I really like my house. It's just about the awesomest place to live ever, if you're a writer type. Or a recluse in general. Eh, or maybe a semi-recluse. The whole thing is surrounded by trees and bushes, and even though it's pretty close to some stores and the bank, nobody who doesn't know it's there would ever see it. You can just barely see the little dirt road stuck there in a small gap between two of the trees. My neighbors on both sides have fences, and there's some woods in the back. That leaves me with a nice little enclave, all grassy with some embedded stone steps leading to the front door.
The house isn't very big, but that's alright, since I live alone. Good thing, too, or I'd have to explain to a roomie/spouse/parent where I've been the past few hours. Writing all of this may have taken a few chapters, but it really didn't last that long as an overall adventure. I spent more time walking back to my house than I did running about with Aldaris and Cheonha. I had to walk all that way with a suitcase full of foreign money, so you can imagine how relieved I felt when I finally made it to my little yellow tower with the sloping roof.
Yeah, the house is this odd shade of faded yellow, really quite ugly. It's cool, because I wouldn't like it any other way. I call it a tower because there's literally three rooms to it, and two floors. The bottom is an open area, both kitchen and living room, and it feels even more open since the back door has huge plate glass windows with sliding doors leading out to the back patio (a simple plank platform). Up the stairs is my bedroom and the one bathroom in the house, which is the only thing I don't like about it, because visitors have to go past my room to get there. Maybe I'll put up some partitions or something. Not that it's a pressing issue, given that I don't tend to have visitors.
For now, though, the place is my writer's paradise, and I escape from the steadily falling night. I barely have the energy to shut the door behind me before flopping down on the floor. I should really get a couch at some point. All that's in there, other than the major kitchen appliances on the far wall, is a table and chair set that my parents gave me. Oh, and some pillows I snuck from Mom and Dad's so that my nephews have somewhere to sit when they come over and play video games. I'm pretty sure they don't mind.
I really shouldn't have been surprised when I woke up on the floor some hours later. My body is set to get up around six thirty, so that's the time I was greeted with when I lifted my head off the scratchy carpet to look at the wall.
"Nuggh..." I mutter, picking myself up. "'S food time."
I really need to keep more food in my fridge. Guacamole on toast is no way to greet the day. Thankfully it was a Saturday, and I didn't need the calories it took to get through school. Also luckily, I'd forgotten to turn off the coffeepot yesterday, and it was hot and waiting. The third bit of luck was that I had that Saturday off, and there was nothing for me to do. I gathered up what constituted breakfast, as well as the suitcase, and plopped down at the table.
"I should read my Bible." No one's there to hear me talk, so I always talk out loud at home. I kicked the suitcase full of won still sitting nearby. "Or I could mess with this stuff and figure out what I'm doing with it."
The suitcase was a really big temptation on my time, and the Bible was all the way upstairs by my bed. Going upstairs required more movement than cranky me wanted to do so early in the morning. See, this is why morning devotions haven't really worked out for me. That, and there's no space for my coffeemaker in my bedroom.
"So, monies." I poked around at the colorful cash. "Huh. Well, I decided I was going to keep this as Aldaris' money, so let's see how much there is."
I still have the receipts for all the stuff I bought over in Korea (well, except for the street vendor's food, but I remembered how much that cost), and so I was able to total up the won to about what it should have been before some was spent. Frankly, I wish I had given more to Cheonha, but it is what it is. Counting the receipts as a part of the total, I gpt up to an even 12,000,000 won. Don't get too excited. That's only a little less than 11,000 US dollars. I dunno, kind of a decent amount. If it weren't Aldaris' money, I'd have the next couple of years of free rent. Nothing to sneeze at.
My laptop, all decked out with shiny blue flower stickers, was waiting patiently for me on the table, so I went ahead and turned it on. I had an Excel spreadsheet to make.
I love taking accounting in school. Some of this stuff they could have been teaching us in high school, but because public schools seem to think programs in "global awareness" will help students in the real world get a dang job more than actual practical skills. They could have at least bothered to teach kids how to do their taxes before shoving a diploma in their hands. I can live without knowing French culture. Rattling off European trivia isn't going to put cash in my bank account, much as I might love random bits of information.
