1.6. Familial Pain

I cautiously made my way to the teacher's lounge. Saint High is a big school, and somehow, even though Avner has been a student here for 3 years now, he has no recollection of how the teacher's office looks like.

My AR highlighted this glass door. Looks like I'm here.

A few students who had the access key made their way in, I got to the door before it shut.

How did Miss Myn expect me to enter if I didn't have permission?

The place was fancier than I expected. It's the scene of a decked out office space, each teacher having their own mini cubicle. Panels flying here and there. Some teachers preferred using a physical keyboard while others typed using the digital ones.

If I'm not wrong, there's this blog talking about a newly developed eye tracer software which uses the movement of your eyes to formulate words.

It's still in its beta stage, from what Avner read up. Neural wave technology is still under development, so the next best thing they could come up with was using the eyes.

I followed the guide to Miss Wyn's space.

"Lia?"

"Avner, come here."

"What's going on?"

Lia lowered hirs head.

"I hear that something happened in your family this morning?"

"By that, you mean?"

"I suppose it's not something I should be actively pursuing. But can you promise me something?"

Lia's ears perked up to Miss Wyn's words.

"What is it?"

"Do your best in your upcoming exam."

Upcoming exam, as in next week. It should be possible.

"I will."

"I don't know what happened to you but what you showed me this morning tells me that you're a student with potential. Don't let that go to waste please. Good academic mastery is important if you want to enter the science classes."

"I know that."

Miss Wyn then shifted her attention to Lia.

"Lia, I've called your brother here to tell him to take good care of you okay? If you have anything, you can always come talk to me through direct messages alright?"

"Un," Lia nodded.

"Now, with this it should be alright now."

"Un," Lia shrunk even further.

"Is it because of what happened this morning, Lia?" I asked.

Xe was silent.

"Hm.. just to be frank, good grades won't fix our family."

"Avner, that isn't an excuse to not study."

"I know. I'll turn over a new leaf, something clicked inside me, so I'll make sure I'll get through my next exams."

"That's good to hear."

"Big bro. You liar."

I sighed.

How many times has Avner promised to correct his grades?

"I promise, Lia. I promise."

"Promise?" xe raised hirs head and looked at me with expectation.

"I promise."

"Don't let her down, Avner."

"I won't. Definitely."

It's very unfortunate that Lia won't be able to understand the truth of how a family works until xe sees to the end of it. Xe has excellent grades. Though not to the point of extreme, xe's at least above average when it comes to smarts.

Which is a little concerning. The industrial complex is crumbling, yet some people continue to follow outdated methods of learning.

"Let's go Lia."

After a little more consultation with Miss Wyn whereby she leaked some of the exam topics to me. Lia and I left the teacher's lounge.

"Study hard big bro. I don't want to see mommy angry. Please."

"If only you knew your big bro was no longer your big bro, you wouldn't worry so much."

"What do you mean?"

"Have you read of stories where another soul gets transposed into another person?"

Lia shook hirs head. Alas, xe's not a novel addict. What a pain.

Which does make me curious. What kind of web novels exist in this world?

"I'll make sure to get good grades this time for sure. But don't expect many changes, alright?"

"That won't happen. Mommy is angry because she cares about us."

"Not the case, unfortunately."

Lia's body shook, her entire being revolting against my words. I don't think I should push further.

I will agree that parents care about their children to a crazy extent. I just don't agree that getting angry will help in a child's development.

"But I'll be here for you at least. You can count on me."

"Don't lie big bro."

"Okay. Okay."

I suppose I'll have to find ways to patch up Avner's family. I'm not confident in preventing the divorce, nor I'm I confident about mending the schism in the family. But one thing is for certain, I have an obligation to act my part.

After all, I'm no longer just Avner Cross.

===

I sat on the couch and browsed through the notes given by the teachers. They've covered a lot. For subjects like English Literature, Science and Mathematics, I'll have to depend on my base knowledge.

Priority should be given to subjects like: Geography, History and ICT.

For I know but a lick of what these subjects are about. Sure, I may have the knowledge of a college student, but that doesn't make me omniscient.

History is going to be a pain. Actually, it might not be.

"It's similar to Earth. "

World history.

If that's the case, maybe I should narrow my focus and read up on past year papers. I remember Avner's mother buying an entire gigabyte of practice questions. I'll go through those and filter out the important ones.

"Avner."

Oh. I'm getting distracted it seems. I knew I should have locked myself up in my room.

"Yes?"

"What are you studying?" Aline, my aether asked.

"I'm sorting through the important things to study. It's too late to study everything."

"This is why you should've studied earlier."

"I know."

"I'm warning you, if you don't pass all your subjects this time, you'll really get it. You wouldn't want that would you?"

"Nope."

This family is getting on my nerves.

"Good. Study hard, I wish you the best."

"Will do."

I got up from the couch and locked myself up in my room. I'm sorry I have to leave Lia to study alone in the living room but I just can't.

[Master. Master. CutieTT's live stream is scheduled at 7:00 pm. Message to all fam, I'll be streaming 'House of Cards 2' with my V-tuber gang, Fibroz and... show more. ]

Really? Avner is messed up. I don't even follow V-tubers back in my world.

"I'll not be watching it. In fact, turn off all notifications and third-party systems that can distract me."

[Are you sure master?]

[I'm sure. Just do it.]

[Notifications for all applications have been turned off till next morning. Third party widgets have been deactivated till further notice. Master is acting weird. Randell suggests receiving help from one, Daymond Cross, or two, Aline Wought.]

And not Narie Hill, my mother, because this AI is smart enough to recognize that she's not in the mood, I'm guessing.

"Randell, don't disturb me until 8."

[AI disabling until 8. Good luck master!]

Good. Now.

"Fuck."

I ran my hands through my hair. This is a pain. How many things do I have to deal with? I don't think I can study until I get the load on my brain down on paper.

One, study for the exams.

Two, find out more information about the demon-angel war, and demon association.

Three, investigate the baking club and prevent the vampires from infecting more people.

Four, find out why Pu'er is different from the person I know from my memories.

Five, find Novelle.

Six, start a drawing regime and build up my reputation as an artist.

I'll prioritize studying. The <Cookie Cult> story begins next year, and the MC is set in the science classes. The original Avner ends up in the art classes. My crude guess is that Novelle is the MC and will somehow make her way to Saint High.

That's just an assumption. I now need to consider whether to continue following the original, which is keeping to the art stream or entering the science stream so that we'd end up in the same class?

Another thing I should do is investigate the baking club. I can leave finding the demon association aside for now. There's a possibility they might come find me, and not the other way around. So it's wasteful to go searching for it myself, and it would be difficult when I'm tied down by the schedule of my family.

I'll observe Pu'er again tomorrow and see if I can glean any clues from the way xe's acting.

Time passed, I sorted and arranged the important contents to be studied into a custom folder. Pareto's principle.

Knock. Knock.

"What is it?"

"Big Bro. Mommy wants you to come out.." Lia's timid voice resounded.

Family culture. Got to give it to you.