Beyond Responsibility

Chapter 10: Trigger Part 1

"Busted."

"Shut up, Harry." The two had a good laugh at that.

"Alright, so the team isn't an issue, what about all your other stuff? I'm surprised you even have time to campaign. You're finished with etiquette classes, right? So that just leaves Business school, Japanese, Piano, and then Karate on Saturday, am I missing anything?"

As the heir to a multinational corporation, Harry had been put through a complete curriculum of courses on the necessary skills to succeed his Father starting from his youth. Oscorp had major branches in New York, Germany, and Japan. So of course, Harry was taught to speak German and then Japanese. (That was how they met actually. Peter had helped him out after catching him straining to understand a Japanese textbook in the 5th grade.) He wasn't as good at the language as Peter was, on the other hand, the number of German words Peter knew could be counted with just those fingers.

Beyond language skills, Harry also had to know how to mingle with high society, so he was given lessons on acting and improv, etiquette, ballroom dancing, horseback riding, and half a dozen snobby sports like golf, cricket, archery, horse polo, and so so many more.

Then of course, being a billionaire's son put quite the target on your back, so Harry took Karate lessons as well. Both for the self defense and also for instilling discipline. His sensei only spoke Japanese and harshly drilled Harry if he spoke English, creating synergy with Harry's foreign language classes.

Then there came the skills actually involved in running a business. So Harry had to go to business school and several other classes like interpersonal skills and memorization techniques. After all that, so what if he needed some help with his science homework because of all the other stuff he was juggling? It was the least Peter could do for his only friend.

Was it excessive? Yes. But he needed to be educated, and it was also partly to give him a distraction after his mother died. Peter suspected another reason was that Mr. Osborn didn't know how to adapt to being a single parent—not with his own grief and the demands of being a CEO. So he used the classes as a way to babysit Harry when he couldn't be there. In a way, their butler Bernerd had been more of a father to Harry than Mr. Osborn had. Of course, when you're a young kid that goes from losing their mom to suddenly being overwhelmed with classes, that's hardly a substitute for not having a parent, or really any support system to pull you through. But, somehow, Harry got through it. That's what Peter admired so much about his friend, he always persevered and never came out worse for it. Rather, he was made stronger by it, though Harry would only describe it as a humbling experience. The end result, Harry was one of the most well-versed and personable people he had ever met.

And that person was now plastering on a fake smile as he did his best to hide how tired he was. "Don't remind me Pete. Between football and student council I'll have to shuffle things around, so it'll be Karate on Sundays now. The real problem is my grades. Gotta keep my GPA above 3.2 or I get kicked off the team."

"Sorry I'm not around to help you with that anymore, buddy. Can I do anything to help? Don't mind the whole ocean between us, it's no biggie."

"You've already helped tons, I took your advice. A few study dates, and now Debra Whitman's volunteering to be my campaign manager if you can believe it. Helped me design some posters. Came out better than I could have hoped."

"Yeah, you're going to have to back up there, because I can't believe it. Whitman takes too much pride in her academics to volunteer for something like that. Are charity projects suddenly worth extra credit now or something?"

"You see first, I had to get her to help me study, thankfully that was pretty easy. She couldn't pass up the chance to hold one over the rich perfect kid, probably also saw it as a way of getting back at you, Pete."