In S1E3 Seri, Ali and Alicia became rivals and went through some shenanigans together. But because there's no such rivalry in this fic, this chapter won't focus on that and only have them act cordially as friends.

So instead, the conflict this time around will focus around Ali and *drumrolls* Dr. Ghazali. It's about time the two had a talk.

Enjoy :v

After Mama Aliya's death, there were only so many things five-year-old him could remember from his time with her. One of them was her lullaby, a soothing tune the lyrics of which he should've forgotten. Yet her voice sang it ever so softly in his ears, over and over. He looked up to the radiant face smiling upon him.

"Mama? Aren't you dead?"

The void of blue surrounding them shone with specks of white. As she caressed his face and pulled him closer to her chest, she let her fingertip run from his forehead down towards his nose, tickling him slowly before ending it in a weak bop. She chuckled, her voice a beautiful music that enveloped him in its warmth.

"I'm here now, aren't I?"

She leaned down to kiss his forehead. Her lips stayed there while she hugged him tight, her breath turning raspy as if crying.

As the blue blurred away and the world spun, Ali felt her touch fade away. Her tears fell onto his face, but that too became just a faint sensation swallowed by his dissolving reality.

Ali groaned and fluttered his eyes open, drools hanging over mouth. What was he doing again? Oh right. Studying Cantonese.

His dream faded away the more he grasped reality, leaving only traces of inexplicable sorrow in its wake. He still had IRIS on from when he needed it to simplify the book's contents. As for the book itself…

[Warning, damage imminent] the glasses warned him as if he couldn't see the drools he'd left on the pages and the folded marks probably from him shifting during sleep. [Compound for damaged books: Rm–]

He deactivated IRIS and caught its now compact form in his palm. Covering his yawn, he reached for his phone that was buried somewhere in his blanket and looked at the time. 3am was quite early even for a bird to hunt for its first worm, but the phone screen didn't lie. The eerily silence in the air was oddly calming as he slowly came to terms with the fact he wasn't going back to sleep anytime soon. He was too sober.

"Shouldn't have slept right after dinner," he grumbled to himself, feeling yet another yawn coming. In his defence, studying demanded a lot out of his brain and using IRIS only expended more of his energy. Still, now that sleep was not an option, what was a bored boy to do when school was still five hours away?

Nobody was up, so he had the whole house to himself.

"Huh." He blinked. Nobody was up. Which meant…

The thought of uninterrupted binge-gaming roused the mischievous part of him that hadn't been able to come out yet in the last few weeks. While grinning and rubbing his palms together like some kind of a cartoon villain, he quickly climbed off his bed and exited his room, his mind solely focused on what games he wanted to play. He made sure to not make too much noise lest he alert everyone else in the house.

His excitement turned into confusion however when halfway down the stairs, he heard a sound coming from the living room. The tv was on but whoever was using it lowered the volume down enough that nobody upstairs could hear it. Ali doubted either of his siblings would stay up so late and mama didn't seem the type either. In fact, if there was a night owl in this house, the only person that met the criteria is dad. And he was right.

"Dad?" Ali approached the living room and blinked when he thought he was seeing things. But no, his eyes weren't deceiving him because dad was right there playing Detektif Jebat on the tv while munching on a piece of cracker. Dad blinked right back.

After some awkward silence of staring into each other, dad spoke first and paused the game.

"Mfmf?" He said with his mouth full. When he realised he had food in his mouth, he swallowed and tried again. "Ali? What are you doing up?"

"I went to bed early. What are you doing up?" Ali asked back and glanced at the pause screen displayed on the tv. "I… didn't know you play games."

Dad shrugged, the controller in his hands looking so out of place on the usually stoic man.

"What? You think I bought this just for you kids to play? I'll have you know I was the gamer back in the days not even your mama and Uncle Bakar could beat my records, heh."

Disregarding his parents' mindblowing history lesson he was receiving, the fact dad wasn't looking at anything related to work was a miracle in and of itself.

Because Ali couldn't possibly say "what the heck" to his dad's face, he resorted to expressing his bewilderment with the short and eloquently worded, "Huh?"

"Wanna play some other game?" Dad held out another controller.

