I was sitting through classes at the cram school i started to attend recently, learning some information that would help me have leverage on the final exam. To at least pass with an appropriate grade.
I barely slept last night after walking most of distance back home by foot. That prevented me from capturing anything with these tutors. I wanna go to sleep so bad, but i cant, i have a photoshoot afterwards... I'm seriously gonna faint.
In the midst of this torture, Haime saw my condition and decided to comfort me.
"You look terrible... Wanna come chill at my house later?"
Haime was being considered, so i agreed to go. Now I'll just have to pull through the day and fix myself for the photoshoot, and then walk back to her house, praying i don't get knocked out in the middle.
Haime's house is a good escape spot, i can think much clearer with how comfortable it is.
"... So your mom is not here?"
"No. She won't be until the weekend."
I walked into Haime's apartment, her little brother who was sitting in the living room noticed her before seeing me.
"... Oh my god. I swear this kid- Hey! You supposed to be doing your homework, just cause mom's not here doesn't mean you do as you please!"
"Shut up! Why should listen to you. Leave me alo- Oh! Ruby is here...!"
"Hey Oli, i hope you don't mind."
"No... Of course not."
"... Alright then. Get your ass to your room."
"Don't touch me... Oh. I have to do my homework... See you around."
"See ya, hehe~"
Oli went to his room, leaving the living room for us two.
"Oh my god, look at the mess he made. He's such a brat."
"Well, that's what all kids do."
Haime didn't like how i dismissed her complaint as simply as i did.
"Yeah? Do they feel flustered with their sister's friends?"
"Yeah. I mean. That's how it is, they feel flustered, they go to their room and fantasize about them, and then they talk about it with their friends. God i wish i had a little brother."
"Out of everything that i wish you not to be be, a big sister is the most. The world would not handle a brother of you..."
"What? Stop exaggerating."
"... Imagine being a 9 year old kid, and your sister tells you to hook her up with your friends big brother."
That thought did not seem strange to me. In fact I actually did told Haime's brother one day about one of his friends big brother who studies at our high school.
"... Damn I'm really like that huh... Recently I almost got someone to end his life, because of my stupidity and short thinking."
"... I think you have the talent of attracting the strangest people to you."
"What? That's not true!"
For some reason, being a dumb and stupid for me felt better than being someone who get along with strange people.
Technically, a couple of strange people did enter my life recently, so Haime's was kinda valid.
"I mean... Just cause i had some odd people entangled with me, doesn't mean I'm drawn to weird people."
"... Hah, Ruby, he almost killed himSELF! Everytime i remember that i go on a disbelief."
And a disbelief is an understatement of how we were actually feeling.
"What was he thinking??"
"Well, if i understand correctly, Inna was trying to be the sweet and the cute girlfriend, Nadeer did not like that. He wanted her to be like we all know her as. But she didn't turn back and kept asking for him to love her. He couldn't give it so he tried to jump off his school."
This was the first time i discussed what happened yesterday. Putting what happened into words eases out the trauma and shock.
"Oh... And what made him seize from doing it?"
"Hmph...? That's where the "i wish only happiness for her conclusion" happened. Insinuating that i should take care of her."
I couldn't say that he tried to ship us together.
"I see. And, what did you think of that?"
I actually never had a proper opinion about the situation, because as Nadeer left me on the rooftop by myself, i was thinking about the situation from a whole different angle.
"Pffff... Nothing. But... I wanna ask you something."
"Do you think i can be a great leader, like someone who people follow?"
Haime looked at me confused and with a mocking smile for a second before she responded back.
"Well honestly, i think you do have the charisma, the looks, the grind. But, you're just an airhead afterall."
"... You're right. Haha, i wanted to clear that out. I was just curious to see if i know where I'm headed."
"Where you're headed?"
"You know, i have my own goals too..."
"Ohhh, this is about how you wanting to make your grandma's dream come true."
"... You did not forget that conversation huh."
"Oh~ I'll never forget that story of your old girl."
"... Whatever, it's unachievable anyways. It's not like i can rewrite history and put myself in a better place."
Then i started to ramble about some real world issues. I was like that to hide my inferior complexity that i have.
"Lately I've been thinking, how are we going to survive for the next few decades. The economy is unrepairable, people starting to become uncivilized. Like, what are we supposed to do..."
"Humph!"
Haime got up and approached me with a look of excitement on her face.
"Come with me. Let me show you something."
We walked into her parents room. She opened a safecase that was in the closet and pulled out a frame picture.
"This is my great grandfather. He was the reason our family is the way it is now."
And then she started storytelling while holding the picture of her great grandfather, who seemed like a high profiled man.
"When he started building his wealth, he wasn't a leader or a hard working man, he was timid and spend most of his time alone. But that made him see things others can't see. He saw a disaster was coming."
"Eventually he started to act upon his views. He used his father's circle which was made mostly by nationalists to get closer to the elite class and acting as an informant to the powerful noble class. When he was caught, his father kicked him out of the family."
"But he has built a very serious amount of wealth, and became a whale of the industry after the war. Seeing how much powerful he became, he was welcomed back into the family and community. They had no choice. He's no longer an outcast, he's a smart man, and now the family's name is brought back to him."
"Me and lot of members of my family view him as a crook. Even he said that about himself. But he used to say, france is known fo beauty, Versailles and such. They even successfully commercialized it. But with all that perfume and care for beauty, they wouldn't start to know how serious taking a bath is until the 18th century. Crooks survive in this world. So might as well treat it as such."
