Entry 25: The Cooper Household [01]

Arc 3 (Part 1): Falling into Step

In the comfort of his own home, Samuel pulled out his textbooks to begin revising once more. After the first session of revising the evening prior, he found it really hard to sit down and do his dues to catch up on the content, especially since his hands and mind were itching to get back to playing games. However, he forced himself to chug through the work since playing games wasn’t really a viable option with the computer in his room.

His birth control side effect promised him a sexless evening, and despite being full of stamina, he thought it might be necessary to lay off of the sex that night. He could imagine his life would soon become hectic and so he chose to spend the evening being a lazy bum.

While lazing around, Samuel planned to make a visit to the bank on the high street. Commercial Street was one of the busiest streets in the borough as not only was there a shopping mall located there but in a decade where most people did their business in person and not over the internet, there were still a few branches of the national banks located there. Samuel had plans to visit one of these national banks to open an account.

‘If my memory serves me correctly, a lot of the independent and little banks were wiped out during this recession, huh? Do I have a conspiracy on my hands, heh?’ Samuel had decided the safest bet was working with a national bank during the financial crisis since most of them survived such occurrences. He was actually ignorant of the ins and outs of the recession but he hadn’t gone unscathed by its after-effects the last time.

It was a shame that banks, however, had a set closing time of around 5pm. This meant that he’d have to get his papers ready for the journey there straight after school just so that he could make it. Had it been a matter related to cryptocurrencies, Samuel could have dealt with it at home- since exchanges were always open and available. He just sighed in wonder at how far the world had gone in just a decade or two compared to the previous centuries.

‘Hm… well, I’ve been saying that that computer is dead, but why don’t I check it out for once?’ Having finished a chapter of the maths textbook, Samuel chose to explore the capabilities of the old tech. Upon booting it up, he found it to be running an extremely old version of windows. He clicked open internet explorer and, for no other reason but to test loading speeds and such, he looked around for borrowing options.

‘Hm… a credit card? A 0% purchase credit card? Interesting.’ Looking through the options besides taking out a personal loan at an extortionate interest rate or APR, Samuel chanced upon interest-free borrowing with a 0% purchase credit card with an introductory or promotional scheme wherein purchases within a set period would be interest-free for a certain number of months.

‘Yeah… yeah, that’s definitely cool and all but I doubt it’ll work out for me.’ With having to go through a number of credit checks by lenders and then requiring proof of income, Samuel highly doubted his chances of being issued such a credit card- he had neither a credit history nor an income to pass the checks. Despite truly desiring something such as it, knowing that it’d make his life that little bit more convenient in the short-term, Samuel set the futile thought aside before suddenly a chime rang in his mind.

[Ding!]

[Introducing Fast-Track! A new derivative of the Non-Sexual Store where Host can skip waiting times and investigations and directly purchase real-world items and assets with SRP.]

[Items Available:]

[0% Card Purchases Pole Banking Group Credit Card]

[Description: 0% interest rate for 18 months on card purchases made up to the first 90 days from PBG account opening.]

[Cost: 35 SRP]

[Would Host like to purchase this item?]

‘Purchase… the credit card? Fuck me.’ Samuel looked at the blue screen popping up in front of him in a trance. Even though he had acknowledged the usefulness of the system in the events leading up to now, this new feature cemented the system’s desire to help Samuel succeed- something that he’d not pass up on at all.

‘Yeah, go on. But how have you managed to get away with getting me this sort of thing?’

[The System has the means to carry out such tasks. With SRP fuelling its actions, the System can warp reality and fake documents to allow such an item to appear in the store.]

‘Interesting. Oh, shoot.’ Soon after confirming the purchase, Samuel suddenly felt a rectangular card materialising within his hand. When the dark blue card with a greyish-silver print had finally fazed in, Samuel wrapped his hands around it, feeling the bumps where the card number was and turned it over to find a security number present. The young adult couldn’t help but marvel at the legitimacy of the whole thing.

‘Well, I guess now I should spend my time putting some serious thought into what sort of competency I want to buy. Is a martial art better so that I have the means to defend myself? Or would it be smarter to purchase a money-generating competency first? Hm… at the end of the day, I’m positive I can make back enough SRP to buy another one anyway.’

Samuel rubbed his hands while thinking about the ways in which he earned his SRP. There was a lot more where that came from and the adult-turned-teen wouldn’t shy away from farming it all.

— — —

*Ding Dong*

The chime of a doorbell rang out within 34 Fellow Drive as a woman, upon hearing the sound, rushed to her front door to check who could have arrived at her house at this time. Her husband wasn’t due to arrive for another half hour or so, if at all, and so she was quite curious.

Looking through the peephole, she noticed a pudgy green-grey-eyed youth with dark brown hair which was let down around his head. He was standing to the side while gazing at the oncoming vehicles on the road, allowing the woman to see his rounded form holding onto a covered plate. While looking at him, she noticed he appeared slightly different to the last time he had visited. It might have been the way he stood, maybe, that made him appear as though he was taller. Even though the housewife couldn’t tell, she decided not to tarry any longer and quickly opened the door.

“Hi, Samuel.” She began, with a beaming smile on her face. She had always liked the children from next door as she’d watched them grow up for the better part of their lives. On some occasions, his mother had asked her to babysit them for a while, and she couldn’t be more than glad to as she loved children. It was slightly unfortunate that she wasn’t able to give birth to children of her own, but that was another matter altogether.

“Um, hello Emily.” Samuel wanted to punch himself for the way he’d just replied. There was just something about his bona fide buxom MILF of a neighbour that made him a little bit more nervous than when he was interacting with his bully. Now that he thought about it, it was quite a wonder how he’d managed to keep cool through the whole scheme on Mai. But now, Samuel put the thought aside as he had ought to tell Emily about why he’d so abruptly turned up at her front door.

“So, I basically just made a bit too much for dinner and thought I’d come over and give you some. I guess I was also wondering if you could be the first to taste-test it for me too.” While saying that, Samuel raised his arms with the plate, indicating it was for her. Emily looked slightly surprised, if one was to take the eye down raise and taken aback look she sported seriously.

“You made it, Samuel? What’s the occasion?” While laughing happily she ushered him inside the house and he graciously took the opportunity to enter. Bringing over the extras had just been an excuse to come over and visit her. Given their family’s financial situation, saving every last bit of food was probably the best choice, but Samuel reasoned he would indirectly convert SRP into cash sooner or later, so he could afford to be a bit resourceful.

“Hm, no occasion. I’ve just started learning how to cook so I could help out around the house I guess. You know how busy mum is and I just noticed how tired she looks when she gets back from work.” While the story was essentially the gist of things he kept out how he felt as though he owed it to his mother to make it for her. But the way he’d said things should be enough to draw out some positive feelings from his neighbour- and his bet had obviously been correct.

“Aww, that’s so sweet of you Samuel. I wish I had a son like you.” She came up to the young adult and pinched his cheeks as though he was still a young child while making weird ‘kuji kuji’ sounds. The adult-turned-teen felt slightly embarrassed when a woman, who was technically younger than him, was treating him like a child, but he didn’t hate it. Skin contact felt really good and he’d been missing it for the last 20 years of his life.

“No, haha it’s nothing. It just hit me when you said I was an adult now, and I thought to take it upon myself to act like one… you know.” While looking at him with a slightly profound gaze, she had him take a seat while she tasted the food. She really liked how the young man before her was taking responsibility in his life because she knew just how much help her single mother-of-two neighbour needed the help.

[Obedience +5]

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