Chapter 89

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"Actually, could you make a few more… open… poses? If you get what I'm saying… Yes, exactly. How do you understand me?"

The director chuckled with a maddened stare as he stared at a young and well-proportioned young man.

The young model laughed politely, two uses in one action. A great pose and expression for a picture, and a pleasant response to the director.

Shots were taken quickly as more poses were made.

Quickly after, clothes were switched around and the youngster was sporting a different look while posing for different scenes.

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The day was different.

The young man had been auditioning for a modeling job. If he was chosen, he'd have to wear clothes lovingly and meticulously made by top fashion designers in front of thousands of people.

It wasn't a common job, but it wasn't his first time that he'd do such a job either.

He sat quietly in one of the many chairs where other auditioners sat in silence too.

The auditioners consisted of all types of men. In recent times, models had less tight restrictions as a PR move to achieve a better reputation.

Body shaming in current times was a big subject for the teenagers that made up the majority of social media.

As a response to such media attention, for a modeling agency to suddenly look 'friendlier' to the people would earn them the big cookies.

In short, there were more auditioners for this job than usual.

The dark-haired eastern Asian man sat confidently though. If one were to bring their thoughts to an extreme radical end, one would say that such confidence looked like the man himself had decided that he'd let them cast him, rather than him auditioning for them.

It wasn't only the confidence exuded, by the special temperament formed by his body posture and facial muscles.

The wait didn't last long, however.

Finally, a man with a clipboard wearing glasses walked in. "Thank you for your patience. That'll be it for today, everybody. You'll be notified soon of the results."

The man's glasses glinted and inconspicuously turned to stare at the young dark-haired man. Being the subject of the stare, only he understood its meaning.

He'd be busy again.

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"Wow… just look at his hands…"

"I don't know if you're showing me the music or the handsome guy. You know, I don't think you ever cared that much about music."

A girl along with her friend giggled. "Just watch," she shushed her.

"Hmmm, yeah," the friend wiggled her eyebrows, trying to emphasize something else, "his… skills, are so very good."

They laughed again.

"Anyway, who's he?"

"I don't know him either but he's pretty good at the piano, don't ya think?"

"Hmm, yeah. I was definitely paying attention to the piano."

Her friend saw her eyes glued to the face, rather than the piano.

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[Frankly, I have never heard such a simple but profound song. This piece reminds me of my dear wife. She used to play the piano, but it's been more than a few years since her passing. I'm very sure she would have loved to listen to and play this piece!]

2K likes, 23 replies.

[this song reminds me of my wife]

782 likes, 15 replies.

Replies:

[bro u have an anime profile pic stfu]

[no need to be so rude]

[This song also makes me think of my nonexistent girlfriend…]

[Guys please watch my videos. Charlie is one of my biggest inspirations and this song inspired my newest released song!]

[bruh Stop posting that Under every comment]

[A masterpiece! Charlie never disappoints.]

3K likes, 13 replies.

Replies:

[omg i love ur videos hi]

[here before 1k likes in the comment]

[I also love this piece :)]

[This is the only thing I've been listening to for days… I can't believe I just recently learned about your music.]

200 likes.

[Sometimes, a song wihout lyrics hits harder an deeper than one with words…]

2K likes, 30 replies.

[since everyone in the comment section has turned into poets I will submit my poem too:

Roses are Red

Violets are Blue

There's always an Asian

Better than you]

988 likes, 1 reply.

[im learning thi song right now :)) im at the 1st minute]

[It wasn't easy at the beginning but after months and years of practice and lots of hard-working...I watched this and decided to finally sell my piano and start playing piano tiles]

3.2K likes, 121 replies.

Replies:

[its actually not that hard]

[ok upload a cover then bozo]

[Pay me and I might do it]

[lmao didnt u say it wasnt that hard? just upload a cover then bozo]

[*eating popcorn*]

[go to my channel i jus tuploaded it]

[holy shit he actually did]

[i take back all my previous words, you sir are amazing]

[Its not as good as Charlies but its good enough]

[lmfao thanks. yeah tbh what i meant was that its not hard to learn and thats not necessarily a bad thing… it is hard to play it as well as charlie did i won't deny that]

[This inspired me to finally buy the piano! Thank you, Charlie!]

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It was a dark afternoon. It was raining and the droplets crashing against my window were strangely but sweetly comforting.

In the past, I was pretty active and energetic about life. I won't deny that I used to be happier back then before I was cut off by my ex-girlfriend.

I wasn't very dependent on her, and although sad, I wasn't miserable. Still, it did hurt a lot to think of our two years strong relationship vanishing like that…

Watching streams became a relaxing hobby that distracted me from all else after isolating myself from everybody.

Smiling, I clicked on the familiar channel and waited along with a few thousand others, present in chat.

The stream had not yet started, but it had already been scheduled and tweeted out that there'd be some pretty fun games to watch today.

