102 – A Day(s) in the Life of Gin Sakato (and Rin is Basically a Part of His Daily Life)

So we are here again. If you are thinking that it is mid-July, hah! It is May right now!

Also, I don't get why I'm so proud about that.

Just a quick note, this kind of "day in the life" is just a showcase of one's… well, daily life, so aside from another one of the author's bad pacing of events, please don't expect that I'm going to fend off bullets from a machine gun from some robbers with my mask on the entrance of a mall. No, that never happened. It just came out from my head randomly.

But I'm certain that this chapter would be so utterly boring if this is a usual weekday. That is basically me chopping and tossing away in Giotto's, so that's a big no.

But to give a brief one, I usually wake up between 7-8am and go to work at 9. There, I am pretty much stuck in the kitchen except for breaks, and clock out at 5. Go home, eat dinner, watch anime, and come back to the restaurant to help on cleaning once it closes at 8. Then I draw concepts, play with Haku, and sleep.

Chapter, finished!

No one's interested with that. But hey, I'm uninteresting to begin with.

So of course, weekend, where I have my day off. I was very sure that this would still be a short chapter, but something on the next day, or Sunday, happened, so I might as well share it as an insight.

…

There are many possible instances that happen to me early in the morning while I have not hopped out of bed yet. Unsurprisingly, I value my sleep a lot. My wake-up usually dictates the mood that I have throughout the day unless something or someone cheers me up. Sometimes when I hear a lot of noise, I am woken up by that way before my alarm rings. Another, I open my eyes exactly as my alarm rings and I will be awake by then. And lastly, I turn off my alarm and sleep in for thirty minutes or two hours at best.

Today, it is a little bit of the second situation. My eyes were still acting lazy so I decided that I will doze off for at least ten minutes.

8:10am.

Yes, this is the time I most prefer to wake up. Being an early riser would definitely bring forth my demise as that is also one factor that would decide my mood. If I wake up too early, I would be sluggish and feel poop for the whole day.

And so, 8 in the morning is the optimal time for me to bring out my energy even if this is a day off.

What I like about my house, or my room specifically, is that it doesn't get too bright when it is morning which is good for someone like me who fusses about the environment and ambiance in my sleep. My old room from the family house and this one actually has the same orientation. The placement of the windows is the same which is facing mostly to the east. But since our family house is a bungalow, the sunlight always hits me in the face every morning, thus interrupting my sleep. In comparison, Rin's house is so close to mine that I have never worried about that, and my room is comfortably dim as long as the curtains in my veranda door are shut. Therefore, this is the bliss that I sought for in my mornings.

«Let's see… you have wasted two pages talking about your sleep preferences.»

…

I humbly and sleepily apologize.

Do you actually brush your teeth right after you wake up? I am actually the gargle guy and I would do that once I am in front of my bathroom sink and wash my face. Whenever I have the holiday, I never really bother on fixing my hair. And fun fact, I actually don't get so much of a bed head since I am more used to lying on a rather hard pillow so my hair doesn't go all over the place. It is weird, I know.

I am the coffee immediately guy. I have the inclination of making my things on my own. Thus, I do procure my coffee as beans which I in turn then grind to either a kosher or rock salt coarseness, and pass it through a filter.

To be honest, I do think that everyone's daily life is taken out from their current mood. And mine just so happened to be putting cream on my coffee for today, and so, golden brown is my drink for this morning.

Do I actually watch news? Yes and no. Technically, I do watch them, but I always find myself tuning to a certain channel on the TV where a radio broadcast is also being visually broadcasted on the millions of screens. But then again, I am an Exile and I don't really involve my mind on current events that does not really concern me and my wellness. What I care about is rise in bills, price change in vegetables and meat, oil price, and weather.

I don't really watch TV anymore and I will just scroll on reliable news on the web to get my fill as I have unsubscribed from the newspaper service. One more thing, I don't like listening to news while I cook for meals. Alternatively, I listen to podcasts mainly about tech, food, two hosts of a morning show, and sometimes automotive.

Basically, whenever I do household chores, I like to listen to podcasts that I have strong interest in so I can keep myself entertained. And since I want them playing from my speakers, Rin is sometimes forced to listen to them. But usually, podcasts are present when I am just by myself and Haku.

9:15am

Today is a Saturday, which means laundry day. I am sure that my electric bill being at or less than 400 Laxes (less than 10 USD) has been mentioned, and that is not an exaggeration. Even though I have gone to fully utilizing solar power, I still have my bills to the power company for emergency purposes. I mention that because I only use my washing machine at times to maintain them so that they will not break. I do almost all of my laundry by hand. Rin had briefly explained this process in 063 so I won't repeat it again. The only thing that I don't like from my glass-like solar cells outside my yard is that it has bad chemistry with the laundry that I dry.

