arrived.

"Wake up."

Mervin gently tapped at me instead of dragging me outside.

'What happened?'

After I opened my eyes, he was standing outside of the door, waiting for me to get out of my bed.

"Hurry up! Breakfast is ready."

I nodded my head while being confused about why he didn't drag me.

I wanted to tell Mervin to drag me but will he do it if I asked him.

Imagine if I really asked him.

"Brother you can drag me to the table. I'm totally fine with it."

I pictured it in my head and found myself disgusted with the scene.

I sounded like a masochist asking to get beaten.

Nevermind, I'll just walk there myself.

As usual, after Mervin finished his breakfast before I did and went to work after leaving money on the table.

Today is Saturday, because of that instead of wearing the usual school uniform, I wore my PE uniform school.

There's no studying at school on Saturday.

Today is the day, the students are doing sports and other non-sports activities at the school.

In other words, it's club activities for the entire school day.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

I'm using this opportunity to exercise my body.

In my past life, the only time I exercise was during my primary school days.

The healthy exercise got lesser when I started to ditch school for playing games in the internet cafe.

Things got worse when I was developing games, I was cooping inside my room with zero exercises and eating unhealthy food every day.

If not for my strong body, I wouldn't have survived long under that life-style.

Only when I'm working for Nero-X, I ate somewhat healthy and nutritious food since I could afford them but I still didn't exercise.

As time passed, I regretted it.

Only when I reach a certain age, I realized how important was it to exercise. That time when I wanted to exercise, it was too late already, back pains, neck pains and other diseases came without me knowing.

Even though at that time, there were many great inventions from the medical field, they're only capable of preventing and alleviating some of the diseases, not able to cure them entirely.

Since this body is young and healthy, we'll do as much exercise as we could to prevent diseases from appearing in this body.

Arriving at the school, all of the students from 1st grade to 6th grade have already gathered at the field, lining up themselves accordingly.

Seeing that, they're already lining up, I quickly found my classmates and lines up with them too.

The students from first grade to sixth grade are lining up in the field to do rhythmic aerobics together.

But there's a twist in the aerobics.

They're made for kids.

It makes sense since this is a primary school.

Right now that I experience it again, even hearing the music made me cringe.

There are kids that hide inside their classrooms because they don't want to do aerobics.

I could follow them but it's not worth the risk because there are times the teacher checks each of the classrooms and if they're discovered they'll be punished severely.

I just need to hold on for the next thirty minutes.

I mean, most of the teachers are doing it too despite being an adult.

They look ridiculous when they do the movements but even so no one dare to laugh.

...

...

Finally... it's over.

After the aerobics is over, the teacher dismissed us and we're free to do anything in the school as long as it's clubs-related activities.

"Andy! Here!"

As soon as the aerobics is over, Micheal immediately went to reserve a badminton field.

There are many students playing badminton but there are only three fields available.

Knowing that, of course, if we want to play, we need to secure a spot before others could.

"Coming..."

Micheal brought two rackets as usual. He knew that I don't have a racket so he borrowed me his in order to play.

"Thank you."

"Let's start!"

An hour passed as we played together, I could continue on but Micheal was...

"We should rest."

"I'm good!"

What do you mean I'm good, which part of you is good?

Micheal insisted despite his clothes was drenched with his own sweats.

He can't even hold his racket properly anymore.

"The others wanted to play too, we should let them."

"Hm. Okay then."

Carrying almost-dead Micheal with my shoulder, we head to our classroom to rest.

Inside the classroom, Yulia was there. She was studying even on Saturday.

I guess she didn't join any clubs.

Hearing that someone walked into the class, She looked at us for a second.

Seeing me, she immediately walked over while grabbing her a book on her hand.

"This. Explain why."

Without calling my name or anything, she pointed toward a question that she's unsure of.

Of course, I still answered her question, explaining everything to her.

Questions after question she finally was satisfied. She finally ran out of questions to ask.

"Thanks."

"No problem. Like I said, your questions helped me too."

I shrugged and smiled at her. She responded with another small nod.

While she was asking, Micheal was there listening too. Not only I benefitted and Micheal was too.

In the midst of the silence, Yulia suddenly asked.