"Um… sure." Ali hesitantly took it and dad exited Detektif Jebat to replace it with a cart racing game. He sat beside dad on the sofa and they began to play. Like a normal pair of dad and son. Which had never happened before.

Nothing truly encapsulated his thoughts better on the bizarre situation than the phrase "what the heck" and he wished he could say it right here and now. Otherwise he was going to lose his mind. If he hadn't already that was.

"You're good," Ali said after questioning his whole existence and deciding to just accept and not dwell on it.

"Told you. Crackers?"

He accepted the offered snack and munched on it.

"So, you don't have work tomorrow?" he said with a muffled voice.

"I wish. You barely get any holiday with Dato' Othman starting new projects left and right."

Ali pursed his lips, not seeing the logic. "Then don't you need to sleep?"

Dad grinned at him.

"Alright, this is a secret between you and me, buuut I may or may not sleep at work," he whispered so casually like he hadn't just made a scandalous reveal.

"You don't." Ali gasped and looked up at him, not caring if his cart just crashed.

"Oh, I do." Dad chuckled. "When you're the boss of a whole building, you can kinda just tell people not to bother you during certain hours and make it look like you're busy. As long as my own boss isn't looking for me that is," he finished with a grimace. When his cart fell into water and the game over screen came up, he placed his controller down and smiled at Ali.

"What about you? Do you sleep in class?"

The sudden spotlight on him caught Ali off guard that he almost dropped his controller. He stuttered, his tongue tied as his brain tried to reconcile this friendly version of dad to how the man behaved regularly.

"N-no. I can't, actually. Ms. Munah would kill me." That, and Alicia was a snitch. Well, had been a snitch. The both of them seemed to have a mutual understanding, but he wasn't sure if that was enough to stop her from telling on him in the future.

Dad laughed. "She sounds scary."

"She is . Oh, you should meet her, dad. You'd think she was in the military or something," Ali said, shuddering.

Once the nerve was flushed out of his system, Ali found himself with nothing but words flowing out of his mouth. Dad kept listening too, not even once shifting his gaze away while Ali talked about the shenanigans he was up to in school. The clock ticked away while they chatted and even the games were forgotten amidst their animated conversation.

Their voices slowly died when dad began replacing words with yawns. Ali was about to suggest the man go to sleep when he spoke.

"Do you think I'm a bad dad?"

The casual way he asked it made it hard to discern whether he was asking in jest or not. But Dr. Ghazali didn't crack jokes, and part of the perks of being a son and dad was that Ali could recognize certain emotional cues that he himself exhibited when in distress; stiff shoulders, clenched fists, blank eyes that stared at nowhere as his mind went through a million thoughts at once.

It was strange watching those body languages on someone other than himself. It was doubly strange knowing dad still had emotions to show at all.

"I… don't think you're a bad dad," Ali finally said after simmering the silent tension between them for long enough. "It's just…" he bit his lip.

"Just?" There was both hurt and curiosity in that one sentence alone. Ali hesitated to continue especially at the expectant look dad gave him.

"It's just that I wish you could've been my dad way long before you remarried," he didn't say. Couldn't say. Years' worth of resentment didn't fade away easily, and neither did his affection for the man. The two sides were warring inside him, neither one wanting to submit to the other.

He wanted to say his piece, to let the man know his feelings on the matter… But at the same time he had enough conscience to know whatever the man did– or rather didn't do– was not done out of maliciousness and only came about because of his late mom's death. There was a knife embedded in dad's chest, and Ali didn't dare twist it knowing that same knife had been haunting Ali himself all these years.

Eventually he only sighed and shook his head.

"...it's nothing. I better uh… get back to my room now." Without even waiting for a reply, Ali pushed himself up to his feet and made way for his room. A few steps up the stairs, he paused and looked back to see dad staring at him. "I don't hate you if that's what you think."

When only a confused and hurt look met his reassurance, he bit his lip and cast his gaze downwards.

"Good night." He bade his leave with a slight nod and left without looking back.

Ali hissed in pain as he unsuccessfully tried to reach his toes with his hands.

"Alicia, I can't!" He grunted, finding himself lost for breath the more the girl pushed his back.

"I don't care. Now hold your feet!"

It was hard to ignore his inflaming muscles screaming for him to stop, but with some more encouragement thanks to his friend trying to break his spine, he managed to wrap his hands around his toes.

