Forget Me

Chapter Thirty-Nine

There was a system.

Study. Play ball. Tinker. Sleep.

P'Kavitra had come to visit—on his parent's insistence—and told him in no uncertain terms that she wanted her brother back and he could go back to whichever alien planet he had come from. Korn had been sufficiently amused by the characterization not to throw her out of his room even though she was insulting him.

"So you're saying you like the slacker I was before even though you gave me a hard time about it every single day?" Korn asked her.

"I never said I wanted you to slack off, I just want you to act...you know...like yourself."

"Okay. I promise to annoy mum with whatever I'm tinkering with..."

"Like the bike?" She said looking at the contraption he had resting against the space beside the door to his bedroom, "It looks better than the one you made before. Can I have this one?"

"You want my bicycle?" Korn asked surprised by her request. He looked from her to the bike and then back again but couldn't decide if he was getting punked or if the bike was good enough for her.

"Technically, it would be my bicycle once you gave it to me for my birthday," she said earning an eye roll.

"Hey...if you're serious, I don't mind giving it to you. But you have to promise to put in a good word with mum and dad."

"Why?"

"Because I applied to your university and if my results are anything like the mid-terms, I'll be attending there next academic year."

"Are you kidding? I just started teaching. I don't want everyone thinking I had something to do with you getting accepted into the same university."

"First, I'm not delusional enough to think you have any influence with the admissions board...so cool your jets, Lori Loughlin," Korn said, and got a smack in the shoulder that stung, "Second, I asked you to help me with mum and dad, not with the university. I need them to be a little more chill for the next couple of weeks and you have a way with them I do not understand."

"So...?"

"Oh...and it's not like anyone needs to know we're related when I start school. They don't ask for the name and occupation of siblings on the application form."

"That's not what I was asking. What I meant is...so what do you want me to tell mum and dad."

"I don't know...what did they send you to tell me?"

"To be normal."

"That's not helpful."

"Fine...be less...I don't know...responsible-young-man, more I still need my mother to do my laundry."

"Eww...gross. Mum hasn't done my laundry since I was fourteen."

"Why?"

Korn wasn't about to answer but the pointed look he gave P'Kavitra communicated fully why his mother wasn't allowed to touch anything in his room. "Just tell them I'm fine and I have to prove that I am smarter than you so I can oust you from your place as their favourite child."

"Good luck with that," she said.

P'Kavitra managed to step out of his room before the pillow he threw at her connected. Instead, it landed against his closed door. But feeling too lazy to go pick it up, Korn returned to his studies. No matter how hard he tried to concentrate his attention kept getting drawn to the box of parts and things he'd put away.

Tired of resisting it, he finally stepped towards the bicycle. Everything he needed was already there. He needed to assemble them and he'd have a working bicycle. With some guilt at slacking off from his study riding him, he offered himself the excuse that a little time having some fun would refresh his mind. Some of his joy returned in the inanity of having a purpose for his project.