Wizard of Oz || Zuo Hang✓

Ten

Zuo was awakened by the footsteps of someone coming up the stairs. He removed his head from the book he was leaning on that was in front of his desk, then wiped the drool from the corner of his mouth. He looked at the time: 7:20 am. He had fallen asleep on his desk in front of his computer.

'Oh no,' he mumbled to himself.

The door opened, and he found his father standing at the door. 'Zuo! You haven't even showered?'

He rubbed his eyes and didn't say anything, still a bit dazed. He looked forward at the computer, seeing that he had already sent the assignment to Yanni as a message. He didn't remember sending it, but he hoped everything was correct.

'Go shower already!' his father shouted. 'You don't have time okay?'

'Yes dad.' Zuo got up from the chair and ran into his bathroom.

After Zuo had quickly showered, he put on his school uniform and left with his father. Zuo was checking the time every now and then, he had never been late for school before. This was going to be his first time and he didn't particularly feel good about it.

He sighed and looked out of the window, feeling impatient.

'What were you doing last night? I noticed some strange program on your computer.' his father asked him with his eyes on the road ahead.

'I was working on something.' he answered vaguely.

'Well if it's computer stuff, I'm proud of you.'

Zuo smiled to himself and nodded. Well for the first time he was doing computer-related work and enjoying it. Most times he only did it because he had to, but this time it was different. It was like the computer was giving him access to something he had wanted for a long time, and each thought made him realize he had wanted to talk to Yanni more than he thought he had.

The car arrived some minutes later, and Zuo got off quickly. He was about 20 minutes late, and their history teacher wasn't really one to tolerate that. He didn't want to be given detention either, because that would make him arrive home late and perhaps answer Yanni late.

Zuo rushed to the door and knocked, but through the glass panel of the door, he could see that there was no teacher in front. Neither was anyone presenting. He pushed the door open slowly then entered, realizing that the teacher was not in yet.

He walked past Yanni who was standing with Zhixin and Xinhao at her desk, then walked over to his seat.

'Zuo Hang was late for the first time!? Wow.' Vicky clapped her hands as if he had achieved an award.

'I was busy with a little something.' Zuo said as he sat down behind her. 'Where's the teacher?'

'She's running late but she'll be here alright. It's her.' Vicky told him. 'What are you always busy with nowadays?' she pouted. 'Why don't we hang out this afternoon?'

'Oh I can't.' Zuo answered quickly, knowing he would need to be at his computer that afternoon. 'I'm gonna tell you when we'll be able to hang out, I'm really sorry.'

'It's cool, I guess you have a good reason.' She replied sadly and looked at the floor.

Zuo's attention shifted to Yanni and her friends. All three of them had papers in their hands.

'So you actually finished the presentation?' Zhixin asked her skeptically. 'You wrote all of this?'

'Of course I didn't,' Yanni answered. 'I only did the first part, the chatbot did the rest.'

'A chatbot wrote a presentation?' he raised his eyebrow.

'Yep. It checked for different sources on the internet since it is connected to the internet.'

'A chatbot wrote a presentation?' Zhixin repeated the question to make Yanni realize how dumb it sounded. 'I'm not gonna trust an assignment done by a chatbot.'

'It's better than having nothing to present at all. Can you just appreciate it?' Yanni answered in an exasperated tone. 'Geez, you guys suck as partners. I did what I could okay?'

Xinhao nodded. 'Yanni has a point. It's better for us to present this than to present nothing at all.'

'If we fail, it's your fault.' Zhixin declared.

Of course you won't fail, Zuo thought to himself. He somewhat hated the fact that he had worked hard for Zhixin and Xinhao too, they were going to enjoy the fruits of his labor. But he had to remind himself that he did it for Yanni.

Zhixin was still reading the paper skeptically when the history teacher walked in.

'Sorry I'm late students,' she said as she walked over to the chalkboard. She grabbed a piece of chalk and wrote History on it before turning around to face the students. Zuo felt relieved with the fact that she had chosen to be late on this particular day, it was some kind of good luck for him. 'Well, will the first group for today start presenting? Quickly please.'

Yanni and her friends quickly got up from their desks, then walked up to the front of the classroom.

'Um...we're going to present on Tribes of North America.' Yanni announced, then looked at her paper. Zuo watched her with a smile as she read out the words.