SWNOVELXO Chapter 12: Reap what you sow
General pov
On Wednesday, Mark comes as promised, he already prepares the proposal for the store, and when he comes knocking on the Dunphy residence. a young beautiful blonde woman open the door.
"Hi my name is Mark and I'm here to meet Mr Harry Dunphy" he said nervously.
"Hi Mark, please come in, Harry will come in a moment" Claire let him into the living room before calling Harry.
"Hi Mark, I'm Harry, let's immediately do the business, where is the proposal ?"
"Here Sir, please check it" Mark said to Harry nervously.
Harry began to read the proposal seriously. Clearly checking every single detail and how the shop is gonna operate, from the main objective to the detail operation procedure, Harry is quite pleased but a few details need to be changed.
"This proposal is good, but there are a few things that I need you to change. First the number of staff is not enough, you need at least double it, and I want you to add a few part time opportunities for those who can only work part time for a few special occasions and for the high and peak hours of shopping. And for the part time, their wages are the same as regular staff but they don't have the same benefit in health insurance and other staff benefits, but if they want to work full time, we can give them the benefit just like the regular staff. For now that's gonna be enough, we don't need a higher managerial position at the moment, a single store manager is enough to help the store daily operation, for the negotiation with the brands just send some staff from our private equity firm."
"Alright sir, I'm gonna make the necessary change, but there is another thing that i need you to decide sir, you haven't given our private equity firm a name."
"You can write Harald Future Capital as our firm name, or HFC in short, it's going to be my private capital anyway, and we won't accept any kind of investment from other people. One more thing, I want the first store to be nearby so my family can shop there too."
"Certainly sir, I will arrange everything" marks said before saying goodbye cause he needs to go back to his office in downtown LA.
"Well , you heard everything mom, any kind of request you want to say to me ?" Harry asked his mother.
"No, not really, just don't lose your main objective and your own way son." Claire gives some advice to Harry.
"Thank you mom, now I will go back to my room, I still want to write my novel" Harry said to his mother and Claire just let her son do what he wanted.
Timeskip 4 year later, Harry pov
For the past four years i've been taking it easy, I spend my time going to school with Haley like an ordinary kids except I and Haley are a good student, I tutor Haley personally and even make her stop starving herself, if she want a good body, she need to exercise and watch what she's eating. Now both Haley and I are already 8 years old, Alex already 5 years old and Luke was born 3 years ago or 3 years old.
In the past four years I only released 1 book and it was published in 1998, around 3 years ago. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone managed to become the best selling book in less than 6 months and translated to over 70 other languages and sold more than 150 million copies.
A lot of people want me to publish more books, but I'm kinda taking it slow, because I also want to make it a movie, but this time, I want to be the executive producer, with at least 80% of the profit for me, of course I will invest the most to the movie. With my investment in Steven S movie saving private ryan i got over 250 million USD from all kinds of sources. It's around what I expected, so I make over 2.75 Billion dollars from that alone, with 2.5 billion from my system and I invested more than 2 billion dollar in 1999 for expanding the Dunphy's grocery store, now the Dunphy's have a branch all across the USA, with headquarter in Austin,Texas.
Surprisingly The Dunphy's is profitable by itself, I don't need to cover it loss with the money from the system, the revenues alone make the store profitables, and now with over 3% market share in the whole country, and the current ceo even considering opening a smaller store, like a local grocery store, with less brand, but still high quality item and a lot of healthy food in it.
On a side note it's kinda disturb my father business because now, all kind of people think he is the owner and I never repel the rumour, so a lot of people buying house just for a chance to talk with him, wanting to put their item on the store or just want to build a relationship so their brand being looked more favorably by our store.
For me personally, money has already become a string of numbers. In the year 2000 alone, the gross revenues of the Dunphy is over 12 Billion dollars, that translates to over 120 Billion in the system account, and added with the revenue from book and song loyalties ? yeah, I will stop talking about the exact number from this point on, I told mark to put my money in all kinds of Industry, from Hotels to restaurant, to airline and other stuff, I even buy a big chunk of mountainous land and build a private mansion with a private airport in it.
