Gray's Childhood

The story of how the three boys had met and became best friends, went back 2 decades ago. It started how most young friendships would, family connections.

The Tobion family was growing in strength exponentially, but they were not the towering giants of the current day economy. Byron Tobion had only recently joined forces with his wife's family.

He had lent a billion dollars as his starting capital. This capital was rather significant to the Hanlons, but knowing of Byron's economic and business prowess, his father-in-law had entrusted him with the money.

At the start, Byron decided to contact some of his trusty connections. The time where he spent in Country Z building up their economy, Byron had become close friends with both the Lee family and the Kouglas family.

They linked up eventually outside of Country Z as at that time, the place was filled with numerous conflicts. The heads of both the families had eventually discussed plans of expanding their businesses elsewhere together. Kouglas' banks were reliable in it's monetary prowess, while the Lee's commercialised hospitals was practical for business related matters. For the Tobion family, although they started off with no physical assets, Byron started to acquire shares of sunrise firms and had become their majority shareholder.

Together, they expanded out into different countries, setting up a business there, acquiring a strong fan base, before leaving to expand elsewhere. With that, came a strong and close bond between the 3 families. Even though the Tobion family came out on top after a short few years, they never played the power game. To these, the money was secondary. Friendship was what mattered most.

This was of course enforced in their family gatherings. Any time when all three Heads were available and away from work, they would take turns to hang out at each other's house.

When Gray was 8, that was the first time that he met both Pete and Marion. The Kouglas family head had twins, a son and a daughter. For the Lee family head, he had two older daughters and the youngest son, Marion. Coincidentally, their ages were all close enough so that there wasn't any awkwardness between them.

Except, Gray being Gray, wasn't as welcoming as the active Pete and the polite Marion. It was in fact Pete's twin sister, Delilah that was the able to crack into Gray's barrier. Though she was only a month older than Gray, Delilah was very mature and acted like a big sister to Gray.

"Gray be nice!" Was what Delilah would say when Gray ignored Pete and Marion. Rather, he was neutral with Marion, but when it came to the loud and playful Pete, he couldn't be bothered.

Gray was never interested in playing children games like tag and hide and seek. From a young age, he was interested in mathematics and science. Reading was his hobby and studying was his norm. It was rare to come by a child that was as studious as he was.

Only when Delilah commanded Gray to play with everyone else, would he take a break.

As the years went by, everyone grew up, but the four of them kept in contact. They had a group chat, but most of the time, it was only Pete that was talking. Both Pete and Marion attended University Z at the same time. Gray went to military school, while Delilah went to Country U to study Computer Science.

...

In the cafe, Pete continued to ramble on about his sister and Gray.

"Seeing how Gray was really close with Delilah, there were many times that my parents and Gray's parents had wanted to arrange their marriage."

"However, that was postponed many times due to Gray's constant refusal. Delilah loved Gray from the bottom of her heart, but sadly, it wasn't reciprocated."

When Sato heard about Delilah's feeling for Gray, his heart quivered slightly. A question appeared within his soul. Would Gray have liked her, if he did not meet me again? The thought soon disappeared away. He knew what type of person Gray was.

"Where is your sister now?" Sato asked Pete.

"Mmm, the last time I checked, she was working in Bapple, programming the latest AI system for them." Pete thought back to a year ago. Bapple was a fierce competitor firm to the Mark phone. Those two firms were neck in neck in the phone industry. To be able to work and code for the top phone company in the world, Delilah was a force to be reckoned with.

"Well, if I'm not wrong, Delilah will be coming to Country Z soon." Marion interjected.

"Oh? You spoke to her recently?" Pete asked curiously. Marion didn't mind talking personally, but when it came to texting or calling over the phone, he was as anti-social as Gray.

"Not really," Marion took out his phone to look at her social media. "She posted last week that she had filed her resignation."

"What?! How come she has yet to unban me from her account!?" Pete was furious when he realised he was still blocked by her.

"You're asking me why? Even after all the lame comments that you make on her posts, do you think she will unblock you?"

"That was so long ago! Why wouldn't she unban me?"

"What do you mean a long time ago? The last time you sent a ridiculous comment was a month ago," Marion scrolled through Delilah's feed, finding Pete's comment. "You wrote 'what a fake ugly bitch XD' on her post and that wasn't the dumbest thing you had said on her feed..."

Hearing their conversation made Sato speechless. Pete was just as Gray had said, a rather eccentric person.