Ah, I almost forgot.

I smiled and began doing a few jumping jacks and slight hops in place.

It felt a little ridiculous doing this, but it was better this way. Charlie had seen that we were so many people every stream waiting in the chat for them to start. He jokingly mentioned that if we were just going to be waiting like that we could do something more productive.

I'd laughed then because I was guilty of waiting for the stream to start while doing nothing, but quickly decided it'd be a good habit to begin— better to be watching but active than sitting and lazing around…

After completing a hundred simple jumping jacks, I walked over back to the computer and in chat typed:

[Just did my 100 jumping jacks lol… Anyone else doing them?]

Usually, this would have been overridden by the constant sea of comments, but since the stream had not yet started and not enough people were here, I was able to see my comment properly.

Positive responses to my text appeared and brightened my day and I continued on becoming more active.

Suddenly, while sweating and panting, light piano music began trailing off from my computer speakers as a 5-minute pop-up appeared on my screen.

The number of viewers began rising exponentially and with it came the sea of texts in chat. I couldn't see small comments anymore, I only saw that the chat was filled with people proud to be a part of the notification squad.

In my heart, I swelled a little with pride at being one of the few who did not need to rely on notifications… Though it reasonably was not something to be proud of either way…

Familiar comment spam began filling the chat up.

[MAID COSTUME CHARLIEMAID COSTUME CHARLIEMAID COSTUME CHARLIEMAID COSTUME CHARLIEMAID COSTUME CHARLIEMAID COSTUME CHARLIEMAID COSTUME CHARLIE]

They were usual comments that would be seen with a frequency of at least every 20 seconds during a stream.

Since the time Charlie had mentioned wearing a cosplay, he had funnily pretended that nothing had ever happened once the mods chose for him to dress as a maid.

I did not understand the buzz or why people so desperately wanted to see him… as a maid.

Strange fans…

I quietly listened to the beautiful tune, an original of Charlie's. He'd change the tune every once in a while… It would most likely be next time that he'd change again.

I wiped off my sweat and slumped down on my chair.

Charlie made us promise to him to make the best effort to improve on ourselves. As silly as it sounds, it has evolved from his encouragement into a motivation to work hard and keep going. It wasn't really a promise to him, but a promise to ourselves, a promise to our future selves, and a promise to our younger selves.

Only I can dig myself out of this hole of self-isolation.

Only I can help myself.

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["Haha… thank you very much for including me today…"]

The director took the microphone away from Charlie. ["Haha, isn't he so polite? Today's honored guest is Charlie Yang. I'm sure everyone has already heard of him but he's a very nice person!"]

The young figure merely smiled and waved his hand at the camera.

This was the weekly video of the channel Little Critters Narrate.

I was always tired after work to come back home and read bedtime stories to my four-year-old daughter. In the past, it was something that I habitually did.

This became something sacred for my daughter and she habitually expected a bedtime story every night…

As a replacement, it was this channel that helped me with my troubles and produced good narration stories… even with small and very funny-looking acting.

Having to come back home from work to read was too exhausting, but this tablet ensured better narrators and a consistent upload…

I did not have to worry too much— apart from parental concern regarding the time my daughter spent on the iPad.

Today's apparent honored guest was dressed in a rabbit suit. He held a comical plushie carrot and had strange make-up on his face.

He looked pretty cute,—might be due to the makeup or the fact that this industry relies a lot on looks—, plus, older teenagers lowering their maturity to act friendly to children were always cute.

I wanted to have a son first so that he could be an older brother like that to my daughter, but it's also fine like this.

I fondly stared at my daughter's quiet face paying complete attention to the stranger as he happily walked around.

Finally, he reached his hand over to the side of his head and adjusted his ear microphone. It curved around to his lips and he opened them to reveal shiny pearly teeth.

["Once upon a time… there was a hare that bragged all day that they were the fastest…"] The boy had an endearing smile as he moved around.

"Mommy, it's not a rabbit, it's a hare."

Earlier, I had mentioned to my daughter that the teenager looked like a rabbit… Now here was the sassy cutie correcting me already.

I rubbed her head with a tired smile, "Yes honey, it's a hare."

She looked at me and smiled, seeing me agree, and turned her cute little face back to the screen.

These were the only moments of screen time she'd get… I couldn't let her get addicted like those other children always on the phone…

Sigh…

I plugged my earphones back into my ears and unlocked my phone to start playing this newly released piano album by my new favorite artist.

I closed my eyes in contentment and relaxed…

Ah, this is my favorite song on the album… It's called May Be. It is by… Charlie Yang.

Huh…

I turned to stare at the narrator of the story that my daughter watched very contently.

"What's his name again?" I muttered out loud to myself… I swear the names were at least a little similar...

"Little Critters Narrate!" Though she mistook my question for the channel's name, I did not bother correcting her.

I smiled and rubbed her head again.

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Happy holidays, and Happy New Year :).