The next day, Arthur heard some commotion brewing outside of his hospital room. His curiosity had been peaked, he wasn’t aware of this major of a commotion within the lab during this time period, which means he either forgot, or his actions were the direct cause of it.

A few moments later Donovan, the secretary of Arthur’s father, entered the room and briefly spoke before walking back out of the room. “Arthur, follow me, you’re going to want to see this.”

“Well that wasn’t cryptic at all.” Arthur remarked with a hint of sarcasm. He slid out from the hospital bed and threw on the first articles of clothing he could find. “I’ll be there in a second.”

Managing to find a shirt, pants and a pair of sandals, Arthur made his way out of the hospital room and began looking around for Donovan. Donovan was talking to one of the nurses at the service desk, Arthur approached him. “Donovan, what do you need?”

“Right, you got ready quick, follow me.” Donovan gave his farewells to the nurse and then led Arthur to his father’s office on the first floor, the only room that had an interior balcony overlooking the building’s entrance. Leading Arthur to the balcony, he pointed towards the crowd of people forming a circle around two individuals.

As Arthur looked closer, he noticed that one of the individuals was his father, while the other was on his hands and knees in front of him, an act of subservience. After a few seconds, Arthur realised what was happening, that other person was Ruslan’s father. Arthur shot a pair of daggers at Donovan before quickly turning around and dashing towards the elevator, making his way to the ground floor.

Exiting the elevator, he continued his sprint towards the building’s entrance, before his path was obstructed by a crowd of workers. Arthur calmed his breathing, stood up straight and tapped the closest person on the shoulder, who turned around with a sense of annoyance at the person who just made contact with them, but his expression lightened immediately upon realising it was Arthur.

“Excuse me, I need to pass.” Arthur’s voice reached the ears of the nearby workers, who turned around and noticed Arthur’s now annoyed expression. Within a matter of seconds, the crowd began parting, giving Arthur a straight line towards the centre. “Thank you.”

Arthur started walking towards the centre, the attention of the crowd was now focused on Arthur, rather than the other two. Arthur made his way to the side of Ruslan’s father and turned to face his own father.

“I thought we had an understanding.” Arthur’s tone came off as accusatory, and somewhat domineering. The crowd gasped, Arthur was known around the company to be soft-spoken, shy and non-combative, this was only amplified when faced against his father. “The sins of the son shall not reflect on the father, that was our agreement.”

“Arthur, you’re misunderstanding the situation, I wasn’t the cause of this.” His father instantly took a passive stance, hands raised in-front of him, his torso slightly arched back. “I understand the agreement. He has done this of his own free will, I’ve been asking him to stop.”

Arthur’s attention snapped to Ruslan’s father, who nodded that this was indeed the case. Arthur let out a deep sigh and grabbed the man’s shoulder.

“Come on, lets go, you’re causing a scene.” Arthur lifted Ruslan’s father by the shoulder, helping him stand up. Arthur leaned in to whisper something to him, “Make sure Ruslan learns his lesson, I won’t be able to protect him next time.”

“Thank you.” Ruslan’s father uttered those words before walking out of the building, it appeared that he didn’t have a shift that day, he only came in to beg for Arthur’s father’s forgiveness, or something of the sort.

Arthur panned across the crowd, then focused his attention on his father who gave him a light shrug in response. Arthur then remarked out loud in a lighthearted tone, “Aren’t you guys all extremely busy?”

Taking that as their cue to leave, the crowd dispersed, leaving only Arthur and his father standing there in the lobby, besides the people working behind the front desk.

“Why did you have Donovan call me over?” Arthur asked with a sigh. His previously aggressive attitude and tone settled down to something more casual.

“I didn’t.” Arthur stared at his father’s expression, it seemed he was telling the truth, meaning Donovan had done this of his own volition.

“Right. Well, you can go have that discussion with your secretary, I’m going back to bed.” Arthur looked up at the interior balcony to see Donovan with a grin on his face. Arthur gave him a short wave before walking towards the elevator and making his way back to his patient room on floor 2.

Arthur didn’t attend school for the rest of the week, and the week after that. Quinn and Holly stopped by to visit a couple times, other times they just kept in contact over social media.

Donovan hadn’t visited for two whole weeks after their last interaction, but he appeared before Arthur once more, with an grin on his face. “Hey Arthur, lets go for a drive.”

“You are aware father wasn’t joking when he said he’d cut your pay for doing things behind his back, right?” Arthur stared at Donovan with a dumbfounded look. This man is the only person stupid enough to annoy Arthur’s father, and the strangest part was that he does it on purpose, and still manages to get away with it.

“I promise it’ll be worth it.” Donovan’s grin grew even bigger, and it sounded as if he was trying to hold back a laugh. “Hurry up, get dressed.” Donovan dipped out of the room, closing the door behind him.