"N-now what?" He gasped and turned his head halfway back to look at her.

"Now we stay like this until your body doesn't hurt anymore."

"But it hurts a lot right now!"

"That's the idea! I'm glad you're learning."

With no way out, Ali resigned to his fate and kept his shaky arms straight as he tried to maintain his position. They did this a few more times and while he did find reprieve whenever Alicia let him unfold himself again, it never felt like it hurt less every time they resumed the human torture method.

"I think I'm gonna meet my mom soon." Ali said lying on his back, breathless as he watched Alicia roll her eyes from above him.

"You're not gonna die."

"Well, it feels like it." He tried to huff but ended up coughing instead.

"You're the one who wanted to become an agent." She said, looking at him like it was entirely his fault that he was halfway dead on the floor. She handed him a water bottle. "Now drink. We're doing the bars next."

Ali weakly reached for it and popped open the suction lid, sucking the water inside while still lying down. If Alicia thought he looked stupid she ignored him and went somewhere else likely to avoid association.

When he could catch his breath again and sit like a normal person, Ali took his time to scan the gymnasium Alicia had brought him to right after school. It wasn't the one he was familiar with that had weight lifts and all that. Instead, it was a facility made for its namesake, gymnastics, where gymnasts showed off their lack of humanly limitation and gracefully jumped around like the world was their stage. It was beautiful in a way.

The target of his curiosity currently was this guy around his age swinging over a high bar, looking effortless as he did so. In fact, the boy looked more bored than anything despite his difficult manoeuvres. Even when he landed into the foam pit, his expression was still the same so Ali dubbed him as the Meh Guy in his mind.

"What are you looking at?" Meh Guy glared at him when he climbed back onto surface.

"N-nothing. Nothing." Ali nervously chuckled and looked away. When Alicia came back, she brought with her a small block of white and dusty material and placed it in a nearby bowl.

"Coat your hand with this chalk." She said, demonstrating by crushing the block of chalk and applying the dust all over her palms. He followed her example and felt the dry and coarse texture that his hands had become. It was a new– And weird– sensation. While he stretched and folded his fingers to test the way his skin felt, Alicia went to get a mat to cover the foam pit.

"What are we doing here?" Ali asked when everything was ready.

"Just copy what I do." She said, going first and launching herself up onto the bar. Ali watched her in amazement as she swung forward with the momentum from her jump and–

–promptly let go of the bar, landing a few feet onto the mat. There was no grace to her movement at all. The unimpressed feeling must have shown on his face if she reacted to it.

"What? If you wanna swing around like Rudy over there–" Alicia gestured to Meh Guy who was performing cartwheels and backflips back to back. "–did earlier, do it on your own. We're here to train to become agents, not gymnasts. We're just using their equipment," she finished with a shrug.

"Ah…" Ali nodded in understanding. When it was his turn, he realised how difficult it was to even climb the thing, his short stature aside. And then when he managed to push his body forward and swing, he learned how to difficult it was to actually let go and let himself fall.

"Conquer your fear, huh," he muttered when he did let go and found himself face-planted on the mat.

With some more pointers from Alicia he managed to somewhat stick his landing. But it wasn't until he opted to remove the mat that he started to enjoy it. Nothing felt as good as cannonballing into the foam pit in his opinion, no matter how much Alicia made a face at him from the sideline.

Other than the bar, Ali also tried out the other equipment. The rings were fun, though he could do no more than just float awkwardly in the air. The pommel horse? Hah! He couldn't last a second on that thing. And then there was the beam. Well, floor beam really, because Alicia said as a beginner and a boy, he needed proper attire for that kinda thing lest he hurt himself. He agreed with her expert opinion. A pair of sweatpants with no padding or cup in between the legs was a recipe for disaster if he'd seen any. He grimaced at the thought.

"You seem to be having fun," Alicia commented as she spotted for him while he attempted a front handspring. She kept him balanced feet-up on the thin piece of wood that made up the beam. Slowly, she guided his feet downward until he was halfway upright again here she tucked her arms behind his back so he wouldn't fall.

"Because it is." He grinned at her once he found his footing again. He'd love to try again without a spotter later.

Alicia didn't deign him an annoyed reaction and simply let go of him.

