[Hyde POV]
The next morning, at school.
Kelso was walking down the hallway cheerfully, not an ounce of hangover could be seen on him even though he was black out drunk yesterday.
Jackie was talking with Donna. Eric, Fez and I were with them, all wearing a black sunglasses as the glare felt too much.
Pam Macy approached Kelso, and Jackie widened her eyes as she saw it.
Feeling insecure about Pam Macy's and Kelso's entanglement before, Jackie wanted to interject, muttering angrily, "Oh that slut–", but I grabbed her arm to stop her.
"Just wait and see." I said.
"YOU JERK! YOU GOT ME PREGNANT! AND YOU GIVE ME VD!" Pam Macy yelled loudly and slapped Kelso on the face with all of her might.
Eric and I burst into laughter, but everyone else was in shock.
"MICHEAL!" Jackie gasped, her face was full of horror.
Fez turned to Jackie and took a step away from her. "Do you have a VD too?"
"What– NO!" Jackie was flabbergasted by Fez's reaction.
Donna saw Eric and mine's reaction and asked casually, "What's going on?"
"Oh. Hyde paid the girls in beers to slap Kelso today. Because he stole the beer yesterday." Eric explained with a snicker.
Donna had a look of realization and said, "Ah. That sounds about right."
We saw Kelso was slapped once again. And again. And again.
"After the fifth time, it wasn't that funny anymore." Fez muttered with a slight grimace.
I have a similar reaction to him. "Yeah, it was too predictable."
"It's like watching the same joke go on and on and… on…. and on." Donna was a bit creeped out.
Jackie said with disbelief, "Do you see he always flirts with them first? He never even learned a lesson."
I nodded and said, "Yeah. When they talked to him, he had a look of…"
"Expectations?" Eric helped me.
"Yeah. That. I was going to say a moron, but that suits even more. He has no survival instinct, at all."
Fez added, "If this was in the jungle, he would be the first one to die."
I took out a camera and began taking pictures of the time he got slapped.
Jackie widened her eyes at the camera and gasped, "Is that the magazine camera?"
"What– Oh, yeah. I bought it to take pictures of the car flip, before and after progress." I muttered casually.
"Take pictures of me too!" Jackie demanded. She pushed her hair up and made pouty duck lips and posed.
I ignored her, which made her mad. "Steven! I want some pictures!"
"No. I brought it to school specifically to get an image record of Slap Kelso day. Unless you went to slap him–"
I didn't even finish the sentence before she rushed to Kelso and slapped him too.
I even recorded it so I have a video of the slap.
Jackie came back and asked, "Did you get it? Can I see it?"
"Sure."
Since it was a digital camera, everyone was curious to see the image without it being processed first.
I got it right at the moment where Kelso's cheek rippled as it met Jackie's hand.
Everyone laughed out loud, but Jackie was furious. "You took it from my back! My face can't be seen in it! Take it again!"
The classroom bell rang, and I was saved from Jackie's demands. Kelso's cheek was bright red as he entered the classroom.
He has classes with Donna and Eric today, while Fez and I had science class together.
"Oh my god." Fez suddenly exclaimed in horror.
"What?" I asked.
"We forgot to do the lab report." Fez began to breathe rapidly, panicked by his own blunder.
I grimaced and said quickly, "Give me the data."
We have to submit it once the class is over. So we have 45 minutes to do it.
"Psst–"
I turned to the sound of someone calling me. Then, I saw Amy– the ex girlfriend who got us into trouble yesterday, giving me her report.
"You can copy it." She said bashfully.
I raised an eyebrow and saw Barbara waving at me beside Amy.
'She's not giving up huh?'
"Thanks." I took the report since it was easier for me to use ChatGPT to finish mine.
I did my report in 10 minutes, and gave the lab report back to the girls. Amy was slightly taken aback when she saw the notes I gave her.
"My calculation is wrong?" She was taken aback as I had recalculated her energy formula and showed her the correct way to do it.
She frowned at first, feeling insulated. Then as she looked at my calculation and her own calculation, she realized her blunder and whispered, "Thank you."
"Thank you for the reference." I told her and yawned. Then, I went to sleep while the teacher drooned on about reproductive parts and made the entire class uncomfortable.
…
I jumped the gate as usual, but this time, I jumped straight into an ambush.
The math teacher, Mrs. Ling waited for me outside the school walls.
"Um." I looked at her awkwardly. "So you're busting me?" I asked cheekily.
"I'm considering it." She said seriously.
I sighed in defeat and said, "Alright. Let's get this over with."
"No." She abruptly rejected it and added, "I want to see what exactly you were doing when you left school almost every day at 12."
"Oh." I widened my eyes in disbelief. "You want to follow me?"
"Shadowing you." She corrected me. "To understand the mind of the school troublemaker and become a better teacher."
I snorted slightly and said sarcastically, "Your goals are noble."
"Would you rather pick detentions?" She smiled threateningly.
I shook my hands quickly and said, "There's no need to get all menacing. I'll let you come with me. Since I can't afford to get detention right now."
