Hints of what to do.

I woke up that morning with my memories intact. I remembered my conversation with Frey vividly like it had happened while I was awake. It was an awkward feeling because it almost felt like I hadn’t slept the full eight hours, but I’d take the trade off.

I went through my usual morning routine with a cat behind me as always. I knocked on Isabelle’s door to wake her up, I took a shower, put on my uniform, gave Cake her breakfast and got started on our own. Throughout it all, though, my mind was busy pondering on what we should do about Mr. Allen’s offer. Frey said to go through with it, but I still wanted to talk about it with the girls at school. And also…

“What is it?” Mom asked me from across the breakfast table as she put down her coffee. “You look like you have something to ask.”

Isabelle was still half-asleep, eating her breakfast on autopilot, but her half-lidded eyes turned to me with curiosity.

I nodded. “Mom… What if I got a chance to make money doing practically nothing?”

“Hm? Is this about your music channel? Is it going that well?”

“N-No, but… let’s say it eventually does and Isabelle and I started making a living with very little effort. What would you think?” It wasn’t the scenario I was picturing, but it was the best I could compare it to right now without risking details leaking.

“Mmm… I don't think success like that would come without effort, so I’m more worried about how sustainable it would be rather than your commitment and hard work. But in a more general sense… Yes, it would worry me if you made money doing nothing.”

Isabelle tilted her head at mom, puzzled.

“I mean, of course I want you two to have a secure livelihood,” mom continued, “but if it’s a choice, I’d rather you be good people rather than rich people. Success without effort makes you conceited, you stop trying and take everything for granted. Then, when you find yourself in a difficult situation, you realize you’ve lost the means to fight back. I don’t want that to happen to you.”

“...Didn’t grandma make all her money through gambling?” Isabelle asked.

Mom winced. “Yes… Yes, she did. But you need to realize that was a **** situation. We were very poor, her husband was useless and she had two little girls to feed. She had to drop out of school to work when she was younger, too, so there were only so many jobs she could take. It was a literal gamble, but… I’ve said this before, right? Your grandma believed our family was cursed to be ‘lucky at cards, unlucky in love’, meaning we were cursed to have bad relationships but great success in gambling. She took her chances and slowly made a fortune through horse races.”

Isabelle narrowed her eyes in disbelief and stared at me with disgust. “Unlucky in love?”

“Yes, I have a feeling your brother might be the opposite,” mom agreed, nodding solemnly. “Oliver, I’m not saying I believe it, but never enter a casino, or any other gambling related places, okay?”

Isabelle groaned and shook her head in defeat. “I believe it. I’ll buy a scratch lottery ticket today.”

“Don’t get hooked,” mom warned her. “Your grandma was ****.”

Now, I’m not sure what to believe about this ‘curse’. On the one hand, if magic was real, it was possible we really were cursed and my ‘bad luck’ in love was offset by Frey’s powers. On the other hand, I think Frey would’ve noticed if there was any other magic on us, right? Then again… Isabelle did win $50 on her ticket that afternoon.

Regardless, mom’s words about easy money stuck with me. Would I become complacent if I started making good money by working with Mr. Allen just… giving him magical energy? You might think I’m stupid for even thinking of passing up the chance, but… it really did scare me. I don’t want things I haven’t earned, I don’t want to stunt my own growth.

Those are the thoughts of a young man in a good place in his life, however. Refusing was, without a doubt, a luxury. It was knowing that which made me hesitate so much. And then there was the supernatural aspect to this that Frey spoke of…

Gah! It was too much! I wanted to talk about it with the girls, with people I could tell everything to. I wanted reassurance and support, so I rushed to school to see my girlfriends.

I didn’t tell them anything.

With everything happening, I had forgotten about a little something we seniors had to do that Thursday: Career counseling.

The girls looked… down, off, distracted. All of them did. Sarah and Noelle weren’t taking it anywhere near as bad as Mila, Grace and Alice, but they were still very, very quiet. The atmosphere in the club room was heavy that morning, so I pushed away my issue in favor of hearing the girls out.

