Chapter 15: Compromise

Now that the two of us were in the clear safe at home at last, I got Alice set up with one of the many books from my collection that I wanted her to read. Whilst I had her reading by herself for the time being, I went over to the home phone, picked it up, and dialed mom's number over my dad's since she was less likely to give me an ear full over dad in this situation.

Following a not so short conversation, mom informed me she and dad were already made aware of sudden disappearance. Which was expected because we had been gone missing from the classroom for more than half an hour at this point. After that part, she complained for a bit before I countered with Alice's plus my own complaints and reasoning of why we had done what we did.

"Okay, but you know that isn't that great of a reason, because something could have happened to the two of you on your little trip from the school to the house, right?" She said, futilely trying to still win.

"Perhaps, but the chances of anything occurring are pretty slim due to a few reasons, one the Undercity is very civilized and mostly safe as long as we stay out of the roads as well as the rougher areas of the undercity. Adding on further to that last part, the only rough areas within this entire undercity are the black market and low income area, and we were nowhere near either of those places so..." I countered, unwilling to let her win the argument.

"The crime that occurs there is also pretty low as well, with the undercity providing everyone a way to make a living even if they are disabled. In those people's cases, they are just taken care of by the government due to their unfortunate circumstances. Thus, even if we were in those kinds of areas, I'm sure we would've been fine because Alice and I stayed out of sight from everyone on our way home." I continued.

"Two, you know how capable I am, so us getting into any real trouble I couldn't deal with is basically nonexistent. Also, if we encountered anything physical on our way home, I stand at 4 foot 6 and weigh around 110 lbs."

"On top of that, I'm a pretty good fighter at this point, which I'm sure grandpa John would back me up on. Furthermore, I can lift just as much weight as the average undercity's adult male going by the weights I lift nowadays, hence even if we ran into a weirdo I'm sure I could beat them up in a short time and be on our way."

"Alright sweety, you win." Mom relinquished.

"However, I can't have you both constantly escaping the school so we're going to need to have that discussion of a compromise when we get home and I think Alice's parents will need to join us for this talk of ours as well since it involves their little girl too."

"I don't have any issue with that." I responded.

"Okay, I got to go, sweetie. Do you need Grandma to come over, or are you guys fine?" She asked.

"Nah, we're good. We're just going to do our usual thing. Oh, before you go, mom, tell Alice's mom and dad that we're fine and are just at our house."

"Was already planning on it. See you later, sweetie." She said lastly, getting off the phone.

"Alright, we're officially in the clear for now, Alice, though our parents will be coming to have a discussion with the bunch of us later."

"Do we need to prepare at all for it?" She inquired while putting the book I gave her down.

"No, not particularly. We just need to state the obvious for our argument. That being said, we'll likely need to concede a bit to get what we want."

"Do you have any idea what we should give them?" She asked.

"What do you think of acing yearly final tests and participating in some after-school activities?"

"That sounds pretty good, but we have to participate in the same activities together, otherwise I'll rebel." She said half jokingly, half not so much.

"No need to rebel, Alice, that was my intention from the start." I said, disarming any intention of her causing a ruckus.

Hmm, I think it's about time I let Alice know of our parents engaging us; she is more than mature enough at this point mentally to understand the significance of it since I would basically place her mental age around a young teen but a mature one slash genius one, a smidge less than two and half times her actual age.

And since we're so young, I don't think things will go badly if she wants to call it off. Nevertheless, seeing how we're basically tied at the hip, I seriously doubt she would want that and letting her know will probably have the opposite effect and will probably cause us to grow closer rather than apart, which is a win win in my book.

"Now that we have that settled, I think it's time I told you about something that you may not know of yet."

"What?" She asked curiously.

"Did you know we're engaged?" I responded, causing her to produce a surprised face that reminded me of a certain yellow mouse from my old world.

"Really? You're not joking, right?" She asked after a short pause.

"No, it's the truth. They really did set us up." I answered her before she launched at me like a missile, overjoyed apparently at what she heard.

After catching her before she injured herself, I sat down with her still glued to me with her now basically in my lap and explained what I knew of the details and when it happened.

"Wow, I didn't expect my mom and dad to do something like that. I'm glad they did, though." Alice said as she cuddled up further into my chest.

"It wasn't really so much your mom and dad that caused us to get engaged, I would say it was more so my grandma that was the cause of it due to her being the one to gather everyone for that discussion of theirs right after our first birthdays." I corrected her.

"I see. Guess I'll have to thank her a bunch for locking you down for me." Alice responded happily.

Following that little episode, we got back into the swing of things and started studying again with her reading the one of the many books I had in my ever-expanding collection and me opening up the laptop my parents had gotten me a while back.

We learned a bunch and progressed for a good number of hours when I had us wrap up our studying there. Our learning paused, we headed downstairs to the gym my parents had installed for me within the last year. The place also doubled as a sparring area that I used frequently with grandpa John, ahh the perks of being born with a golden spoon.

The moment we reached the gym, I instructed Alice on what she needed to do today. Once I had her on her way, I went ahead and initiated my own workout on the various pieces of equipment setup throughout the gym.

A while into our workout, Alice finished hers much sooner than I did because of her workout routine being significantly lesser than my own in the amount she needed to do and her stamina and endurance not being anywhere near my own. So as I continued training on my own, she rested and watched me train for the next hour, patiently waiting for me to finish.

Phew, I'm finally finished with the last of my sets. Thankfully, Alice doesn't mind waiting on me and seems to quite enjoy watching me work up a sweat.