We left in a 1966 Ford Galaxies– Victoria's car that I borrowed. She went to work with her friend who stayed at her house after being too drunk to drive back home.
"So, where to go first? The back alley? Chain smoking pub? The docks?" Mrs Ling asked sarcastically.
"What are we, in Happy Days? Will the Fonz come by too and hit a jukebox with his bare hands to start it?" I snorted and drove us to a restaurant.
"You got out of school for lunch?" She was in disbelief.
"Nope." I replied and took out some clothes from the trunk of the car. "Wait here for a bit. I'm going to change."
She was surprised when I came back wearing a suit and tie, looking like a professional instead of a highschooler.
"What exactly are you doing when you skip school?" She narrowed her eyes at me suspiciously. I just smirked and said, "A shadow doesn't really ask questions, don't they?"
She frowned but she didn't try to argue about it. We went to a sporting goods store next, and I met with the owner.
"So you're Steven Hyde. Bob told me a lot about you."
I shook hands with the gleeful old man with a receding hairline and head full of gray hair. He had wrinkles all over his face, and he was really tall too.
"All good things I hope." I said with a chuckle. "You called about the flyers?" I got straight into it.
"Oh, right." The man, Benny, took out some new sports equipment and placed it on the counter. "I want to tell people about these new skates, and the tennis racket."
"Do we even have people who play tennis around here?" I said with confusion.
Benny thought about it and said, "I don't think so."
"Has anyone ever bought a tennis racket from you?" I asked again.
"No. I don't think people have." He said after thinking for a while.
I sighed and said, "Then, why did you restock it?"
He laughed wryly. I took out a binder. The front of the binder's content has the flyers I had designed and the sales campaign I have succeeded in.
I showed the guy a typical sports store style flyers and also a new design I was working on.
"It's 70 bucks if you want it on glossy paper like this."
"That's for 500 pages, right?" He asked again.
"Yeah, including the design fee."
He smoked a cigar and said, "What if I want to put a model on there? Like Bob did."
"That will add 100 more for the model fee." I replied. He widened his eyes slightly and said, "That's expensive… but reasonable. I wonder if you can get the same woman in Bob's flyer? I want to see her wearing a tennis skirt."
"I too want that, but since she's Bob's wife, I don't think she will agree to it." I said calmly, which made the guy rethink his decisions.
"Alright. She can just wear normal clothes." He gave up a bit.
"Your target consumer is roller skaters. So I think I can do better than Midge. She targets more of the male and housewives consumers. For a roller skate consumer base, it was better to get a teenager or a young adult to do it."
"Alright then. As long as they are pretty." He said with a sly smirk.
He gave me 170 bucks to handle the flyers and I left the store with my teacher. Then, we went to another store. A milk delivery service shop.
"We want to refresh our customer base, since a lot of people left after the plant shuts down. So we need the flyers." The chubby, short and stout man with a kind face said nervously.
"Alright. I can do that." I replied.
"We need 5000 of those flyers. Since we're going to be distributing it in Kenosha and Green Bay too."
It was a branch of a big milk company. I nodded and charged him 500 dollars for the flyers, and 200 more for the modelling fee.
Since he wanted two sets of flyers. He also paid 200 more for a new slogan and a store rebranding job– basically logo creation.
"So, you went out, scammed people for 1000 dollars in one afternoon?" The teacher said with amazement.
I grimaced and said, "I didn't scam anyone."
"So it's real work? Are you working with a marketing agency?"
I smirked and said, "I am the marketing agency."
The teacher crossed her arms and furrowed her eyebrows as she was deeply contemplating something.
"Here. We have arrived." I said casually.
She turned and widened her eyes in confusion. "The school? Why are we back here?"
"The school is going to be over in 10 minutes. I can drop you off after, but someone's definitely going to see us in a car together. Is that what you want?" I asked teasingly.
She inhaled sharply and said, "You can drop me off away from school."
"What's the fun in that?" I laughed.
She mumbled in dissatisfaction and cursed in Chinese language as she got out of the car.
"You can apply for a practical job release." She said suddenly. "That way, you can legally go out to work. You don't have to play truancy."
"That form needs an employer. I'm self-employed, so I can't do that." I replied to her.
She still hung by the car window and said, "You can if I vouch for you."
I raised an eyebrow and said, "What's in it for you?"
"Nothing. I just don't want you to be unfairly discriminated against just because you were working to make a living. You're an orphan, life is already hard enough for you."
I just laughed and said, "Unfortunately. I have a great life right now. So go and play teacher savior to someone else."
Pressing the pedals on the car, I drove away from the school grounds before the bell rang.
I went to the mechanic shop and made a little fix on the Galaxie car– new engine oil, new transmission fluid, better cooling fluid, new battery.
I could do it since I have stocked the mechanic shop with those parts. Although I was the only one using that.
The spark plugs and the plug wires have been ordered, so I would be replacing them after it arrived.
Even with the oil changes and the battery change, the car felt quite smoother now. I also cleaned up the clogged carburetor and re-tune it nicely.