“Time is running out,” Grace said, throwing her head back and staring at the ceiling.

“There is… so much to consider,” Alice said. Her voice was weak, almost a whisper.

“...” I might not like what I was going to hear, but still I asked. “Forget about everything for a moment. Forget about… us, about limitations, about distance. If you could do anything after school, what would you do?”

Sarah bit her lip. “Even then, I’m still conflicted. I love sports and physical exercise, so I can see myself doing something along those lines, but… I feel like I want to get into mental health.”

“Oh!” Noelle and I both exclaimed in excitement. That seemed to give Sarah some more confidence.

“Is it because all your family works with something health-related?” Grace asked her.

Sarah shook her head. “I mean, maybe it influenced me, but I’m not considering it because I think I have to. I just…” She turned her eyes to me. “Since we started going out, I’ve felt… happy. Truly happy. It’s something I notice, something I can say with confidence. I want… I want to learn to help those who can’t say the same.”

A smile **** its way into my face and I even got a little teary-eyed. “I think that’s amazing, Sarah.”

The athletic blonde blushed. “E-Even if it is, I don’t have the smarts for it, so it’d be safer to become a personal trainer or something like that.”

I shook my head to vehemently deny that. “What? That’s not true! Sarah, you know more about the human body than any of us here! And not because it’s something we have to study for school, but because you have a genuine interest in it. You can seriously dedicate yourself to the things you’re passionate about, so I think you could become a therapist if you really wanted to.”

“He’s right,” Mila said. She giggled, but… it was a little weak. “You could totally do it. You really understand people. You just don’t give yourself enough credit.”

“You can only ever study about things you like, anyway,” Grace said, throwing Sarah a playful jab.

Sarah’s face brightened for a moment before it soured again. “But… Where should I study?”

“That’s the biggest question, isn’t it?” Noelle said, looking down.

Grace clicked her tongue. “If only my parents stopped meddling, this would be so much easier.”

Noelle nodded in quiet agreement. “We could just all just stay here, but…”

“Our school’s university isn’t as good as high school,” Alice said, grimacing.

Yeah. Ours was a private escalator school, meaning it offered education from middle school all the way to university. If we wanted, we really could all stay here and go there without even taking entrance exams. Problem was that the university here wasn’t as prestigious as high school. They offered a wide variety of courses and degrees, but excelled at very few. They did offer music courses, for example, but from the research I’d done, they… weren’t very good. It was the same for most other courses. For those who wanted the best education and prestige from their chosen path, there were other, better options. And ours was already a school that parents chose for their kids due to its high level and prestige.

Alice made a sour face, crossed her arms and held herself so tightly her knuckles went white. “I’d rather not even go to university. Either a mechanic or try to go for professional racing… I’d be happy with either, but my dad doesn’t want me to.”

“Doesn’t your brother work as a mechanic?” I asked her.

Alice nodded. “And they had a big fight over it. Dad says working on cars and racing are hobbies, not jobs. My brother just blew him off, went independent and opened his own shop with what money he had saved.” She pursued her lips. “I don’t know if I can do that. My dad wants me to go to law school… somewhere far from here.”

My chest tightened and froze. Alice… going away?

“That’s why you went for the school council president spot, right?” Mila asked her. “To get a letter of recommendation to that place?”

Alice nodded. “My dad lets me work with my brother because I practically have a spot secured wherever he chooses to send me.”

“I’m in a similar situation,” Grace said. “My parents only care about my studies. I can do whatever I want, but when it comes to academics… I have to do what they say. Surprisingly, they both agree I should be an engineer.” She snarled. “I’d do it if not for the fact they picked where I should study, also far from here.”

“They want me to go into medicine,” Noelle said weakly. “They want me to become a surgeon and work at my dad’s hospital.”

“...” Mila’s face soured, too, but whatever it was she had in mind, she was keeping it inside. All she said was, “I just want to stay with you all.”

That we all agreed with.

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