But enough musings. I have accounting to do!
I titled the spreadsheet "Charlie's money". I have a character in a fanfiction I never got around to writing that's based off how Aldaris might act if he were a human. And that guy's name is Charlie. True, the character ended up not being that much like Aldaris, but I'd rather put a normal looking name on the spreadsheet just in case my computer ends up in the wrong hands. You never know with these things.
I titled the first column "Date" then expanded the second column and put "Journal". The third and fourth columns became "Debit" and "Credit", and I was ready to go.
"Huh, maybe I should have like a manual book for when I can't get to my computer. Bah, whatever." I put yesterday's date in the first column, under the heading. "Okay, so I'll debit cash for twelve million won, and since my credit has to equal my debits, I'll credit...um...hm. How exactly do you credit 'random money that showed up on an alien spaceship'? I'll just say...capital. Yeah. Capital."
I typed in all the proper amounts in the columns, then below both entries, in the journal column, wrote, "original funds". Then since I spent some of the money, I skipped another space and entered in yesterday's date again, debiting all my expenses and crediting cash. See, when I created the "cash" account on the debit side, it means that that much cash exists. When I put cash on the credit side, it means I'm spending the cash and I have to minus it from cash when I make my T-accounts later. See, if public schools actually gave a crap, you'd know what I was talking about. There is no reason why a high schooler can't learn accounting. It should be at least an optional course for junior or senior year math.
"Okay!" I clapped my hands. "There's probably a simpler way to do this, but whatever! Okay. Now I need to gather up all my Starcraft stuff! I need to be ready for when Aldaris comes to find out about the game."
I ran over to my way-crammed bookcase, full of books on communist history and Korean dictionaries. Seriously, how the heck did I end up with three Korean dictionaries? I don't need that many. But anyway, on the top shelf was all my computer stuff, right next to the Lord of the Rings trilogy and the Complete Works of O'Henry. I pulled out a couple of cds, and there were my Starcraft discs.
"Huh, I don't have the manuals. Do I need those? Probably he'll want to see them. Maybe there's something I forgot in them that would be interesting to him. There's some at work, so I'll probably just check them out."
I placed the discs on the kitchen table, then started thinking of what else I would need. There was obviously my laptop, and later that day I'd have to call Dad and see if I could borrow a projector. But sitting there didn't seem fun.
"Oh yeah, recording Starcraft 2 let's plays!" I brightened. "I'll have to record them, and then edit them down so that only the plot parts show - Aldaris probably doesn't want to watch someone just playing. That would take forever. ...Does SC2 have cheats?"
It turned out that my work was in vain. Aldaris didn't contact me at any point. Not the next day either. Or all that week. I did get the projector from my dad, but I ended up having to return it before he got suspicious (I did get to use it to watch Interstella 5555, though). Nearly a week passed, and I still didn't hear anything. Well, from Aldaris, in any case.
So I was playing around on my computer. Candy Crush on facebook is addictive. I was switching the candies around, trying to beat other people's high scores, when the little bleep that meant I had a notification sounded.
"Eh." I muttered. "I'll look at that in a minute."
The next few minutes were eaten up by repeatedly failing the game, so I just gave up and scrolled to notifications. I had a friend request and a message. I checked the friend request first, nearly shooting tea out of my nose once I saw who it was.
"It's John!" I gasped, trying to stop the tea that came out of the wrong pipes - peppermint tea stings. "Statkus finally found me. Holy crap!"
What the heck, I accepted the friend request. Why not? The message was also from him.
"The picture looks like you," it read. "So I sure hope you're the right Bethany, or I'm going to look completely crazy. That being said, how did you get away from Aldaris?"
"I hope this guy's still online...oh good, he is." I started typing a reply. "You've got the right one. It's okay, our dear friend Charlie let me go. I was worried about you. He just told me he sent you guys away, and that was it."