"Steven, I found a place for you to work on your car restoration." Red told me.
"Is it big?" I asked.
"Steven, I found a place for you to work on your car restoration," Red said.
"Is it big?" I asked.
"It can fit around 5 cars in there. It used to be a storage shed for the old paper mill before it went bankrupt."
"Storage? What about electricity? I need to use a lot of electricity to do it." I asked with concern.
"Don't worry. The landlord already set it up. It has heating, a lot of plug points, even a small office inside." Red replied.
I nodded and we went to check out the place. The rent there was 300 per month, and it was basically just an open space like Red said.
It has dirty concrete floors, sunlight coming in from the large windows. I asked GPT if a paper mill storage would have some dangerous residues. It gave me multiple options to check it out.
"It has insulation since papers are weather sensitive products." Red added, "So it won't be cold."
I nodded and said, "Alright. I think I can use this place."
"Good, since I already paid the deposit." Red grinned. I just laughed wryly at him.
"I also bought two more cars for your flip." He said.
I was slightly shocked. "Red, you don't have to do that."
If he bought a car with a lot of work to be done on it, the flip's profit margin would be low.
A tow truck delivered a 1957 Bel Air and a 1962 Chevrolet Nova. Rust holes riddled the floor pans and body panels, more than I had anticipated. The engines still ran, thankfully, but I could already see the work would be intensive.
I crouched beside the Bel Air, running my hands over the corroded metal. "Huh. This isn't a weekend job anymore," I muttered.
Even with all my tools and parts stocked, restoring these properly could take a month or two.
"What? Are you scared?" Red said with a teasing mock.
I shook my head and said, "It will take a month to finish."
Red was slightly taken aback by it.
"Hmm…" He paused and mused for a while. "You know, if we have access to cars from Arizona and California, even their 1950s car won't have rust on it."
I was slightly taken aback by Red's words.
He added without noticing my reaction, "But the cost to bring them here is already going to be big. It's not worth it."
It would be worth it for me, since I have a system storage with 15 slots on it. I could buy 15 cars, put them in there, remove the transportation cost by going there with planes.
Red left while I was fixing up my work bench.
"I'm going to need a new air compressor and a lot of new tools."
Since I gave Red some of my tools. I checked my watch, and it was time for me to pick up Victoria from the bank.
"I should fix up the Celica first before doing anything else." I mumbled. "I'll do it tonight."
…
I came to the bank just 10 minutes before it closed.
"I need to deposit these," I told the clerk.
"Come back tomorrow," he said flatly.
Suddenly, Victoria pushed past him and said excitedly, "Hey, Steven. Are you depositing cash or a check?"
"Both," I told her with a smirk. It was good having an insider. I didn't have to wait for a long time at the bank.
The $4,000 check for the Nova, $2,000 cash for the VW restoration budget, and another $1,000 for my marketing jobs.
"Seven thousand?" Victoria whispered, her eyes slightly dazed. It was more than she made in a year.
"Don't worry. It's legal," I chuckled. "It's the mechanic shop account."
Victoria's eyes widened. "Ah… shouldn't it be better for you to open a business account?"
"I guess I should open one and separate it."
"I'll help you." She said gleefully. She brought the documents home, and would help me open the account tomorrow.
"Let's go to dinner." I said suddenly.
Victoria stammered, "R-Right now?"
"Yeah. Let's go to a hotel restaurant."|
"HOTEL!?" She gasped. Then, her mind remembered the 'restaurant' part and she became slightly embarrassed.
We drove to the restaurant and had a nice time there. But she was tired around 8, so I brought her back home for her to sleep.
Then, I went to the auto shop to fix up the Celica.
"I'll just use Build Mode for this. I'm too tired of doing it properly." I muttered with a yawn.
It only took build mode 3 seconds to complete the wiring job, and 7 more seconds to clean up the car.
"It will take me 10 hours if I do it by myself." I muttered with a slight shock.
I haven't painted the Celica yet, although I have to do it soon. Since removing the rust took a lot out of the body paints.
While I was closing up at midnight, I suddenly heard a sound calling from outside the store.
"Is there anyone inside?" A girlish voice called.
"Am I getting robbed?" I muttered with a slight caution. I grabbed a crow bar and opened the door.
"Ah. It's you." Linda, the girl who stood me up before, stood beside a beat up AMC Gremlin car, with sweat pouring from her forehead. "Damn it. Why is it you?" She cursed slightly.
"What's wrong?" I asked.
She bit her lips and whispered reluctantly, "My car died on the road. It won't start."
"What?" I didn't hear a word she was saying since it was too low volume.
She shouted, "MY CAR DIED! IT WON'T START! I had to push it for miles!" She dropped to the ground and began sobbing. "Why did my life turn out like this?!"
"Um…" I didn't know what to do as she was crashing out. It was a cold night too.
"My boyfriend cheated on me. My roommates kicked me out. I have no job. I have to drop out of college. WHY GOD! WHY???!!!" She shouted at the sky dramatically.
I shuddered from the cold night breeze and looked at her with a bored expression.
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