Indeed, it lets sunlight through the transparency of the cells, but the heat is ultimately filtered. But since it is summer, the greatest exchange from all my sweat is that my clothes will dry quickly under the direct heat of the sun.

11:00am.

This is the time where I usually hang my laundry outside, but it will still depend on the quantity. But because I hang them at noon, I can take them in rather early.

Around this time, I come back inside the house to cool off for a bit. It really won't surprise you to see Rin in front of my fridge so suddenly, right? Well, it is almost time for lunch.

"What are you going to make today, Potato? I'll help so come and eat with us in our house with your food."

"Nice."

In exchange for letting Rin freely use my kitchen whenever she wants, I get an extra fill in my stomach as I sometimes excuse myself in their house, just like she used to do here. I do expect my kitchen will be used more come next month as she will be entering CCI shortly. But embarrassing as it is to say, I guess that it is correct enough that we are sharing a kitchen now of all things. To think… she now has a pseudo-ownership in a portion of my house.

Also, why do I have a spare key of their house?

1:00pm.

Goodness, what is wrong with this heat?!

I finally found the weather app that I trust the most (a partial opinion), and yet I hate that it is the case. Yes, it is already an hour after zenith, but that technically does not mean that it is the peak temperature for the day, which I also hate.

I found myself (not) sunbathing under my glass roof with my sunglasses on as I don't want to go blind early. At this time of the day, my entire house turns to an oven so I take refuge and sit outside with an icebox beside me. In the early days of summer, the morning breeze is still quite cold, but that is absolutely not the case anymore. Even though almost all of the sun's heat hitting my roof gets absorbed doesn't mean that it's not hot anymore. This very place in my house is not an oasis.

But once I have aired out my house for at least an hour, I came back inside to uncomfortably stare in an unopened box lying on the corner of my foyer.

I then decided that I will dedicate the rest of the day on tidying up my bedroom/office. I say that, but the content of the box is actually a small flat screen TV that I bought some time in the week. I missed being able to watch shows before bed before I sold the old one that was sent to me to review for a sponsored blog. I however did not regret selling that as bigger and more resolution displays take up more power. Thus, I went with a slightly inexpensive one that will suit my watching time just well. However, it is a crispy OLED.

…

Two hours later after cleaning up and setting up the slab of pixels, I felt like I'm about to pass out. I may have an arguably incredible amount of stamina, but I have never trained to get myself used to above average temperature situations like this inside my huge 450°F oven (exaggeration).

Left with no choice, I had to turn on my AC this early in the day and leave my fan on momentarily otherwise I might die from the heat.

But then someone will say: "But Gin, you baka, you are basically using free power from the sun so why don't you just go ham with your appliances?"

Sorry to say, but I'm not born a Sora Kagurazaka-like (no offense) that my diapers will have dollars out from my defecation while changing (again, no offense). Even if I was an empty kid, I was raised to be conservative power-wise. I am that guy who computes his usage costs per kWh whenever I open my AC even if that won't count on my bills, but just to make me anxious. But even if I rarely use my consumption-heavy appliances in the house, if times lead to compromises on my principles but for a wise result, I would bite.

Spoiler: Just like how I'll do tomorrow.

But let's get back to the topic of sleeping for a moment. It gets so uncomfortably hot even late at night when it's supposed to be a little cold even if by a margin. That's how it is in this country, so you wouldn't live another day if you don't have at least a spinning propeller pointing at you while you sleep. Sorry, I think that has been mentioned in 096.

Now that I have settled down at the very least…

"Haku… can you paw me the box under my bedside table…? Ugh…"

"Meow. (You should have turned on the AC earlier. The room isn't really dusty, Aruji.)"

"You're probably right."

So I find myself in a slightly bad situation. My head feels like splitting, I can hardly get my eyes open, my chest hurts, and I have difficulty breathing. But even so, I am a cautious one. I always have a pitcher of water in my room whenever I need it even if I can hardly move. Afterwards, I opened the box and took out my own blood pressure monitor. Thanks to Kagetora, I am now able to check my own blood pressure after teaching me a few times and what came out was…

"135/90…"

Apples, here comes hypertension.

I may be immune to most illnesses post-Medical Children Program, but that doesn't include my hereditary ailment. Literally, hypertension runs through our blood, pun intended.

