Chapter 39

I slumped down on the bench in exhaustion with sweat dripping from my hair onto my bathed shirt.

I'm exhausted but I haven't had this much fun in quite a while.

Man, basketball's fun. Especially with people who give it their all, and play competitively yet also to have fun.

I smile. It's not every day you get to play with such positive people, ignoring the guy that just keeps being very rude.

Turns out that guy started playing a few weeks ago with them and is one of the reasons they don't enjoy playing as much.

Ruining the happiness of others because of your idiocy is one of my massive pet peeves. Luckily, I was on the other team and played a little rougher with the guy. I didn't foul at all or do any dirty plays.

I just got more into contact when defending and got into his face a little more recklessly.

Of course, he would've been able to counter this pretty easily since this type of defense isn't too effective in zone defense but he was a little too deluded to think about it.

I stand up and go to the gym lobby where I asked an attendant to hold my phone for me.

I walk past the doors and the facilities into the lobby.

Receiving my phone back, I notice it's been charged to 100% battery and it even the screen and sides were cleaned with gel.

This service is just amazing.

I swipe and look into the notifications tab of the phone and see spam on my Instagram of all the recent followers, dm requests, and tags.

Oh, man. How do I deal with this? Is there an option to only receive these notifications from certain people?

The phone in my hand vibrates as another notification from Instagram comes in.

This is going to get bothersome real quick.

I mute Instagram's notifications in the settings and go to my messenger.

No notifications apart from the messages in the friend group chat.

Well, I don't have many contacts on my phone and am in very few group chats.

The people that I have in my contacts, I just talked to at school as well so no surprise there.

I click on the conversation with Natsumi. Today's a Wednesday so she should be coming to the gym today.

(Charlie: heyy gym buddy)

I close the app and go to Instagram and see the big red circle in my alerts and DMs.

Turns out I was sent some posts by my friends.

I laugh out loud as I click on each message and see the funny posts I was sent.

I glance at the top of the screen at the time.

It's 5:37 PM right now.

I've been in the gym for a little over an hour and a half now.

I haven't even been playing that much and I'm already exhausted. Sigh, I'm going to have to work on the stamina.

I stretch my sore arms and legs. Man, some water would be pretty nice right now. Too bad I already finished the bottle I brought and the water fountain is just coincidentally broken.

Ah, is this really my luck?

Well, I shouldn't complain I've been having remarkably lucky things happen to me.

I feel my phone buzz in my pocket.

But moving on from the topic of today— right now we're just playing the waiting game.

I'll be talking to John on a Friday. It seems he needs to get a few things prepared beforehand and even then he planned it for a really close day.

Well, I wouldn't want a big fish slipping out of my hands into a competing agency, either.

I've also shown to be pretty successful on my own, so they're going to want to negotiate early.

I feel another buzz in my pocket.

After all, if they wait more I might also be contacted by others and given a lucrative deal which the Knife Agency would have to top with an even better deal.

Early bird gets the worm, after all.

Honestly, if I was looking for profits I'd just wait and hold them until I get contacted by more people, and then I'd have them battle it out between each other.

However, I want to get the most exposure the quickest I can and from the research, I did the other day on Knife Agency, it's going to be pretty quick if I do sign with them.

I'll be way more focused on, in comparison to if I were in different agencies since Knife doesn't recruit too many people each year.

Ah, I'm rambling again.

I'm still very curious about what I'll be doing in the agency.

John did say it's a modeling agency that also focuses on other skills of their recruit. At this point, it's not a modeling agency, it's just an all-around celebrity show business agency.

Since I've got the achievement system, I can literally be good at anything. What skills am I supposed to focus on right now, though?

Just modeling, singing, and… the piano? I highly doubt I am going to be casted to act or even be on a screen so Acting can be brushed off for now.

How do I get the skill for Modeling, though? I've gotten a skill for singing and the piano just by doing the actions but for Modeling am I just supposed to pose in front of a person, or camera?

Ah! Of course, the mirror!

I'm such a colossal moron!

I'm already used to looking stupid in the mirror in front of myself, doing random poses is not too off either. And I'll also look pretty cool while doing it, I think.

Maybe I could also get the skill for Acting by just acting out random scenes by myself in my room?

My sister would probably think I'm weird for a while before I show up on screens, though. Eh, who cares?

She's already weird with me, anyway. We can both be weird.

I feel something tapping my shoulder.

I shake myself out of my thoughts. There is only one person that taps me on the shoulder, and that's also because I slapped their hand once when they tapped my back.

I turn around to see Natsumi looking at me a little petulantly.

