Page 49 of Rules for Rule Breaking
Bobby whirled around. “How’d you know about Kai’s graphic novel?”
“He posted a few panels online. They’re good. They really capture your struggles as a lactose intolerance sufferer.”
Bobby shook his head. “Please don’t tell me he posted the one ofMilquetoast missing an entire alien invasion because he was on the toilet.”
Winter laughed. “He did.”
Bobby’s shoulders sagged. “I keep telling him that character makes no sense. If milk hurts him so badly, why doesn’t he stop drinking it?”
“Are you serious?” Winter broke into a fit of giggles that almost got the better of her. “It’s so obvious.”
“What’s obvious?”
“Milquetoast is a coward. That’s why he eats a gallon of Chunky Monkey before every single fight.”
Bobby’s face got hot. “He’s not a coward. He’s a flawed hero. He could even be a pacifist.”
Winter giggled out of control. He’d never heard her laugh like that. She must have still been high. “Or maybe dairy is delicious, and he’s willing to sacrifice the greater good for a Chobani. I would do the same. A world without milk is a world not worth saving.”
She was like his dad. Mr. Bae was the only one in the house who could have dairy, and he had no experience buying food for only one person. Everything he bought always went bad. This bothered Bobby so much he developed an app called Uyu, which was a milk tracker that sent reminders when the milk was nearing its expiration date. You’d input the date you purchased it and the kind (because skim spoiled faster than whole), and then it sent reminders and dairy-based recipes so you had no reason to let your milk spoil ever again.
Bobby told Winter about the app, and she nearly choked on her cheesesteak. “You’re just like Milquetoast. You’re completely obsessed with milk!” she said, wiping tears from her eyes. “Oh my God, I’m dying. Kai is a genius.”
Bobby pulled the app up on his phone. “You laugh, but this app has saved my parents a lot of money, and I’m currently programming it to include cheese and yogurt as well. The Baes run a tight ship, and my dad was ruining it until Uyu came along.”
Winter wiped off her hands and took the phone. She paused in the middle of the sidewalk. “Bobby, this is really cool. It looks so professional. No lie. Have you released this in the app store?”
“No, it’s just for my dad to use.”
She was scrolling through the app with the phone held closely to her face, slowly, not blinking. “This interface is so clean. I can’t believe you designed this.”
“I only coded it. Kai designed the interface.”
“Seriously? I didn’t know he was into tech.”
“Yeah, he wants to go to Berkeley next year to study UX design.”
“I can totally see him on the West Coast. That’s perfect,” she said as she checked out each menu option. She gave his phone back and took a monster bite of her sandwich. “I’m surprised Kai knows what he wants to do and you don’t. It seems so unlike you.”
Bobby bit his lip. “I just want to—”
“Make money, I know. But I thought you’d have some specific goal.”
Truthfully, he didn’t. He only knew he wanted to be successful. He wanted a comfortable life for him and his family, just like the one he grew up having. With a mathematics degree, he could be an actuary or a statistician or something else for which he’d have to look up the job description.
“I want to do right by my parents. I don’t want my parents to be disappointed in another family member,” he said.
“Forget about them for a second. What would you do if it was only you?” she asked, taking another large bite. “You’re annoyingly smart. There has to be something you like that you could monetize.”
He thought for a moment. “Nothing that would bring me security.”
“Forget about that too. Imagine whatever it was gave you infinite heaps of money. Would you maybe consider studying computer science and creating apps for a living? I could totally see you as one of those elitist types in Silicon Valley.”
“I don’t know. I made the app because I was getting tired of spoiled milk,” he said, looking at Winter under the moonlight.
“Well, isn’t that what tech is all about? Identifying a pain point and then creating something to fix it?”
He hadn’t considered it as a career. It wasn’t something he’d want to do unless he was the CEO of his own company. It was a very up-and-down, ever-changing industry. Things became obsolete in seconds. It was also for people who could charm investors and grease palms. That wasn’t him. But maybe it was Kai. Bobby had to admit he enjoyed developing the app, and it felt good every time his parents actually used it. He and Kai also had so much fun putting it together.