"Well, fun or not, I hope you learned a thing or two for tonight's mission."

"I'm getting another mission?" He beamed. The last mission had been kind of a bummer despite how well it went. "Wait, it's not another recon mission, is it?"

"Hopefully not. Would be boring if my first mission is just to collect information," she said with a smirk. Ali couldn't contain his gasp.

"You're coming too?"

She shrugged. "General said I was ready."

Despite her subdued response, there was no denying the excitement showing on her face.

"Come on, let's wrap up. I'll treat you to an ice-cream," she said before walking away. Ali gasped again but more dramatically this time and chased after her.

"Are you really Alicia? You're not a robot clone, are you? Cause the Alicia I knew wasn't this nice."

"You want me to punch your face in or what?" She huffed and walked faster. Yet there was no threat to her words. It was like they'd actually become friends, Ali thought.

With another smile blooming on his face, he increased his pace to match hers and see how far he could tease her before she assaulted him for real.

"Hey, wait up!"

Their target was Komeng, right hand man to Cyberaya's most troublesome gangster, a man called Brother Bear. Patterns from previous robberies suggested he might be going for another one tonight, this time involving C-Tech's latest weapon.

Ali and Uncle Bakar were stationed at the port where a batch of said weapons had recently arrived. And true to form, Komeng and his men arrived as well not long after.

"Who are you guys? Attack!" Komeng said in response to them coming out of hiding. Too bad for the shorty, his men were untrained that even a kid like him was able to fend them off, leaving the man to scramble for safety.

"Uncle, I'm going after him." Ali withdrew his yoyo and ran off to follow their target.

"Alright, but you and Alicia be careful," Uncle Bakar shouted back while fighting Komeng's men.

"We will," Alicia said through the comm, wherever the heck she was. Ali's answer came not long later when he saw her running atop the cargos. Point for dramatic entrance.

Unfortunately for him, in looking up at her going ninja and all, he'd neglected to look in front of him and ran right into an oil spill. He fell, coated head to toe in petrol. Yuck.

"Are you stupid?" She snickered, barely giving a glance before she disappeared into a corner to follow Komeng.

Ali huffed into the comm, making sure not to swallow or inhale any of the substance. "Just keep Komeng busy for now. I'm coming."

He pushed himself back to his feet and ran ahead, looking out for any other potential hazard as he did so. When he caught up to Alicia and Komeng, to his surprise it was the man and some more back-ups that had her cornered. Not that she had any trouble handling them.

"I see you're having fun." Ali joined her and tumbled down some of the mob with his yoyo.

"Because I am." She ducked from a punch and returned it tenfold, and even with the helmet on the poor guy would probably still suffer from concussion. "Duck."

Ali did as told and watched as her electric bomb exploded at a guy trying to attack him from behind. Just to hammer in the message, he swept the guy's legs and let his yoyo's force field knock the guy out.

When another unrepentant assailant came his way, he instinctively kicked his boots as strong as he could. His inexperience with it however caused him to reconsider his course of action. He knew they were reinforced to let him jump high, but he didn't expect to literally fly in the air. In his moment of weightless panic, he recalled his training at the gym earlier.

Conquer his fear.

That was what he needed to do.

The gym had a foam pit to catch him, but as it was, the only object that could dampen his fall was the man looking up at him in surprise. Still in the air and quickly being reclaimed by gravity, he regained his bearing and manoeuvred in a way that would allow his feet to reach the man's head. IRIS supplied him with a simulation with the most probable success and he simply followed the designated trajectory.

Time seemed to slow down before instantly resuming at normal speed when he wrapped his knees around the man's neck. With his adrenaline high, he pulled himself up and hit the man's helmet with his yoyo. Nothing surprised Ali more than the fact he managed to do a cartwheel in his attempt to distance himself from the now collapsed man.

Still, now with nobody left to come after him, Ali spun his yoyo and directed it Komeng. Just as it seemed like he and Alicia could force him to surrender, a fast approaching self-automated motorbike appeared and forced them to take cover.

In the blink of an eye, their target got away. The adrenaline rush slowly faded away too, leaving Ali shaking after realising he'd just engaged in his first on-field combat. While he dealt with the surprising realisation, Alicia fared better and seemed to only care about her tusled hair.