My eyes turn to crescents and I beam at her, feeling a little excitement seep into my smile from thinking about getting the Modeling and Acting skill.

Her eyes soften at my really happy smile and she just taps my chest.

I see her eyes widen in shock and a little dismay at feeling the wet sensation in her fingers.

"Ew! How much do you sweat?"

I laughed at her,

"That's your fault right there."

"Whattt, no it's your fault you're so sweaty."

"Oh yeah, let me just touch a guy who's very sweaty," I say a little sarcastically.

She blushes a little bit and looks a little for a dry place that's not sweaty in my body to pinch me.

No! Wait!

Stop that immediate thought you perverts!

I can feel the disturbance even from here, you lechers.

She reaches her fingers towards my arm… that I used to wipe my sweat and tries to pinch.

"Ew!"

"Goodness. You like sniffing and touching sweaty people?" I cracked a tease at her.

She blushed even harder and began bashing my shoulder repeatedly with her mighty fist, not caring that it was also sweaty.

"You're proving my point, pervert."

She started to hit me even harder and looked at me indignantly with watery eyes.

Is she actually crying right now? Aw man. Did I take my teasing too far with the adrenaline of basketball trash talk?

A little guilty spot appears in my heart. I really do not enjoy making others cry, even if they fake cry or do it as a joke. I still feel a little bad for making Reed cry last week when he just released his bottled emotions.

It was good for him to let it all out, but at the same time, I feel like I could've helped him release the emotions without crying.

"I'm sorry. I went too far."

She looked a little dismayed, I think at my miserable expression, and a little relieved about something which I have my own guess of, and tiptoes to ruffle my hair. Which is also, by the way, sweaty.

"Anyway, why were you so early to the gym? And why so sweaty?"

"I came in at 4 PM when I heard there was a basketball court here."

She 'oh's.

"I didn't know you played basketball. You've been playing for two hours now?"

"Yeah, a little less than that."

"Well, it's 6 PM now."

I open my phone to look at the time.

"It's 5:49, sir."

"Ah, same thing."

I raise my brows at her.

"That's a whole 11 minutes right there."

"11 minutes is nothing."

"I beg to differ," I voice my disagreement.

"Your opinion is a little worse than mine," she shoots, shedding her image of a respectful individual in my head, now aligning herself similarly to my rascal-like sister.

She's so weird. She's very polite and full of manners, yet when it's pranks or anything mischievous she'll do it and then gets so embarrassed she'd probably die.

I gawk at her and she looks at me triumphantly. Now though, it looks like she isn't getting embarrassed at all.

I reach my hands out to her hair and flick her bangs out of place.

She grabs my hand and pouts at me.

"I sent you messages on the phone asking when you were coming and you didn't even answer."

I try to shake my hand free but she still grips it with strength. Using the other hand, I check my phone again.

"See! Right there!"

She points to the notification that I can clearly see.

"Yeah, I've got eyes."

"Seems like you don't since you didn't bother to look at them," she jokingly acts childishly with a smile. She continued her assault, "You need glasses or something, poopoo Charlie."

She's getting way more talkative and confident now.

It's actually pretty lovely to see how she's opened up so colorfully to me. She was so shy when we first met too.

Ah, if I hadn't acted like a complete goof by asking for her number that day we met, who knows if we would've been so close now.

"Also what's with that contact name? Why am I only Natsumi?" She keeps assaulting me while the onlookers merely look at us with a smile.

She takes my phone. I thought Charlotte said she was polite and full of manners with everyone. Where'd the pure angel go? Now it's just a little devil messing around with me.

"Open it, please. I want to change my contact name."

Okay, there's her manners. I lay my finger on the home button and she goes past the lock screen.

She goes to the Contacts application and looks up her name.

She edits the info with a smile on her face.

I look over her shoulder to the phone.

(Natsumi) → (Nat!!!!)

She then went to my Messenger app.

Woah, what's with this breach of privacy? So much for your polite image of an angel. Eh, I don't care anyway.

"Eh? Why hasn't my contact name in Messenger changed?"

"Maybe you have to change it there too?"

She clicks the conversation and clicks on her name.

Her profile picture widens. Oh, it's the first time I looked at her profile picture, as well. It's just a picture of an afternoon.

Oh, she even has a description?

'Live by loving.' Ah, such a generic quote and she wrote it in her description.

"Live by loving…" I say, still looking over her shoulder.

She stays quiet and glances at me, and puts a few more centimeters of the distance between us.

I merely stare at her weirdly.

She edits her name to just "Nat".

She turns around to me and smiles with a V sign.