A Hybrid of Life and Gasoline | 命とガソリンのハイブリッド

Part 20 | Emergency

On Wednesday at 6 AM, Ippei had just woken up, so he walked downstairs to the living quarter in the Noda family home. The same old routine he's been doing for years. Yet, exactly like every weekday morning, his dad was sitting at the small table, with television showing some drivel he wasn't paying attention to.

This morning, however, it seemed that Mizuho brought out his laptop and was doing something on it, which made Ippei a bit curious.

"Are you working?" Ippei asked, his voice still a bit hoarse.

"It's not work if I'm not getting paid..." Mizuho replied in a sarcastic tone.

"So what is it then?" Ippei wondered, a bit annoyed.

Ippei also thought that his dad should stop doing stuff that's not beneficial to the PC shop, his dad lazed around doing stupid stuff way too much and too seriously.

"It's just that I've been behind on accounting." Mizuho replied flatly, still focusing on the screen.

It was different from Ippei's expectation, although not in the sense that his father's laziness was not the issue. He was just expecting his dad to be doing something pointless.

Ippei went into the kitchen and looked at the groceries in the fridge, there's still some left, he grabbed a few things to prepare breakfast, as always. Ippei also noticed that there's plenty of time as he woke up earlier than usual, so maybe he'd actually prepare lunch for once, maybe have some extra for Sachiko?

Not much was in the fridge though, and it should be something that's not totally ruined by being left for hours before lunch time. Well at least the breakfast was sorted as there's this Poke bowl leftovers his father bought last night.

Ippei saw a pack of chicken thighs, and one thing he immediately thought of was karaage, it might be cutting it slightly close, but he didn't have to prepare breakfast, so Ippei rushed a bit and hoped for the best.

While Ippei waited for the meat to marinate, he went and did his morning routine, including eating the Poke bowl while his father was still focusing on the laptop. When he was done it was ready to be fried. 20 minutes later, everything was finished, including a salad mix and some rice. It was near 7.30, which usually was the time Ippei left the house, but there's still a bit of time.

Ippei walked out of the kitchen with the bag full of lunch boxes, ran upstairs to get his study materials and got dressed.

Mizuho took a peek at the lunch boxes, which was on the table just beside him and noticed that it was way too big of a portion for him alone.

Not only that, Ippei had been grooming himself way nicer than he was before, he even had a haircut so that crazy wavy hair of his, which he inherited from Mizuho, of course, was a bit more neat. In fact, Mizuho was the one looking like a bum recently, as he hasn't had a shave in a few days. Not long after, Ippei ran back downstairs then picked up the lunch bag.

"I'm going now." Ippei announced.

"Don't lock the door, I'll be opening shop soon." Mizuho said the same thing as usual.

"Sure."

Ippei said, then went out of the house, leaving the front door unlocked as instructed, and went on with his day.

Recently, Mizuho has been doing some maintenance of the Geo Timer application on the laptop, nothing crazy, just a bunch of tidying up in the backroom. The application by this point was feature full, as Mizuho didn't know what else to add. It's something he'd really wanted and maintaining the storage was the only thing left to do. He was thinking maybe he should come up with something new to play with.