Chapter 362. Operation: Fatman (4/10)
“Hey, by the way, do you have Jass’s number?”
“Yeah, I do, why?”
“Can you give it to me? I need to get him to help me with something as well.”
“How do you not have his number?”
“I told you, I don’t have friends.”
“You’re really going to stick to that till the day you die, aren’t you?”
“Yeah, I will.”
She took out her phone and turned it to me.
“This is his number, take it down.”
“Alright, thanks.”
I snapped a picture of it with my phone.
“At least save it to your contacts.”
“Too lazy to.”
“Haaaah. How many contacts do you even have? You at least have Rosa’s right?”
“Yeah, I do.”
“Take mine down too then. Communicating through email with you is a pain in the ass.”
“Don’t wanna.”
“Why not? Is Rosa the type to get mad if you have another girl’s phone number?”
“No.” Quite the opposite actually. She’d ask me about it while poking my cheek with an impish smile and fox-like eyes.
“If she won’t get mad, then just add my number. I don’t see what the big deal is here. It’s not like I’m a stranger to her. I even got to know her through Alicia before I met you.”
“I have a rule of thumb I follow on whether to even consider adding someone to my contact list. If I work with them, if they’re family, or if they’re my romantic partner. Friends or people in categories outside of those are not included.”
“What the hell, so someone would either have to get a job where you work or become your girlfriend before you add their number to your contact list?”
“Yeah. But even then, there’s no guarantee. I still may not add them. I said I only consider adding them if they meet one of the three criteria.”
“That list is pretty damn exclusive. How many are on it?”
Let’s see. There was Rosa, Alicia, Irene, Chris, Wisteria, the Owner, and the store’s phone number. I still hadn’t gotten Yuna’s. With the situation we’re in, I probably should have asked her for her number. But I was pretty sure she had mine saved. Whenever I call into the store and she picks up the phone, it shows on the caller ID. She should have it saved, if an emergency pops up, she should be able to contact me. I’d never done the same for her on days she called out sick though. I really should have.
“There are seven people.”
“Only seven? Seriously?”
“That’s a major improvement from what it used to be. I used to have only one number in my contact list before I started dating Rosa.”
“Your mom or dad’s?”
“No… the phone number for my workplace in case I had to call out sick. Actually… now that I think about it… I only saved it shortly after I got Rosa’s number. I’d just memorized the store’s number and hadn’t bothered to save it to my contacts list. So in reality, I had zero before I added Rosa’s number.”
“This is truly... too pitiful to listen to. To refuse to even add your parents in the beginning.”
Not that I could add them even if I wanted to. One’s dead, the other is as good as dead.
“Whatever, it’s not like the number of phone numbers saved in your phone defines a person’s worth. Someone could easily add a bunch of random numbers under fake names and nobody would ever be the wiser.”
“Only someone without friends would ever come up with such a depressing idea.”
I completely powered down my phone and told her, “Hey, power down your phone from here.”
“Huh? How come?”
“To prevent it from communicating with any cell towers. They can give away our location if something goes wrong. Even if we get away from any trouble that might crop up, it could be traced back to us. Just to be safe, when we get to the school we’re also going to park a safe distance away and not bring our phones anywhere near the school.”
“Okay, that makes sense. Are you afraid the cops might show up?”
“Yeah. It’s a concern of mine. We can talk about this more when we get there. We’re going now.” I climbed onto my motorcycle in front of her and started it.
When she wrapped her arms around my waist, I took off and got onto the highway.
While driving, we continued our conversation. I decided to ask her about something that had been on my mind for a while now.
“Hey, that older sister of yours you mentioned before. You never said it was Ms. Gene.”
“Huh? How’d you find that out? We don’t even have the same last name.”
“Remember how I was standing beside her at convocation?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, she unconsciously blurted out ‘Ah. So my little sister got exposed at the very end, huh?’ at graduation when Jass snatched your wig on stage in the middle of your speech.”
“Haaaah. My older sister may be super smart, but why’d she have to be so absentminded and weird?”
“So it’s true then? She really is your sister?”
“Yeah, she is.”
“Why’re your last names different?”
“Well… to be more specific, we’re only half-siblings. She’s from my father’s previous marriage. My father‘s first wife died when she gave birth to my elder sister, Deena. He later remarried, and had me with my mother.”
“After her mother’s death, my elder sister grew up without receiving much acknowledgment from my father. He hardly ever paid attention to her. She didn’t receive much love from my father who mourned over the death of his wife for years. He’d buried himself in his research for a long time before he eventually met and fell in love with my mother. My mother was a film student at the time in the university he taught at and he was a highly respected professor at her university.”
