Even though the building was quite empty, I still felt excited as I let Ace lead me by the hand along the hallway in the building. I could tell even without the decoration and furniture that the building was supposed to be an office.
“This is one of my favorite areas in this place. This large area here is an open co-working space where people can gather to work together and share ideas freely,” Ace said while sounding excited.
The area was indeed open and quite spacious. Thankfully, there was electricity in the building and that meant that we could turn on the lights.
“It’s quite big…” I murmured as I looked around.
“Come look over here,” Ace said as he tugged on my hand for me to follow him.
To my surprise, Ace took out some paper that had been stapled together. When he showed it to me, my eyes widened in pleasant surprise.
“I know it’s kind of hard for you to imagine it right now with the current state that the building is in, but this is what it’s supposed to look like when it’s all complete and decorated,” Ace explained.
I could tell from the outline that the image printed on the paper showed the exact same room that we were looking at. The minimal decoration highlighted with some colors added life and creativity to the space. I couldn’t imagine why anyone wouldn’t want to work in a space like that, especially if they worked on the creative side of things.
“Wow! This looks amazing. I can actually picture that being here,” I replied honestly.
Ace went on to explain some other ideas that he had in mind while I tried hard to connect the dots. Now that I had time to digest things, I finally realized that the nagging feeling in the back of my mind was trying to tell me that I had seen this building before. Of course, I had never seen it before in its completed physical state, but I had definitely seen it on paper before. That moment when I accidentally stumbled upon a building’s blueprint in Ace’s office quickly came back to mind.
Although I couldn’t remember in detail what was on the blueprint that I saw that day, I was very convinced that I was now standing inside the very same building that was shown in the blueprint. Back then, I had no idea why Ace had something like that in his office and what he was planning to do. Then again, I should have known that if he had a blueprint of a building then he must have intended to build it somewhere.
“Do you have a picture of what the exterior of the building is supposed to look like when it’s completed?” I asked curiously.
“I do. It’s on this page here,” Ace replied as he flipped quickly through the pages.
Although the picture was colored, it still worked to confirm that my thinking was spot on correct. Ace had truly built the building that was on the blueprint and turned it into reality. As for the reason why he had this building built, I couldn’t say that I was exactly clueless.
“Are you going to work here?” I asked what was on my mind.
“That’s the plan,” Ace replied with a wide smile.
I should have known that there was no way that Ace would just sit back and laze around on the couch at home all day while I went out to work. No matter how drained he was from his previous job, I should have known that he wasn’t the type to take such a long rest without doing anything productive. I wouldn’t have been surprised if he had a small project or two to ease his boredom on the side but supervising the construction of an entire building was layering it on a little thick. I had to admit that it was leaps and bounds beyond my expectations, not to mention the fact that he had been doing this in secret and keeping it from me.
“Are you surprised?” Ace asked excitedly.
For a moment, he looked and sounded so young. Like a child that had planned out a surprise birthday party for one of his friends and was now taking pleasure that he had managed to surprise his friend. He was surely right to feel pleased with his efforts because I was undoubtedly surprised.
“Very. I’m very surprised. I was also surprised when you kept on lazing around at home without doing anything. I thought you might have really lost all passion in life,” I said before letting out a small laugh.
“That will never happen. There’re so many things that I still want to do in life,” he replied with conviction.
I could imagine Ace having a bunch of things on his bucket list, but I didn’t think that building a business office of his own was among those things.
“I’m glad to hear it. Honestly, I’m surprised that you were building this office in the background without telling me anything. Since I’m kind of happy that you haven’t lost your passion and motivation, I’m going to let this little matter slide,” I replied before flashing him a smile.
I wondered what kind of face Ace would make if I told him that his plan wasn’t truly a completely hidden secret. After all, I did manage to see that blueprint in his office even if I didn’t quite connect the dots that he was up to something this big.
“I tried doing nothing for a few days…” he said before trialing off.
“I guess you couldn’t go on like that after a few days, right? I bet you felt so restless and ended up feeling more stressed out because you didn’t like being so free. You’re such a workaholic,” I said knowingly.
“Something like that. However, from now on, I hope that I can choose to do the work that I want,” he said before letting out a soft sigh.
His sigh sounded full of relief than exhaustion. That was probably when I was fully convinced that Ace was heading in the right direction for himself.
--To be continued…
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