"Welp, the mission's a bust." she casually whistled as if they hadn't just failed a mission. Ali considered if she was just coping from a bad first mission but her satisfied smirk couldn't be anything but genuine.

"Komeng got away, you know."

"But his men didn't, did they?" She gestured to their fallen enemies littered around the place, still smirking like a predator stalking its prey. He wouldn't be surprised if she decided to kick one of them just for the fun of it. "They'll be brought in for questioning. General won't have anything to be upset about.

"As for Komeng, he'll cause trouble again in no time. We'll catch him then," she explained gleefully. It was rather unnerving actually seeing her all smiley like this.

"I see…" Ali just nodded.

When Uncle Bakar arrived, they reported back to MATA and had the agency take Komeng's men into custody.

Ali jumped onto his bed with the gracefulness of a meteorite falling onto earth.

"Ah, bed. How I miss you." He sighed in bliss, feeling the cold of his blanket seeping into his skin.

His late night outing had required him to go out undetected, meaning as far as his family was concerned, he'd simply gone to bed early today as well. It also meant he had to climb through the window and needlessly expend more energy that he didn't have anymore. He knew he didn't miss when only ghosts used to walk around the halls of the house, but back then he could just come and go whenever he wanted with no regards to curfew.

Ali yawned into his pillow and pulled it closer to his face, not wanting to think anymore for night. His only destination was sleepland…

…or at least it would be if his stomach didn't suddenly groan in hunger. Quite loud too.

"Ugh…" He sat up and frowned at the offender. Still, he supposed a quick snack wouldn't hurt. Today took a lot out of him after all. With his decision made, he climbed off his bed and headed for the kitchen.

He expected everyone to be asleep by now, but hearing a noise halfway downstairs triggered a sense of deja vu, especially when the one making the noise was none other than dad himself.

"Dad, what are you–" Ali didn't get to finish because the smell of something burning invaded his nose before he inhaled the smoke itself. He coughed, violently patting his chest as he ran downstairs to see what arson the man had commited. "Dad!"

"Ali!" Dad turned to him with wide eyes before ushering him to the living room. "Good, you're here. Help me open the door and windows."

After tirelessly blowing all the smoke away with the sofa pillows, the both of them collapsed to the floor against each other's back.

"What… were you… cooking?" Ali said, panting.

"Cookies… coal flavored…" Dad replied, just as breathless.

There were still some smokes left lingering around the kitchen when they returned to check on everything. Thankfully nothing seemed to have caught fire. The oven got to live for another day. As for the burnt cookies, it turned out they were a failed attempt at a familiar confection that Ali never thought he'd see again. A hard-cover book rested on the dining table, looking so much like a fading piece of memory at the back of his mind.

Ali looked at dad, apron and all.

"Were you making mama's pineapple tarts?"

Dad had the decency to look embarrassed and rubbed his neck with his mitten. "I was trying to make them. Who knew baking is hard…"

Ali couldn't help a soft snicker escaping his nose.

Dad flicked his head in response. Though with his mitten on, it was much more effective at tickling his forehead than anything. "Hey, don't laugh. Your dad's trying very hard over here."

"I can see that." He didn't know what possessed the man to relive an old memory, but he'd be lying if he said he didn't want in. Nostalgia was a strong emotion, enough to flutter his heart with warmth as he perused the recipe book Mama Aliya had left them. He turned to dad, smiling. "You know what, why don't I help you out? I can bake."

Dad blinked at that, like he was surprised by the knowledge.

"You can?"

Ali shrugged. "A bit. You don't think I ordered deliveries all the time, right? I used to bake pizza sometimes when you weren't around," he grinned and puffed up his chest.

There was a shift in dad's expression, like he didn't know what to feel at the simple revelation. In the end, the man decided to ignore it entirely and focused on the practical side of things instead.

"Okay, but that's pizza. These are cookies. They're different."

Ali shrugged again. "I can learn. It's all trial and error, but I'll get the hang of it."

Not seeing any reason to refuse his offer, dad enlisted him into measuring the ingredients so they could restart from scratch. They threw away the burnt tarts, though Ali did try a bite just out of curiosity. Was it yucky? Yes. Did he discover a weird new flavor in his pursuit? Also yes.