And with that, I landed on my bed to get some sleep while reflecting about my stupidity on forgetting that too much heat triggers high blood pressure. I am actually surprised that this has never happened to me on the restaurant.

4:15pm.

After drinking medicine and getting a bit of sleep, I am feeling at least better.

With that, I continued for the day and checked my emails and the things I have missed.

We may now have graduated, but TAC is still alive and kicking. Even if our activity would be a lot less, we are still continuing with the businesses. On that note, Stylo Studios actually made a proposition to make us an affiliate if we establish TAC as an organization. Not a bad deal, but I would at least have the others to graduate first before we think about that.

But even if that's not a stable source of income, it still helps us to earn for ourselves even if they don't take contractual jobs.

I'm neither one that takes a shower at the morning nor night unless I have work. So I settled in the house after a shower at 5 or 6pm before I make dinner.

"Oh, right… I put the rice on the fridge earlier."

I guess today is another experiment time. Even though I didn't eat my lunch here earlier, I still cooked rice and put it inside my refrigerator to cool down so that I would be able to formulate another recipe with rice.

Thus, I raised the temperature of the AC and went down in the kitchen.

"Oh, yeah, Haku, have you eaten?"

"Meow. (Sure am.)"

Yes, this cat feeds himself as long as I buy him his food. He even throws away his own poop, you know.

I just closed the door of my room but I came back again to check up if Rin is on her room. Well, she is, so I knocked.

"Need something, Potato?"

"I have Crispyroll on my room again. Want to have dinner with me here?"

"Sure, I'll get in later. Wait, you have a TV in your room again?"

"Yeah. The living room is too hot to waste my time there. I was a little careless and my high blood triggered, you see…"

"Wha- That doesn't happen usually. Be more careful."

"Yes, hime."

6:30pm.

Yay, I have made another rice recipe again. I guess I will have something to crave for the slowdown of rice in the winter, as per Rin's enthusiastic approval.

And unexpectedly, we watched anime for an hour or so, and we haven't stopped yet. Then suddenly a light bulb lit up on my head.

That was a pun.

"Ah, I totally forgot about that!"

"About what?"

"Remember that I submitted the full rebranding for a vlogger last week, right?"

"And…?"

"We actually met in person because I was personally given a gift along with the payment.

Wait a sec."

With a quick fiddle on my phone, the lights of my entire room dimmed and changed the illumination to a warmer tone of color.

"I don't really like watching under very bright lights so this is really convenient. I might really invest in these in the future."

"We've been together for two years and this is the first time I got to know that."

"Then two years might not be enough for a get-to-know-each-other."

"Are you implying something, Potato?"

"How were you able to jump on a thought so quickly?"

9:30pm.

I'm probably not the only who does this.

Perhaps I have gotten so imaginative that I was able to create a running story inside my head that I then store in my mental world for Kuro to take care of. I have no talent on story writing, or perhaps that's what I only think, but I spent thirty minutes of my time in the night doing sketches of how I could visualize my characters in my head. That I guess is the most leisure past time that I can get. I don't even get stressed out, and it having the narrative on my noggin cures my art block.

That aside, I usually sleep within 10:30 or 11:00pm, but my body says that I am tired after all the blood that got pumped on the walls of my veins, so I decided that this will be a rather early retirement for the day.

Anyway, my sleeping pattern dictates that I will wake up at around 2 or 3am to drink water, turn off my AC (I really ought to use the timer), toss away my blanket and make Haku sleep beside me.

With that, I set my phone's alarm which says that I have 5 hours and 52 minutes to sleep.

That's sweet, so goodnight.

▪ ▪ ▪

"But even if I rarely use my consumption-heavy appliances in the house, if times lead to compromises on my principles but for a wise result, I would bite."

So yeah… I did say that yesterday.

It is 10 in the morning, and no, I didn't sleep for almost 12 hours. I woke up on time and did my usual morning stuff until it was thirty minutes before the current time.

We have another downpour. Typical White Street, strong rain in a matter of ten to twenty minutes will inundate the street itself. If it keeps going, then the flood will rise to knee-high or even worse.

I am so used to this scene that this looks literally trite, so that is not the main problem here!

And this where I unreasonably question our climate.

"How come I am feeling sweltering heat even though it's already raining like crazy?! It should get a little cold any time soon, right?!"

Well, thankfully I calmed down from throwing that fit after a few minutes and did some inquiries on my phone regarding that quotation above. Finally coming to a decision, I put my phone towards my ear.

"Hello, is this Q&R Home Appliances?"