"Andy, why did you suddenly change?"

Ah. She notices it.

Yulia is a smart girl, It'll be hard to trick her.

I thought only the people who knew me before would've noticed it.

The previous Andy must have talked with Yulia a few times before. Since this happens, this means, I did leave a slight impression.

I wonder if you're happy about that, young me.

"Haha, Did I? Maybe it's just your imagination."

"You sounded like an adult making excuses."

I bitterly laughed when she said that.

"Am I?"

Grumble*

Micheal's stomach called out, saving me from this awkward situation.

"Um, let's go to the canteen and eat? I'm starving."

"You want to come with us?"

I invited Yulia out of consideration but as I expected, she rejected it.

"No thanks. I'll just eat here, it's much quiet here."

"Then, We'll just buy the food and eat it here."

Micheal suddenly suggested to Yulia, with this she couldn't reject eating with us.

"Suit yourself. Either way, I'll be here. If you guys didn't come I'll eat by myself."

"Then, we'll go and come back as fast as we could."

Micheal ran out of the class energetically. He was supposed to be tired a few seconds ago.

"We'll be back."

I said in a firm tone, reassuring her that we'll return to the classroom.

In just five minutes, after we left, both of us came back with foods on our hands.

Despite having breakfast already, I'm quite hungry due to playing badminton just now.

So, instead of just soy milk, I bought an extra nasi lemak to fill my stomach. but with the money which I received from Old Man.

Grabbing our own chair over to Yulia's desk, we sat and ate together.

"Let's eat!"

"Woah, your food is homemade! I want to try it! Can we trade?"

While eating, the most cheerful among the three of us were surprisingly Yulia.

I didn't know she could smile like that.

It's all thanks to cheerful Micheal, if I'm the only one with her or there's only me, she won't be smiling like this.

I'm not a talkative and social person.

After we've finish eating, we just sat and talk about our hobbies and our goal, what do we want to be in the future.

As kids, there's nothing else to talk about other than that.

My hobby was, of course, playing games. Yulia didn't seem surprised by hearing my answer.

As for Micheal, his answer was very him, he likes everything as long as it's with friends. For example, right now.

Lastly, Yulia's hobby. She hesitates to say it at first but eventually, she told us that she like studying.

I don't think that's her real hobby but It's not like we can force her to say it.

Ding-Dong*

The bell ring, it's finally for us to go home.

Yulia was fetched by her mother, Micheal went to my house with me to study together.

The same as yesterday, I taught him for a few hours and then rest until her mother came to fetch him.

Since today, we returned home early at 10 A.M and even after teaching Micheal it's still 1 P.M.

Today I could work for 5 hours at the old man's convenience store but I'll need to take a bath and change into my normal clothes.

It was necessary because I was drenched my sweats, the smells my body gives out is unpleasant.

The old man will chase me away if I went with that condition.

I will scare his customers away.

Damn, it felt refreshing to take a bath in the afternoon.

Taking bath more than three times a day is luxury.

Twice a day can be considered luxury too. After all, Father and Mervin only took a bath once a day to save money.

Only me who took bath twice a day.

-----

[Old Man's Convenience Store]

Snore*

Again he's sleeping.

"Wake up, Old Man."

I gently knocked on his head to wake him up.

Yawn*

"You're here!"

"Since you're here means that you want to work right? Watch the store for me. As usual at 6 P.M, I'll return."

"Here's the key."

The old man left as soon as possible after handing me the key for his cash register.

-----

[Lee's POV]

Weird... He didn't come to work.

Did he really quit?

The boss asked me about his whereabouts but honestly, I have no clue.

He did say we wanted to quit but he didn't tell me that he would quit today.

Today I have to work harder than ever since there's only one person, the only time I could take a break was when there's no customer.

-----

[Andy's POV]

"Thank you! Please come again!"

I greeted the customer that's gradually leaving the store.

A few moments later after the customer left. The next customer came in panicking, because of that I didn't manage to greet him properly.

"Anyone here?"

The man came in while panting. As he look around and found out there's only Andy he was disappointed.

"Argh, there's only a kid but you look quite strong. Come and help out! there's a fire!"