The gates of SMA 8 Jakarta creaked as Aris rolled his bicycle through. In his previous life, this school was a blur of boring lectures and failed exams. Now, it felt like a time capsule.
The courtyard was filled with students in crisp white-and-gray uniforms (putih-abu-abu). The smell of fried tempeh from the canteen drifted through the morning air, mixed with the faint scent of hair pomade and floor wax.
"Aris! Over here!"
A lanky boy with thick glasses and a shirt that was two sizes too big waved at him.
Aris paused, searching his memory. Hendra. In the old timeline, Hendra was a math prodigy who ended up as a bitter, underpaid accountant for a corrupt textile firm. He had died of a heart attack at fifty, still crunching numbers for a boss who didn't know his name.
"You're late," Hendra pushed his glasses up his nose. "Did you finish the trigonometry homework? I heard Mr. Surya is in a foul mood today. He's looking for someone to 'volunteer' at the chalkboard."
Aris looked at Hendra. He saw the untapped potential—the raw analytical brain that could, with the right guidance, manage a sovereign wealth fund.
"Trigonometry is the least of our problems, Ndra," Aris said, leaning his bike against the fence.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"It means that while Mr. Surya is shouting about sines and cosines, the price of world crude oil is dropping by the minute.
Everything is about to get more expensive, and we're sitting here drawing triangles."
Hendra blinked, confused. "What does oil have to do with our grades?"
Aris patted his shoulder. "Everything, my friend. Everything is connected."
As they walked toward the classroom, a shiny, brand-new Vespa scooter roared into the parking lot. A boy with perfectly styled hair and an expensive watch hopped off.
Denny Subagja. His father was a high-ranking official in the Ministry of Trade. In Aris's past life, Denny had been the one to humiliate him in front of the whole school, eventually using his father's connections to get Aris's first journalist job blacklisted.
Denny caught Aris's gaze and smirked. "What are you looking at, Wijaya? Looking for spare change on the ground? Or did your father's old bicycle finally lose a pedal?"
A few students nearby snickered. In 1982, the social hierarchy was brutal. You were either part of the "Elite" connected to the government, or you were a "nobody" trying to stay out of their way.
Old Aris would have looked down, muttered something, and walked away, fuming with quiet resentment.
But the Aris standing there now had faced down corrupt generals and corporate sharks. He didn't feel anger; he felt a strange sense of amusement.
"I was actually looking at your tires, Denny," Aris said, his voice calm and melodic.
Denny's smirk faltered. "What about them?"
"They're soft. You're carrying too much weight—not just on the bike, but in that head of yours. You might want to check the pressure before the road gets bumpy. And trust me," Aris stepped closer, his eyes cold and sharp, "the road is going to get very bumpy by the end of the year."
The smile vanished from Denny's face. He didn't understand the metaphor, but he felt the bite in the tone. "Whatever. Freak."
Inside the classroom, the ceiling fans hummed, doing nothing to move the stagnant heat. Aris sat at his desk, but he wasn't looking at his textbook. He was observing.
He watched the teacher, Mr. Surya, enter the room. He watched which students were paying attention and which ones were doodling. He was looking for talent. To build an empire, he needed more than just his own knowledge. He needed a team that wouldn't betray him when the 1998 crisis hit.
Hendra for the numbers, Aris thought, watching his friend feverishly calculate formulas. I need someone for the muscle, and someone with a golden tongue.
But first, he needed to prove to himself that he could still manipulate the present with his knowledge of the future.
As Mr. Surya began to write on the board, Aris raised his hand.
"Sir?"
"Yes, Aris? Do you have the answer to the first problem?"
"No, sir. But I was reading the morning paper. There's a rumor about a new educational reform and a shift in the national curriculum. I was wondering... if the rules of the game are changing, why are we still practicing the old moves?"
The class went silent. Mr. Surya froze, chalk in mid-air. It was a small, subtle jab—a test of the environment. In 1982, you didn't question the "system" unless you knew exactly where the trapdoors were.