"I'm done, Alice. Let's go get our sparring in before our parents arrive." I told her, walking off in the direction of the sparring area.

"Okay." She answered, following in step right behind me.

From there, we fought on the mats until Alice was out of breath. At that point, she was basically all out of steam, thus I called it there. Our physical training covered for the day, we went off to the bathrooms to get the sweat washed off of us. When the both of us were finished getting cleaned up, we met back up and climbed the stairs, arriving back in the living room soon after.

"Alice, you want to have something to eat?"

"Nn, I could use a bite after all that."

"Okay cool, let me whip up something."

With both of us hungry, I proceeded to the kitchen and got to whipping up a couple of meals optimized for growth and recovery, though I first had to break out the stool before I could actually begin cooking.

Shortly thereafter, I had a nice size feast for two five-year-olds that were more physically developed due to our consistent training. Bringing all I prepared out to the table, she and I took our seats and had a pleasant meal between ourselves, occasionally chit chatting about the various things we were both learning.

...

As soon as we were done eating, we went back to the living room and continued our studying for a number of hours until my parents showed up, along with Alice's in tow.

"Sooo... what happened?" Dad asked us mere moments after all six of us had found our seats in the living room.

"Well, Alice and I got bored, so we decided to escape school and go home and do our usual thing." I answered.

"Yeah, we were bored and didn't have anything to do besides draw. So why bother staying and wasting our time when we could be more productive here." Alice said, backing me up before receiving simultaneous sighs from each of our mothers and fathers.

"I probably already know the answer, but I'll ask anyway. What caused the both of you two to become so bored and unenthused that you felt the need to leave school?" Alice's dad David questioned.

"It's not really one particular thing that caused us to leave, but an assortment. First, I believe your goal in sending us to school was for us to socialize with the other children going there so we wouldn't become socially awkward, right?" I responded.

"... Sigh, you're right on money as always, you rascal. That was indeed our goal in sending you there." He answered.

"So how exactly are Alice and I supposed to socialize with a bunch of children that are substantially less developed than ourselves? I don't see how interacting with them would benefit us in any sort of way and would instead have the opposite effect of stifling us. And seeing how giddy the four of you were with your cameras this morning at the school's entrance, I suspect that's the real reason why you guys wanted us to go." I said, causing our parents to look slightly guilty.

"Well, we wanted to have you both try going to school like normal kids, but if we're being honest, I doubt it would have been good for either of you in the long run. That said, we all still believe you guys will need to interact with others more at some point. You and Alice can't just interact with just our families and call it a day." He said after a momentary pause.

"And of course we did want to shoot some cute pictures of you two. What parent wouldn't want to take some memorial pictures of their kids?" Alice's mother Aura answered this time, which the rest of our parents nodded and agreed to as well.

"I can see where you guys are coming from regarding the memorable pictures, and obviously, Alice and I won't just be interacting with each other's families only. But I think it's pretty pointless going to school to waste most of the day accomplishing nothing of note, just so we interact with a bunch of children that just began learning their ABCs." I responded, which they basically had to agree with if they were rational human beings.

"So with all that said, why don't we come to a compromise that we can all agree on instead of the alternative of Alice and I escaping school constantly?" I suggested, to our defeated looking parents.

"What do you have in mind?" My mom Jane asked.

"Alice and I have already discussed and were thinking acing or nearly acing all yearly tests along with participating in after-school activities and sports were a good compromise."

"Of course you little geniuses did, so let's hear the reasoning on why you think your suggestions are a good compromise." Mom responded.

"Us acing the yearly tests would show that our education is more than keeping up with our peers. And our participation in after-school activities will allow us to get more socialization than if we were in school for the whole day, thereby solving the social issue." Alice answered after I gave her a nudge.

"You two really have it all figured out, huh." My dad commented.

"I think their suggestion is fine." My mom said.

"Their suggestion is reasonable enough." Alice's mother followed up before both moms looked at their respective husbands.

"We're okay with what they suggested, too. However, if either of you fail to get above a 90% in any tests, you guys will be going to school like normal kids, got it?" Alice's dad said lastly.

"Yes." Alice and I responded in sync.

With that issue resolved and it being around dinner time, our moms prepared a small feast that everyone enjoyed.

Damn, even her mother knows how to cook up good food. When Alice is a bit older, I will have to ask her mom as well as my mom to teach how to cook. I could also teach her a thing or two, since I know how to prepare some pretty killer food. However, besides the basics, the only cooking I'm good at mostly consists of barbecue and grilling, hence the women of our families will have to teach her the other stuff because I'll be of no help in those areas at least for right now. 

And since I'm thinking of it, I should expand on the selection of foods I'm able to make and because she'll be learning how to cook various dishes, I might as well join her. It'll be another thing to bond over. Also, learning to cook a bunch of different meals wouldn't take me long at all either due to my skills and photographic memory, thus there's no need to worry about delaying any of my projects or training I need to get complete prior to my wasteland adventure.

Though even if I didn't have the time, I probably would delay everything else just so I can ensure I'll have a woman that likes to cook. I definitely don't want to end up in a situation like I was in my previous world with my last couple of exes. Microwave chef girlfriends are pretty rough, not going through that shit again.

Thinking of the many mouth watering meals Alice will be able to make in the future, her and her parents went home while my family and I sat down on the couches and watched some old movies that were produced a decade before the world went to shit some 200 years back.