"Dammit! What are you looking at, standing there? Come and help me! My legs are a bit hurt, and my nose looks like it's broken! Ugh!"
As he was saying that, Marcus reached for his nose and touched it lightly before crying out in pain. Before, he was only exaggerating, but upon touching his own nose, he genuinely felt the pain. He realized his nose might actually be broken, or it wouldn't hurt this much.
"What stupid luck I have!" he thought. "I fell on a soft floor, and yet my nose still got broken, and my legs are hurting too. Dammit, that might be it..." But he was unable to continue the thought as he heard Amelia's voice coming from the other side.
"That was your fault to begin with! Who told you to push that hard, huh? And without even asking once before doing that? Now that you've done it, you're blaming me on top of it? This is not fair at all!" said Amelia as she helped him up while supporting him.
Marcus's mouth twitched, but he couldn't refute his wife at all. When he turned to look at her—just to confirm how she could lie like that—he saw her face darken already. Fear hit him: he could easily guess what his fate would be if he continued arguing.
Marcus kept his peace. Despite being wronged here, he just sniffed it all off.
Still in pain, Marcus got up and shifted his gaze from his oppressive and unfair wife onto Anthony, for whom all this drama had happened.
He couldn't help but be speechless by the sight ahead of him. For what he saw was his son, Anthony, sleeping soundly on the bed, his back facing the roof, and his head buried in the pillow.
There was not a hint of him waking up or being disturbed by the commotion Marcus's fall had caused. It was as if Anthony was having a very blissful dream he couldn't wake up from. Marcus thought this because, no matter what, Anthony should have woken up—after all the noise, the face-first fall to the floor, and the yelling.
"This..." he couldn't help but speak while looking at his son.
He then turned to look at Amelia, who shared the same speechless, stunned look—a look slightly different from what she'd imagined earlier.
"Is this what you meant by the 'hard work' he's putting into his study?" Marcus asked, pointing his finger at the unaware Anthony. "If so, then, oh my, is this some new technique where one can study while sleeping? Or am I mistaken here?"
"Huh?" Taken aback by this, Amelia looked awkward. She quickly glanced at her blissfully unaware son and then scanned the room to find some excuse to refute Marcus.
Suddenly, her eyes settled on the table where books were open. Walking toward it without saying anything, she picked up the textbooks related to math and chemistry—subjects Anthony had been studying an hour or two back.
She found that he had already completed the homework for these two subjects, with physics being the only one that was incomplete. Looking at the work her son had done, she found it a bit unbelievable that he had actually done this much, something he usually never does on time.
Turning around and focusing on Marcus, a smug look came over her. Pointing at the notebook, she said, "Look at this, and then question me if he isn't working hard on his studies. The homework, for the most part, is already completed."
She continued, "And above that, today was his exam. He might be tired after finishing a week of homework in just a few hours on top of the exam, so it's perfectly right for him to take a rest."
Marcus looked at the notebook in her hand and blushed with embarrassment. Since he was proven wrong, he didn't dare speak anything.
But was Amelia letting him off that easily? Not when he had tried to step on her. She spoke with her hands on her hips: "Why are you so obsessed with his studies? Yes, you're not wrong that he isn't particularly good at it, and it isn't wrong to educate our son about it now, when he has time to make amends, rather than regretting it later in his future."
"But this is not the right way to do this. Constantly talking about it is likely putting pressure on the child, especially when his university examinations are coming closer and closer."
Marcus, feeling embarrassed, spoke, "I didn't mean to, but... but..." He sighed, unable to come up with the words to speak what he was feeling.
"Let's stop here already," Amelia said as she looked at him. She understood that he couldn't refute her about this, and she understood that all he meant was for Anthony's good—after all, he was his son, too.
But she still spoke: "Let the child focus and take the exam. He is already doing his best, and that should be enough. So, no more putting pressure on him, okay?"
"I understand," said Marcus after a second. It felt like he wanted to say something more, but he ultimately held it in, not speaking out his thoughts.
"Good. I know what you want to say, though." Amelia, who always had the ability to read him like an open book, spoke: "This exam will be the turning point of his life. If he can make it into the top first-tier universities and become an elite talent, he will have limitless prospects for the future, right?"
Hearing this, Marcus nodded with a sigh.
"And you know about it—after all, it is just as you say. But we can't force Anthony on doing something that he's already doing and working on. Saying anything more would just pull him away from his target. That is why I'm saying let him have his own way this time. For the rest of it, we will just have to wait and watch."