I haven't touch any kind of real estate cause I know in the 2008 , I can buy a lot for a pennies on the dollars, I even told marks to avoid any investment bank and normal bank as well, and not even insurance companies, I just told him to build our own Insurance companies to take care of our worker better, and Mark said it can be done this year, in 2001.
I grew up healthily and happily, and I never expected that in 3rd grade of elementary school, someone would have a crush on me, of course I don't believe it. But Haley said it true, one of her friends fell in love with me and wanted to confess, but I stopped it by asking Haley to stop her cause I will definitely reject her. I still can't believe the conversation we had in our house that day.
Flashback a few week ago, Harry pov
"You need to believe me Harry, why would I lie to you ?" Haley tried to convince me, while I was sitting on the sofa, watching a documentary about dams.
"Nice try but it's really unrealistic Haley." I simply denied her.
"But I'm telling the truth." Haley said in frustration.
"Okay okay, what's the matter with you two ?" Mom came to the living room while bringing her tea.
"You look great mom, maybe having a few maids does reduce a lot of your stress huh." I said to her, yeah to please my mother, I hired a couple of professional maids to help clean and cook around the house, it's been a few months since I did it and mom couldn't look happier.
"Stop teasing me and why don't you start to tell me what's happening." mom said.
"Mom, he won't believe me that Audrey has a crush on him." Haley suddenly said it.
"Wait, what ? Does someone have a crush on my son ? How old is this girl ?" Mom suddenly became so interested.
I just groan in the background while Haley is fired up gossiping with mom.
"She is the same age as us, in the same class as well, Audrey said she started having a crush on Harry after the science class, she said he seems so smart and strong." Haley started to rambling around.
"We are 8 years old, what kind of 8 year old has a crush ? she just thinks I'm a bit better than other boys, that's it, it's just a simple praise." I said.
"No mom, listen to me, Audrey said to me that she wants to be Harry's girlfriend." Haley said again.
"Really ? Did she say that ?" my mother seemed amused by this and continued asking Haley.
"Really mom ? Do you believe her ? What kind of 8 year old understands girlfriend and boyfriend ?" I simply ask her.
"Well a lot of people understand it early, Haley do you understand what it means ?" Mom asked Haley.
It was at that moment I knew, mother's real purpose is not me, but Haley and if she dumb enough to explain, maybe mom will find out if she has one or not.
"Of course I knew it mom, I'm not stupid, girlfriend and boyfriend mean they are dating and it was their status." Haley explains while I'm smiling mysteriously.
"Really ? Can you explain more about what they are doing if they are dating ?" mom continued to ask Haley.
"It's easy, they will spend time together a lot, holding each other's hand, having fun together, maybe eating ice cream together, and they always want to spend time together." Haley continues to explain while I'm holding my laugh, with pinching my own legs.
"Hmm, you seem to know a lot about dating honey, is there anything more?" Mom asks Haley with a mysterious smile.
"Well maybe they will kiss each other's cheek from time to time ?" Haley said it unsurely.
"So have you done that sweetheart ?" mom asked Haley.
"No, we are just holding hands a bit beca…." Haley suddenly stopped talking while looking at me and i couldn't hold my laugh anymore, i'm literally laughing while holding my stomach.
"Honey, we need to talk, since when do you have a boyfriend ? Who is he ?What did his parents do ?What did you do with him ? How do you know him ?" Mom continues asking Haley while Haley is shocked and frozen with the barrage of questions.
That what they mean with the saying reap what you sow.
After a long lecture from mom, Haley finally goes back to her room, before she looks at me like I'm the one making mom go ballistic on her. While my mother asks me if I knew about her dating, and I answer truthfully that I don't , because it all seems like a kid playing around.
Maybe they just watch some tv and think they are dating, while they don't really understand what dating even means. But after that mom seriously asked me, "Are there any friends that I find attractive ? So I decided to tell her the truth. I'm attracted to beautiful girls with long hair, fair skin and don't dress that show too much of the skin, and that she needs to be at least 18 years old before I can see her as attractive. There are a lot of beautiful girls on TV, but not really in my own school. That answer makes my mother glad that I'm just not there yet.