Bad buddy one shots

17.

To say that Pat was exhausted would be an understatement.

He couldn't understand what had happened for him to be this busy the last few weeks.

It was as if the universe had decided to humble him a little bit.

It all started about two months ago.

Pat was heading out for drinks with his friends when he received a phone call from his father. 

It was quite the rare occurrence.

Ming was the kind of person to not call his children, waiting for them to call him instead.

He thought showing too much care and affection would make him seem weak or vulnerable.

Something Pat had always wanted to tell him was stupid.

However, he quite valued his life and decided to keep this little comment to himself.

So, with confusion and slight worry that something bad had happened, Pat answered his father's phone call.

Much to his relief, nothing bad had happened.

Well, not to his family anyway.

As soon as he picked up the phone, the man had demanded Pat drove home right away before hanging up, not leaving any room for arguments.

Feeling the severity of the situation, Pat cancelled his plans and instead drove all the way home to see what the fuss was all about.

It had to be very important to get such a reaction from his father.

However, as soon as he stepped foot in his home, Pat was shouted at by his father who had apparently seen Pat's atrocious grades.

Ah.

Wonderful.

When he realised what this was all about, Pat felt like burying himself alive rather than deal with any of this.

Pat had a tendency to embellish the truth whenever it came to his grades and now that his father knew the truth...things didn't look too good for him.

Cursing himself silently, he wished he had made different choices in the past and actually told his dad he was failing.

But, at that time, lying had seemed like such a nice idea. 

Pat remembered thinking it was most unlikely that his father would find out about it anyway.

Oh, how he wished he could slap his old self.

That night, Pat wasn't allowed to open his mouth to defend himself. Instead, he was expected to sit on the couch, silent, while listening to the furious speech of his father.

It truly wasn't that unexpected for Ming to react this way. He was known to be quite strict when it came to academics. 

Moreover, he had always given his children the liberty of telling their father about their grades on their own rather than check their results himself.

He had trusted them to be honest enough about their grades but instead, he realised he had been lied to for most likely years.

He was furious.

And even Pat's mother, who usually was able to calm Ming down, wasn't able to do so this time.

Seemed like nothing and no one would be able to save him from his doom this time.

Pat -that night-  was instructed to drive back home everyday from university for an undetermined period of time and to stay seated at the living room's table, studying.