“But going back to my elder sister, she was highly gifted from a young age. Father and his previous wife were really smart, both were professors. Her mother specialized in chemistry while father specialized in physics and math. Their daughter inherited their superior genes, but she took an interest in biology. I think deep down, Father was disappointed my sister chose biology over her parent’s fields of expertise.”
“As a trade-off for my sister’s high IQ, she was an oddball with zero for an emotional quotient who didn’t understand things like that though. She doesn’t seem to understand things like love or other people’s feelings in general. As for morals, those are also foreign concepts to her. She can recite a bunch of morals, but she doesn’t comprehend them at all. She doesn’t make the distinction between right or wrong, or at least, she can tell you what’s right or wrong going off past precedent, but she doesn’t get why it’s right or wrong to do something.”
“How did she even get a job as a teacher like that?”
“My father‘s name. She was blacklisted from conducting research after she got her PhD. Left without any other choice, she got a teaching degree and applied for teaching positions. During the interview, she was asked if she was related to a professor the interviewer had taken a course with. The interviewer greatly respected that old professor of hers. When my elder sister confirmed she was his daughter, she was hired on the spot just because she was his daughter. That’s how she got to where she is today.”
“Sounds like a pretty sad story.”
“It is. I… really don’t like how coldly my father treats her. My elder sister looked after me a lot when I was growing up. She always played with me despite how stupid I was. Father also showed me love, but not to her. Never to her. It’s... too unfair.”
“I couldn’t do very well in school the way she did unless I put in a ridiculous amount of effort, but he never made a fuss if I didn’t do well. My elder sister always did extremely well, but he never acknowledged any of her achievements even once. He just gave her a dismissive indifferent nod whenever he saw her grades. It was like everything was as expected of her.”
“I see. Then you dressing as a goth/punk girl is a form of rebellion against your father?”
“Yeah... I’ll become the failure daughter of the family, the unloved one in my older sister’s place. I don’t want my father to love me. I want my father to love my super-smart older sister who really deserves all the love in the world. She’s had things the toughest out of everyone.”
“Hahaha! What the hell is with that? That’s the strangest sort of family relationship I’ve ever heard of. The unloved daughter and the daughter who wishes to be unloved so the unloved daughter is loved.”
“Shut up. It’s complicated.”
“Yeah, I’m sure it is.”
Chapter 362. Operation: Fatman (4/10)
“Hey, by the way, do you have Jass’s number?”
“Yeah, I do, why?”
“Can you give it to me? I need to get him to help me with something as well.”
“How do you not have his number?”
“I told you, I don’t have friends.”
“You’re really going to stick to that till the day you die, aren’t you?”
“Yeah, I will.”
She took out her phone and turned it to me.
“This is his number, take it down.”
“Alright, thanks.”
I snapped a picture of it with my phone.
“At least save it to your contacts.”
“Too lazy to.”
“Haaaah. How many contacts do you even have? You at least have Rosa’s right?”
“Yeah, I do.”
“Take mine down too then. Communicating through email with you is a pain in the ass.”
“Don’t wanna.”
“Why not? Is Rosa the type to get mad if you have another girl’s phone number?”
“No.” Quite the opposite actually. She’d ask me about it while poking my cheek with an impish smile and fox-like eyes.
“If she won’t get mad, then just add my number. I don’t see what the big deal is here. It’s not like I’m a stranger to her. I even got to know her through Alicia before I met you.”
“I have a rule of thumb I follow on whether to even consider adding someone to my contact list. If I work with them, if they’re family, or if they’re my romantic partner. Friends or people in categories outside of those are not included.”
“What the hell, so someone would either have to get a job where you work or become your girlfriend before you add their number to your contact list?”
“Yeah. But even then, there’s no guarantee. I still may not add them. I said I only consider adding them if they meet one of the three criteria.”
“That list is pretty damn exclusive. How many are on it?”
Let’s see. There was Rosa, Alicia, Irene, Chris, Wisteria, the Owner, and the store’s phone number. I still hadn’t gotten Yuna’s. With the situation we’re in, I probably should have asked her for her number. But I was pretty sure she had mine saved. Whenever I call into the store and she picks up the phone, it shows on the caller ID. She should have it saved, if an emergency pops up, she should be able to contact me. I’d never done the same for her on days she called out sick though. I really should have.
“There are seven people.”
“Only seven? Seriously?”
“That’s a major improvement from what it used to be. I used to have only one number in my contact list before I started dating Rosa.”
“Your mom or dad’s?”