Time flew by as they mixed the ingredients together and distributed the mixture onto a round shape befitting of the recipe's namesake. While they waited for their creation to bake, they sat in awkward silence at the table hoping for either of them to start a conversation.

"So… this morning. Well, yesterday morning I suppose, " dad started. Ali only nodded, knowing there was only one direction this conversation was going. "I… I'm sorry."

When he didn't reply, dad sighed. What seemed like a thousand emotions going through the man's head manifested in a guilty frown as he stared down at the marbled table.

"Do you know why I remarried?"

"Cause you've moved on?" Ali stared in wonder when dad simply shook his head.

"It's because of you."

Ali blinked, not expecting that. Dad raised his head to look him in the eye.

"You see, I knew I hadn't been a very good dad to you. Everytime you got into trouble at school, I kept being harsh on you because I thought all you needed was discipline to behave better. But I was wrong.

"Ali, you're not a problem child. It was all me."

It was Ali's turn to frown at the table. "So? You remarried because you thought you could fix me? Is that it? To pass your problem to a mom that I didn't ask for?"

The accusation he threw only added to the number of lodged knives in dad's chest, evident from the way the man grimaced when he glanced up at him.

Dad sighed again. "I admit, I thought you'd be raised better if there's a mother to look after you. I'm glad you're getting along with Sally and your brothers now, but I realised that all I've done was run away from the problem I'm supposed to fix; my job as your dad."

Ali clenched his hands into fists.

"...then fix it. Be a dad for me." Ali looked straight at the sputtering man, surprised by his boldness. Ali too was reeling from the fact he'd spoken to the man in such a way. He exchanged his frown for a more neutral expression.

"I still don't know if I want to forgive you for all you didn't do. But like I said, I don't hate you. I can't hate you. Because you're my dad… and I'd love it if you treat me like the dad I've always wanted you to be."

Years of resentment built up into tears that were now pooling in his eyes. Yet all the same, the weight on his conscience lifted somewhat now that he managed to get some of it out

He wiped his eyes with his sleeve, trying to smile.

"So what do you say?" He sniffled. "Do we try again?"

Dad only nodded with the same shaky smile. "Trial and error. And we'll get it right this time around."

When their batch of hedgehog pineapple tarts were done baking in the oven, dad took the tray out and laid it onto the dining table. They turned out beautiful.

Dad made a grunting noise and shot him a pointed look. "What trial and error? They're perfect on your first try."

"Apparently I learn quick?" Ali said, grinning. The sweet smell of their treats filled the air and seemed to have travelled even upstairs.

"Mama, zou san. I think." Ali greeted his step mom who approached them with a curious look.

"Zou san le." The woman chuckled before checking her phone to see the time. "3am huh. I see you boys had a late night project."

Dad gestured to the tray. "Try some. It's Aliya's recipe."

"Yeah, they're delicious." Ali carefully picked up a piece and reached over the table to offer it to her. "Be careful though. They're hot."

"Well then, don't mind if I do."

The three of them sat around the tables trying out the tarts. Every bite felt like a walk down memory lane, and every smile they threw at each other warmed up Ali's heart. They talked about various stuff, most of which was grown-up things he didn't have the brain to comprehend.

Before soon, his eyes fluttered again as sleep rose to his eyes. Lying his head down on the table, he smiled.

So this was what a normal family felt like.

It was nice.

"Smile o my dear…"

"Mama shall always be in your heart…"

"When mama is no more…"

"Please don't cry…"

"Mama is in your heart forevermore…"

Mama (Di Hatimu) hits right in the feels, and so does Ejen Ali 2021 Raya special. I forgot how many times I've replayed both ever since I started writing this fic last month

Ali and Alicia's part was fun to write. It's just nice seeing the two not fighting. And yeah Rudy cameo.

You know what's funny? I thought Protokol Gegas was episode 5, but as it turned out, it was episode 7. Everything I've written up to this point was to build up towards that episode specifically but now I gotta think of ways to expand my idea. That means more Rudy scenes... and maybe more junior agents hehe. I already have one in mind. Can you guess who?

Translation:

-"Zou2san4 le"

[早晨 呢]

"Good morning" though I'm not sure if I got the character for "le" right.