"Yes, what can we do for you?"

"I am inquiring if you have a 0.5 horsepower AC or something along those lines."

"Um, yes, sir. We definitely do have a few units in our stock."

"Can I get a rundown of them please?"

"I just checked that we have nine different units with us. Shall I enumerate, sir?"

"Ah, you don't have to. Can you first tell your cheapest unit then?"

"We have this one from Dellta that is a split type with the 0.5HP that you were asking for."

"Woah, a tiny split-type? Can't believe I'm actually hearing that."

"And the price?"

"Its discounted price right now is 9,999 Laxes. Payment options are full and partial deposit."

"…"

After hearing that, I immediately Stepped towards my laptop and did a quick specification search about the unit that was mentioned.

"…"

"This. Is. A. Value. King. Who would've thought that this actually exists?! It even has a good rated input!"

"Sir, are you still there?"

"Ah, yes, yes, sorry about that. It's raining a lot right now so I won't able to go there. I shall come next Saturday. Thank you very much."

"We will take note of that. Thank you very much and I hope you stay safe."

*beep*

"Aaaahhhh, thankfully it wasn't a pushy sales person…"

Oh. I guess this is still a normal length chapter.

12:28pm.

So as to sweep away my frustrations I made sauteed Chinese cabbage and tofu <3. There is a heart because I totally love that dish for either lunch or dinner. And it's healthy.

Hours after, however, I took them out to the toilet of the second floor as the throne on the first floor's bathroom is a no go while it is flooding. With that, I came to check on the family house after the rain has significantly let up.

Did you seriously think that my only option is to walk on thigh-high floodwater? Of course I jumped on roofs.

I guess the following years are really different in a better way. Not that it is any better that there is flood inside our family house. But on the bright side, we are now ready for this kind of situation upon my insistence, and not a casualty has been dealt on our belongings except for our wet floor. But hey, it is actually a coincidence that we installed a floodgate three or so years ago.

So no to disgusting mud on our floors!

But nevertheless, I forgot to bring rubber boots with me so my foot got damped with actually clear water. I then came back to the house after snacking and borrowing half a bag of flour since I will be having cooking classes today.

"I will be in your care, Ringo-chan-sensei."

"How come you're a chef yet you can't make sweets?!" she scolded.

"I can only make cookies… Well I heard that you and Sis used to make cakes and stuff a few years back so I thought that you could lend me some of your tips, milady."

"It's annoying that he uses honorifics when he asks for my help, but he looks like a helpless puppy so I'll let it slide."

"What do you want to make anyway?"

"A wedding cake."

Oh, wow. This takes me back! I actually got punched right on the face again! How nostalgic, haha…!

"Can we start with cheesecake and then bread? Actually, I have strawberries right now on the fridge. Do you think jam would be good with the cake?"

"The way to Rin's heart is through strawberries. Let's try that."

"This girl is funny."

I am a kind person (not every time). The reason why I borrowed some flour on the family house is because I know that I wouldn't get the hang of things. Especially the bread making, I baked my first failed attempt just for the fun of it. What do I get? A fluffing tough bread because I kneaded too much and I developed too much of the gluten. But the second attempt went with flying colors.

So onwards to brioche and sourdough next!

And Rin loved the cheesecake.

5:30pm-~

So I guess there are lessons that can be learned on these two days of my normal day off.

I guess I learned for the most part that I can't really push some of my known weaknesses too much otherwise I'll find myself destroyed by my few ailments. In accordance to that, there are things that I should consider for my well-being even if it will cost me a bit on the material side. I however know that it would not really matter with my power system in the house.

But I am not any different to any people in some things. I worked extremely hard to make all of my solar cells mostly on my own, and it took me a lot of difficult attempts just to get to the situation I am in right now with my heavy inclination to practicality. And in the same way, a similar concept can be applied on my first time on making pastries.

That's a stupidly bad segue.

On the other hand, there is no harm to be prepared or cautious at most. Especially when it concerns your family's safety. The little but careful things would definitely help in some way that we probably don't even see physically.

And also…

I have truly decided to end my educational life, and that is one responsibility taken away from me. But on the other side of the spectrum, it is an eye-opener that my current responsibilities are actually heavier and more important than I thought.

Therefore, I shall really offer my support to those who still have their educational responsibilities so that they would be able to move forward.

Because in a sense, from a reference, life is a game where we won't be able to log out.

Chapter Message:

I genuinely have no recollection whether I released last week's chapter late or not.

Thank you for reading!

Next

103: The beginning of the end of my studying life.