It didn't take but ten seconds for my reply to go online when the "John is typing" notice appeared. Here, let me just copy/paste our conversation here.
John: I didn't yell at him. I just told him he dies in Starcraft.
"Charlie"?
Bethany: We're calling him Charlie from now on.
Because it's cute.
John: Why not "Al"?
Bethany: Too obvious. The cow does not like obvious things.
John: ... "the cow"?
Bethany: Moo.
Anyway, what else did you tell him? He didnt know much when I got back, and asked a lot of questions.
John: I'll start at the beginning
When you and Chonna (sp?) and Toby left the ship, he told Toby to come to the bridge.
I got called later
Bethany: Cheonha.
John: Oh
"Charlie" said that Toby went home. He told me to point out where I live
He asked me how the game ended, and I told him.
Bethany: And you told him he died.
John: Yeah
Bethany: splendiferous
he was weirded out when I got back. What did you say?
John: he frakked out on me and said I was lying
*freaked
I told him if he had a problem with it, he could go play the game himself.
Then he got mad and sent me back
What happened to you
?
Bethany: you are the shining star of diplomats.
John: Bite me
Bethany: I just might
I helped Cheonha get to the police station in Seoul
had some tteokbokki
John: What did you say to the Korean cops?
Bethany: Nothing, Cheonha went in by herself
She didn't want me to go with her
Then Charlie came and got me
I told him about starcraft (nicer than you)
and I said I would play the game for him so he could see it
Haven't seen him since.
John: He'll probably talk to you later.
Bethany: I think so
John: Did you tell anyone?
Bethany: No. Who are we supposed to tell?
Everyone will think we're nuts
John: I think we're nuts
Bethany: I'm keeping a journal so that everyone will know what happened if there's an investigation.
lol
We're nuts.
Did you tell anyone?
John: Not yet. I want other witnesses.
If we tell them together, then maybe someone will believe us.
Bethany: Let's not tell.
John: I found Toby. He's okay
Why?
Bethany: 1. people will think we're nuts
2. We've got to get Charlie used to the idea of being here, and if we're nice things will go better. He doesn't get anything from hurting humans
John: No
Bethany: 3. Who the crap do we call about aliens?
John: Charlie hates us. He's a threat and people have to know.
Bethany: He'll be less of a threat if we accept him.
Diplomacy
Not bigint people's heads off
*biting
John: I don't know
Bethany: Don't you watch Star Trek
John: No
You nerd.
Bethany: lol
Just give him a chance to calm down. He's freaked out about everything and waiting can give him a chance to figure things out.
It'll be easier if he's the one deciding.
John: That's what Toby said.
Bethany: and if we tell, people will eventually figure out we're talking about Starcraft and we'll get arrested for pranking the government.
Lol.
Toby's fine?
John: Yeah
When he got back to England, he was closer to his grandma's than his house
He had to walk a mile to the bus and pretend he was visiting.
Bethany: Lol.
We talked some more after that, but I don't feel like pasting it all here. Needless to say, I sent Toby a friend request, and me and John talked for a while after that. It was nice to have a little conspiracy going on. Conspiracies are fun.
I just hope we get to see Aldaris again.
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Author's Notes:
I know you guys want some thrills and excitement. Just you wait now, okay? I've got some school to get through, as well as two other stories I'm working on, both hopefully publishable. Note that later on I'm going to have an announcement about one of them.
Author's Notes New:
- The bank near where that building used to be shut down. It's now an insurance company or something like that. I'm super sad about it, because that was the bank I first opened my account at. Also, and I think I might have mentioned this in another chapter, but I never lived in this building. It's a real estate company now, and they cut down all the lovely trees and painted it white. It's awful. If I had had money at the time, I would have been able to rent out the place for I think about $550 a month. Something like that. A girl can dream, you know.
- Hm, this isn't my favorite chapter. Don't worry, y'all, it's picking up soon. Also, my NaNoWriMo project is part three of this story, so there's a pretty big buffer of updates coming up ahead of time. Look forward to it!