Arthur slid out of his bed once more and got properly dressed this time, it was one thing to be walking around the lab in his pyjamas or loungewear, but it was completely different in public. He made sure to grab his phone and wallet before leaving the room. “Alright, I’m ready.”

Donovan and Arthur walked around the first floor, on their way to the elevators, ignoring any curious gazes. They eventually found themselves at the building’s entrance, where the people manning the reception desk also stared at the two with curious gazes.

“Going for a walk, I’ve been stuck in bed for two weeks.” Arthur waved them off with a weak excuse, he followed Donovan to his car, hopping in the passengers seat. “Alright, lets see what trouble you’ve cooked up this time.”

Donovan gave a slight chuckle in response before starting up the car and driving off. Donovan remained silent during the trip, which was unlike him, especially considering the drive was over thirty minutes at this point.

“It must be killing you not to spoil it, huh?” Arthur remarked, his attention panning between the surroundings speeding past his view and Donovan’s painful grin.

“Like you wouldn’t believe.” Donovan responded with a strained laugh.

Eventually the car stopped at a gas station, it was a forty-three minute drive. Arthur glanced at the car’s fuel meter, and it read as almost completely full, meaning this was most likely the destination.

“Hey Arthur, could you get me some gum?” Donovan’s laughter could barely be contained at this point, but he still made an attempt.

“Alright.” Arthur followed him this far, he might as well humour him until the end. He left the vehicle and walked towards the entrance. The sliding doors opened to reveal an air-conditioned building, with rows of stocked shelves, filled with your typical convenience store products, Arthur’s eyes scanned over the building’s interior until his eyes stopped on the cashier.

The cashier was a large overweight man whose forehead was still covered in beads of sweat, even in a well air-conditioned room. Upon seeing this man, Arthur turned his gaze outside where he saw Donovan convulsing with laughter in his car, people nearby stared at him with strange gazes, but he didn’t seem to care.

Arthur walked down the confectionery aisle and grabbed three rolls of bubble gum tape, one of each flavour he could see, grape, strawberry and cola. Arthur walked up to the counter, placing the three packets of gum on the counter-top.

“Welcome! Is this all for toda–” The large man began the scripted customer support speech, stopping after realising who he was serving. His face distorted into a slew of emotions, although it mostly boiled down to a mix of anger and humiliation. The cashier just so happened to be Arthur’s recently fired sports teacher.

“Ohhh, hey teach. I haven’t seen you around here before. Did you just start a side gig?” Arthur’s face contorted into the most arrogant smile he could muster, and his tone, while he attempted at making it sound genuine, was obviously laced with sarcasm.

“Is this all for today?” The cashier spoke with a heavy voice, he was clearly holding back his anger, lashing out now would cost him another job.

“Yeah this is all, thanks.” Arthur shot him a friendly smile.

“Your total comes to nine dollars.” Hearing those words, Arthur pulled out his wallet, but instead of taking out a ten dollar note, started counting out nine dollars, one dollar at a time. Each coin hitting the counter made the cashier’s expression contort even further.

“Oh actually, could I get one of these too?” Arthur reached to the side and grabbed a chocolate bar. He didn’t want it, he just had extra change and it just so happened to be the perfect amount.

“That’s a total of 10 dollars and 50 cents.” The cashier was furious at this point, but had to do his job.

Arthur placed the remaining amount one coin at a time, finalising his purchase, he pocketed his products, and then his eyes locked on the hot food section. “Oh actually, could I get a sausage roll?”

The cashier’s face was now bright red, but he walked over to the hot food section, slid open the glass door, grabbed a paper bag and a pair of tongs and started picking up a sausage roll.

“Oh what sauces do you have?” Arthur asked with a cheeky grin, he wanted to drag this out as long as possible, but he knew it would come to an end soon.

“Just tomato and barbeque.” The cashier’s eyes met with Arthur’s, and a wave of anxiety hit him.

“You know what, never mind, I don’t want the sausage roll, this is all, thanks.” Arthur quickly turned around and walked towards the exit.

As he reached the exit, his eyes snapped to a pedestal beside the door, it had five buttons in a gradient from red to green, each button had a face on it, from extremely unhappy as the furthest left, to extremely happy at the furthest right.

Above the buttons was a sign that read, “Rate your experience.”

Arthur turned to face the cashier, a mischievous smile plastered on his face, he shot the cashier a wink before double tapping the extremely unhappy button and walking out, as he did he could hear loud banging sounds behind him, it appeared the man had snapped.

Arthur made his way back into Donovan’s car, hopping into the passengers seat, he turned to face Donovan who was still laughing. “You were right, it was worth it.”