"All of that to say this, most of the great things in the world didn't have the dream story, the world is not running as simple as you think. If it was, everyone would be successful. So don't worry if you're not a leader, you can still be great."
"That's a lot of revelation... But I'm relieved to hear that. Even though your grandpa was a nutcase."
Haime made me come to a realization, i started to fear the outcome a lot lesser. If there's a huge dream to achieve, there's a huge price to pay.
"How would you feel if i had a relationship with Inna. That kind of relationship."
I finally have said it. I was scared to bring up this thought to my friends. Not because she's a girl, but because it would mean we wouldn't hangout much anymore.
"What else would i do. I would be supporting you like always and be there for you if you need to."
It was the best response you could have, i was trying so hard not to smile, but i couldn't obstruct it. It helped me ease my inner thoughts.
"Ohhh... I didn't think you would support to that extent. You really are my best friend."
"... I didn't mean it like that. Inna is a Jueji, being close to her would be a great advantage to have. It would be insane to decline."
"... Yeah, right. Hehe~"
In that moment, i remembered how lucky I am to be where I'm at, to have such nice friends who think what best for me. Reminded me to be grateful and to stop the grieving over myself.
"... Alright, it's getting late now, i have to run through these biology texts before i go to sleep. You wanna join?"
"Nah, I'm tired, I'll go to sleep and study early tomorrow."
"Alright..."
. . .
I hit it as the night fully got dark and headed back home.
On my way i was thinking about Haime's grandpa story and see what kind of points i can take from it.
Something bothered me. Because if you think deeply about the story of her grandfather you would notice a very important detail.
Without his father and the rise of the nationalist movement, he wouldn't have ended up what he became.
This was not a great foundation for a life you want your kids to inherit.
That got me thinking, was i following the wrong path this whole time? What meaning does it give for to fix my life, reach the absolute dream, just for nothing to change.
These thoughts made me despaired, and i wanted to check out something that maybe will help me understand.
Because my relationship with my mom isn't strong, i always be at grandma's house. But today i decided to go to my mother's house.
As much as she was absent from my life, i see myself in her a lot. Whenever I feel lost, i go and be around her. That became a routine for me.
After some spending time at her workplace, i did some more thing and i had some points i concluded in my head.
Most important was, the cycle. you'll will work to be on great condition, but that's not enough, so you'll ask for help, which make you grow in debt, paying it off becomes impossible, and then a disaster accures.
And after that, i will start all over again... Ah, the despair.
I find it amusing how these deep thoughts got provoked with the time I'm having the final exam. Which is the worst time to be having these kind of thoughts. Very interesting coincidence. Isn't it?
Anyway, if i keep this going I'll be thinking too much, I'll be too out of reach with the world and start to get stuck on my own head. I better get some sleep and continue my preparations for the final exam.
. . .
I woke up like usual, as the sun rises, i went to set myself up for the big day.
This exam always gets inflated cause it's "determines your career", so you'll see other participants focusing on the test like their lives depend on it.
Me personally, I'm not doing all of that, I'll just go take my pills and magically I'll answer every question right.
For the first day of the exams, we'll be all taking the same subjects, so we will all end at the same time after the exams.
Haime's mother dropped us off around the area. There was a lot of traffic around the school, it was better to continue by foot.
After we checked our exam rooms at the board standing outside the school building, we entered the building after we got our IDs checked. We departed to our exam rooms. We'll never see each other until the end of the day.
Luck wasn't on my side when i arrived at the exam room. Even though it doesn't matters who sits besides you, i was sitting next a dude that I can't stand seeing, we used to have history when he once touched me, and brushing it off as an accident. I thought that was a bad omen.
But it actually helped me in a different kind of way. It took my mind off worrying about the exam for sometime while i was reminiscing that old accident.
When the papers were served, i started going through slowly, digesting every word, before i went mindlessly answering every question like i was a savage dog tearing a book with his teeth, i know it's a wild comparison, but that's what every student looked like to me.
At lunchtime, we had one hour to relax and eat, i don't know what got into me, but during lunchtime i was craving some bananas, which i haven't had for quite a while.
To the final test of the day, after lunchtime, we had the papers served one last time.
Time surprisingly went fast today, i always felt like it's going to be slow and dragging, without nothing but exam papers, but i was running through with it like it was nothing.
I would say, i did as about i expected to do, even better because i didn't start cram school until recently, but that's just a hope, i know what I'm capable of is nothing but an average at best.
When finally exam day one ended, i went outside to check on my phone, and waited for Haime and the others to catch up so we could go home.
But before i stepped outside, i went and checked on where was Inna's exam room at and who did she took it with.
Her exam room was Class 09, the same class as Haime, very convenient.
I was talking to some people i know who showed up as early as i was, and we started that costum where we discuss the answers, and i slowly started to get on the background of the conversation because of how their answers completely mismatch mine.
As the group started to grow bigger, we were standing next the school gate, Haime finally showed up.
"Oh, what a drag! I'm so tired right now."
I was about to ask her how did she do, before she looked at me with a frozen expression and said.
"Inna was absent today."
My face froze too, from the shock i didn't react, i simply said.
"What...? Oh, that's a shame. She has to wait for the regular exams to compensate now."
And then, after a moment.
"... YOU SAID WHAT?!"
...
The story about hit a dead end.
Next chapter will be the final chaper 💔
I had so much fun writing this, as it is my first story I've ever written. I'll miss these characters so much 🥹