In the middle of the night where people would already be sleeping on their beds, a teenage boy is currently sitting behind his desk, with no source of lights in his room other than the laptop sitting on top of his desk.
Looking at the laptop screen, anyone would see that the teenage boy is neither watching movies nor playing video games. Neat-looking graphs, tons of equations, and numbers filled the entire screen.
"Now that the potential difference and the current are known, then I only need to divide them and…"
"13,37 ohm. I wonder if the teacher intentionally made all the answers into odd decimals numbers to make the students doubt their own answer…"
"And with that, I'm finally done!" Matthew stretched his back that had been slumped for the past 2 hours and he could feel a slight relief in his body after hearing cracks coming from his lower back after sitting down the whole time he was doing his homework.
Matthew then checked his phone that has been vibrating for the last hour to see who had been messaging him the whole time.
Looking at the notification on his lock screen, he could see several names popping up and it seems that they had been spamming quite a lot of messages for quite some time already.
The names on the screen are all familiar to Matthew, but seeing those people trying to contact him a lot of times didn't make Matthew feel happy at all.
It's not because Matthew hates socializing or anything like that, but without even looking at the names of the people, he already knew what messages they were sending him.
He had never been wrong before in guessing what they were and considering the current circumstances, his guess would be 99% correct, but just in case he was wrong this time, he still opened the message.
"As I thought…" Matthew said after sighing.
Looking at his phone screen he could see the messages flooding his messenger app,
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A: Hey Matthew, can you please give me a copy of your physics homework? My dog just died and I need to prepare for his funeral these past three days so I don't have the time to do it myself. Please I'm counting on you…
B: Matthew can you show me your homework? It's just homework, you wouldn't mind giving a little help to your friend right? I'll carry you on horrorant later so we'll be even!
C: Matthew, I've been trying to study and do what you said last time, but I still don't understand anything even after I tried, can you please share with me your homework again this one last time? Next time, I promise that I will do it myself!"
—----------
Matthew didn't want to open their messages, but he knew that he couldn't ignore them as it would be annoying and awkward when he met them in real life, so he decided to open the first few messages and give them his answer.
—-------
C: Thank you, Matthew, I promise that next time, I will do it myself and I won't bother you!
'But it's already your fifth time saying the exact same thing every time, you don't even bother using synonyms and changing up your words a little' is what Matthew thought, but he didn't say it out loud.
M: Yes, make sure to study next time, you won't learn a single thing until graduation if this keeps up.
—--------
A: Thank you, Matthew, with this, I will be able to attend my dog's funeral in peace.
*Sigh*
M: Glad to help you, hope your dog will be happier up there.
—--------
B: Thanks, Man!
M: No problem. When can you carry me in horrorant?
B: About that, I don't know man, I'm quite busy this week-this month, so maybe next month?
'Yup, exactly like what I've guessed.'
M: Okay, just tell me whenever you're free.
B: Sure.
Matthew then looked at his ringcord and saw that B is indeed offline in his friend list, but when he saw the activity bar, B is currently in voice chat in one of the hangout servers where people would play games together.
—------
Several other people also sent messages to Matthew, albeit how they said it is quite different, all of them are essentially asking Matthew to share his homework with them. Well, all of them except one.
Buried by the messages from his other 'friends', one group chat is also spamming messages and tagging Matthew,
—---------
D: Oi
D: P
D: P
D: P
D: @matthew @ella
D: Let's play Horrorant
E: Don't want to.
D: Why? It's fun!
E: I didn't even know where the enemies were coming from and my screen suddenly changed into spectator mode.
D: Don't worry El, I will clutch it even if it was 1 v 5.
E: Whatever, if you two play it, I will tag along for a couple of games. Or until my heart can't handle it anymore.
D: Oi @matthew where are you, don't ignore me.
E: He's probably doing his homework, you know him, always doing things last minute.
D: Ah, that physics homework?
E: Yes
D: I'll give you a copy of mine so let's go play together now @matthew
E: @matthew I'll also give you mine if you don't trust this guy's answer.
D: Hey, you're only slightly smarter than me, birdbrain.
E: What did you say…? You #@%*!
D: What is wrong with you, you #@%*!#@%*!#@%*!#@%*!#@%*!
E: #@%*!#@%*!#@%*!#@%*#@%*!#@%*!#@%*!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Matthew chuckled after he saw that his two friends are still the same as ever even after years of knowing each other ever since they're in junior high.
M: Thanks for the offer, but I've finished it already
D: Well then, let's play!
M: I've already logged in.
D: Wait a minute, I'll go grab my laptop
E: I'll also play, but if I die 10 times in a row without any kills then I will just go AFK.
M: Don't worry El, I will stick with you while Derrel is run and gunning around. Either we'll die together or we kill someone 2 v 1.
E: Okay!
D:... #@%*!
—--------
"Big brother!"
"Big brother Matthew!"
"Wake up wake up ! It's already morning!"
Matthew abruptly opened his eyes and looked at the different, yet familiar ceiling on top of his head.
'Ah, so that's tonight's dream… Well, it's clearly better than yesterday's.' Matthew smiled as he tried to remember the dream that he just had.
"Big brother, let's go! I've woken up later than usual today and it's already quite some time past our usual waking time! Which means…we're late!"
"Alright, alright, let me do my morning stretch first."
The two then went on their separate ways as the first kobold kid had to attend his magic class while Matthew is meeting up with the twins to do their morning training, splitting woods and carrying buckets of water.
Remembering that Tim should have finished the monkey bars today, Matthew left the twins after dropping them onto the lumber kobold and visited Tim's workshop.
While on his way, Matthew met Nass, and the other kobolds hunting team who were preparing themselves to go out hunting.
"Brother Matthew, do you want to join us again today?"
"Not today Nass, maybe next time. I'm sorry!"
"No worries brother, with your new hunting strategy, we've succeeded in almost doubling the prey we're able to bring back. And it's also the same with the other hunting team!"
After Matthew taught Nass' group about the new hunting strategy and bringing an additional spear by tying it with a rope vine, Nass and his group also taught it to other groups and now all the hunting team uses Matthew's strategy when they go out hunting.
Matthew walked for a few minutes before arriving at Tim's workshop that is somehow not noisy yet.
'It's probably because it's still early in the morning.'
As usual, Matthew excused himself and went inside without knocking.
Matthew saw several kobolds are already behind their own workstation and Tim's sons are already tinkering with their tools.
Matthew's eyes then went looking straight ahead and he saw Tim is currently sanding some square wooden poles on his workstation.
"Hello, Tim!"
Seeing that he got no response, Matthew went and took a deeper breath and was about to repeat his greetings. Fortunately, he remembered what happened 2 days ago, and changed his greetings,
"Hi, Matthew I am!"
Matthew purposely said his name first in order to register that fact inside Tim's head to avoid being shouted at by Tim first thing in the morning.
And surprisingly, it worked.
"Ah, Good morning Matthew. Didn't expect you to come early in the morning, I thought you were someone else at first."
"Yes… It's me…Matthew…" Matthew said with a low voice
'Thank god that I didn't shout at him like last time…'
"Those wooden poles looked familiar, are they the monkey bars' parts?" Matthew asked.
"Yes, they are. The only thing left to do is to assemble them, but you said that you will assemble them on your own right?"
"Yes I will, it will be easier to assemble it at the place where I want it to be rather than assembling it here and carrying the fully built equipment later."
"Do you need help this time? It's a lot of parts, you know?"
"Don't worry about that, I have just the right solution to that."
And later in the afternoon, the twins and the first kobold kid were sent to Tim's workshop.