“No… the phone number for my workplace in case I had to call out sick. Actually… now that I think about it… I only saved it shortly after I got Rosa’s number. I’d just memorized the store’s number and hadn’t bothered to save it to my contacts list. So in reality, I had zero before I added Rosa’s number.”
“This is truly... too pitiful to listen to. To refuse to even add your parents in the beginning.”
Not that I could add them even if I wanted to. One’s dead, the other is as good as dead.
“Whatever, it’s not like the number of phone numbers saved in your phone defines a person’s worth. Someone could easily add a bunch of random numbers under fake names and nobody would ever be the wiser.”
“Only someone without friends would ever come up with such a depressing idea.”
I completely powered down my phone and told her, “Hey, power down your phone from here.”
“Huh? How come?”
“To prevent it from communicating with any cell towers. They can give away our location if something goes wrong. Even if we get away from any trouble that might crop up, it could be traced back to us. Just to be safe, when we get to the school we’re also going to park a safe distance away and not bring our phones anywhere near the school.”
“Okay, that makes sense. Are you afraid the cops might show up?”
“Yeah. It’s a concern of mine. We can talk about this more when we get there. We’re going now.” I climbed onto my motorcycle in front of her and started it.
When she wrapped her arms around my waist, I took off and got onto the highway.
While driving, we continued our conversation. I decided to ask her about something that had been on my mind for a while now.
“Hey, that older sister of yours you mentioned before. You never said it was Ms. Gene.”
“Huh? How’d you find that out? We don’t even have the same last name.”
“Remember how I was standing beside her at convocation?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, she unconsciously blurted out ‘Ah. So my little sister got exposed at the very end, huh?’ at graduation when Jass snatched your wig on stage in the middle of your speech.”
“Haaaah. My older sister may be super smart, but why’d she have to be so absentminded and weird?”
“So it’s true then? She really is your sister?”
“Yeah, she is.”
“Why’re your last names different?”
“Well… to be more specific, we’re only half-siblings. She’s from my father’s previous marriage. My father‘s first wife died when she gave birth to my elder sister, Deena. He later remarried, and had me with my mother.”
“After her mother’s death, my elder sister grew up without receiving much acknowledgment from my father. He hardly ever paid attention to her. She didn’t receive much love from my father who mourned over the death of his wife for years. He’d buried himself in his research for a long time before he eventually met and fell in love with my mother. My mother was a film student at the time in the university he taught at and he was a highly respected professor at her university.”
“But going back to my elder sister, she was highly gifted from a young age. Father and his previous wife were really smart, both were professors. Her mother specialized in chemistry while father specialized in physics and math. Their daughter inherited their superior genes, but she took an interest in biology. I think deep down, Father was disappointed my sister chose biology over her parent’s fields of expertise.”
“As a trade-off for my sister’s high IQ, she was an oddball with zero for an emotional quotient who didn’t understand things like that though. She doesn’t seem to understand things like love or other people’s feelings in general. As for morals, those are also foreign concepts to her. She can recite a bunch of morals, but she doesn’t comprehend them at all. She doesn’t make the distinction between right or wrong, or at least, she can tell you what’s right or wrong going off past precedent, but she doesn’t get why it’s right or wrong to do something.”
“How did she even get a job as a teacher like that?”
“My father‘s name. She was blacklisted from conducting research after she got her PhD. Left without any other choice, she got a teaching degree and applied for teaching positions. During the interview, she was asked if she was related to a professor the interviewer had taken a course with. The interviewer greatly respected that old professor of hers. When my elder sister confirmed she was his daughter, she was hired on the spot just because she was his daughter. That’s how she got to where she is today.”
“Sounds like a pretty sad story.”
“It is. I… really don’t like how coldly my father treats her. My elder sister looked after me a lot when I was growing up. She always played with me despite how stupid I was. Father also showed me love, but not to her. Never to her. It’s... too unfair.”
“I couldn’t do very well in school the way she did unless I put in a ridiculous amount of effort, but he never made a fuss if I didn’t do well. My elder sister always did extremely well, but he never acknowledged any of her achievements even once. He just gave her a dismissive indifferent nod whenever he saw her grades. It was like everything was as expected of her.”
“I see. Then you dressing as a goth/punk girl is a form of rebellion against your father?”
“Yeah... I’ll become the failure daughter of the family, the unloved one in my older sister’s place. I don’t want my father to love me. I want my father to love my super-smart older sister who really deserves all the love in the world. She’s had things the toughest out of everyone.”
“Hahaha! What the hell is with that? That’s the strangest sort of family relationship I’ve ever heard of. The unloved daughter and the daughter who wishes to be unloved so the unloved daughter is loved.”
“Shut up. It’s complicated.”
“Yeah, I’m sure it is.”
