Two Worlds at a Time

Thankfully, everything was fine, and soon they reached the school. Seeing the old ground and building again after such a long time brought him nostalgia. But it also brought up bad memories. One might think that Aric had some kind of bad childhood, but it was nothing like that.

In fact, it was the opposite. He was the villain in the story. He wasn’t some kind of bully, but he was definitely an asshole. He would taunt people with his then-so-called friends. Later in his life, when he looked back, he felt ashamed of what he did and too embarrassed to even bring this up or say sorry to the ones he taunted and made fun of.

Now that he was back, and a future introvert, he would be the same as before and get away from people. He was a mature mind in a child’s body (well, not technically a child, but Aric sure did think so), so he better be mature about it.

As Aric reached the class, Ishan went on about the food and Pokémon. All Aric could think was, "Dude, just shut up!"

After Aric sat at his table, Ishan sat nearby him, and he continued with his blabbermouth, which had now elevated to other topics, and Aric almost got a headache. He had forgotten how incredibly blabbermouth and annoying he himself was.

Thankfully, the bell rang after some time, and the teacher came to teach them. It had been so long that he had almost forgotten the names of the teachers. The class started, and since it was a maths class, Aric didn’t even bother to listen to what the teacher was talking about. This was too easy for him.

Now that he had some peace, he looked around to see if there were any changes from what he remembered, but there was none that came to his attention from his old memories. After eye-balling people around a bit, he gave up and decided to just enjoy his time and chalk out his future plan.

The COVID hit, the stock market, the world. With his future knowledge, he could easily invest a small amount of money in companies that would boom and bloom in the future. The only thing he would have to do was to convince his parents to invest since he couldn’t earn money by himself. His age in India wouldn’t allow him to work legally since there was a law prohibiting children under the age of 18 from working, as it was seen as child labor.

The classes went on, and he even went to break with his other ’friends’. Aric was mostly silent and just listened to the ’friends’ around while thinking of the future constantly.

"Alright, boys and girls. Your summer vacation of 1 month starts now, and take down your homework."

The word "homework" sent a sad murmur through the whole class, but it brought a smile to Aric’s face. He didn’t care about the homework; even if he didn’t complete it, nothing would happen to him. In this one month of free time, he would easily chalk out his future plan and act accordingly.