16 Chapter 16
[Author Note: Extra-long chapter today! I hope you guys enjoy it.]
My sister texts me that she'll be done in around 20 minutes and has some quick things to do.
I reply with an OK and add a smiley sticker.
I stay on the phone and once noticing she sees the messages I turn the phone off.
"Hey guys, I'll be leaving in 20 minutes."
"Damn, already so quick to abandon Natsumi."
"Shut up Arlo."
We get back into the conversation and after a few minutes, I see my sister coming into the coffee shop with her friends out of the corner of my eye.
Hoh, so that's the extra twenty minutes of 'work' you were talking about.
I merely stare at her.
In her friend group, I notice the same girl we saw earlier in the morning who Arlo was cheering for.
Arlo slaps my back when he notices both our sisters are chatting together.
I see my sister reach into her pocket and she forages around searching something for a while.
Her eyes widen in shock and she whispers to her friends that she forgot to bring her wallet.
She looks to the side and mouths "Freaking Charlie."
Yeah, as if it's totally my fault that you forgot your wallet because I chased you around for a few minutes.
Arlo stares at me as if he won a competition of some kind over me and the rest are holding in their giggles.
I sigh and get up from my chair.
While Charlotte is looking down in disappointment at not having her money and probably cursing me in my mind, I walk towards her.
Her friends are now squinting at me weirdly and I ignore their faces.
"Charlotte."
"Ah. Yes? Oh, hi Charlie!"
She smiles at me, probably wanting to steal some money from me as if she hadn't cursed me just a few seconds ago.
Her friends glance between us with weird faces.
"Can I have sum money?"
"Yeah, what are you getting?"
Their faces widen in shock, probably thinking I'm her personal money ATM simp.
"Strawberry milkshake."
Huh, same as Natsumi.
She stares at me happily, knowing she's getting her strawberry milkshake.
"Don't forget your wallet at home again."
By now, her friends are in total shock. Probably thinking: 'They live together?!?!?!'
Yeah, no duh. We're siblings.
Charlotte pouts at me, "You were the one chasing me around and making me put down my things."
I stare at her with a lukewarm expression and she reciprocates.
I tap her nose and give her the money.
"Tell me when you're done."
Now, her friends completely stopped their weird staring after realizing we're siblings.
I hope she's not friends with idiots.
----------------
Arlo decided to tell his sister to sit next to our table.
Is this guy a siscon or something?
...
Half an hour later Charlotte gets up from her seat and tugs at my shirt from behind.
"Let's go home now."
"Natsumi, they're taking away your Charlie, what are you going to do?"
Dude. She's my sister. Why are you making this weird for everyone?
Natsumi facepalms.
Charlotte stares at me weirdly.
"You're dating Natsumi?"
"No."
How does she know her name? Do they know each other?
She looks at Natsumi,
"Are you dating Charlie?"
Natsumi glances at me with a smile that I recognize as her prank smile and I quickly yell out,
"No!"
"Yes."
"Charlie, you're a horrible liar."
...
"You two know each other?"
"We've seen each other sometimes," Natsumi affirms.
"Alright well, we're leaving now. Goodbye, everyone."
They all wave me goodbye.
Charlotte smiles the same Natsumi smile made,
"You're not going to hug your girlfriend one last time?"
I cough and Natsumi watches Charlotte with pride.
I wave everyone goodbye again and we leave.
...
At the metro…
"Charlie, don't date her."
"I know, we're just friends."
"She's rejected everyone before. There was one incident where a guy sang and won and then confessed to her in the talent show. He ran away with tears in his eyes."
"Dang, that's where you know her from?"
"Yeah, you don't remember? She also did the high school introduction at the beginning of the year."
She tapped me,
"I'm serious though, she's rejected seniors and juniors too."
"Seniors and Juniors? Even guys older? Damn, does she play them?"
Damn, my gym buddy is a playgirl. Huh, we're the playboy duo then? She's actually rejected people though, Charlie from Pangaea didn't…
Nevermind, he did. No wonder my friends call me a playboy.
Right around when Pangaea Charlie began developing his looks, his crush confessed to him and they began dating.
Through a combination of his fierce loyalty to our ex, his introverted personality, and horrible social awareness, he ruthlessly made girls cry without knowing why.
Damn, so that's why no one was friends with me. Everyone probably thought I was a jerk.
Fortunately, my friends did not judge me just from my past.
Well, many of them frivolously played with people's feelings before completely changing into calm people as well.
No one within the friend group played with each other though, which is probably because of their loyalty to each other.
"No, she's just pretty quiet and polite to others. They probably misunderstood her."
She continued, "I remember that some girls from your grades tried getting friendly with me because of you in the past. You've only ever caused me trouble, Charlie. Since I'm such a good sister, can you please order some food when we get home? I'm hungry."
...
I lock the door to our apartment.
"You didn't eat at school?"
I turn on the kitchen stove.
"Nope. I was too busy."
Taking out a pot I fill it up with water and add some salt in there.
"Don't forget to at least have a snack if you're busy, your stomach will be hurt."
"Okayyyy."
I place the pot on the stove and take out some garlic, parsley, and shrimp.
[Ding!]
[Culinary skill has gained 10 points.]
I cut up the garlic and parsley and leave them to the side.
After tossing a few shrimps into a bowl, I add the cut up garlic, some parmesan cheese, and olive oil and mix them.
[Ding!]
[Culinary skill has gained 10 points.]
"Charlie, are you cooking?"
"Yeah, you like pasta?"
I cast the pasta straws into the boiling water.
"Yeah, thank you."
I take out a pan and put olive oil on it.
Looking from the corner of my eye, Charlotte is pointing her phone at me.
"You sending it to Mom again?"
"Yup, and my Instagram story."
"What are you? Some Instagram celebrity now?"
She blushed, "Shut up. Don't put words in my mouth."
I slap a slice of butter onto the pan and the butter begins to sizzle.
[Ding!]
[Culinary skill has gained 10 points.]
"You want me to pose for your story?"
"Yeah, go ahead."
Allowing the butter to melt, I cook the shrimp on it and toss them back into another bowl.
[Ding!]
[Culinary skill has gained 10 points.]
I start making funny faces at her and she giggles while taking many pictures of them.
Straight into the pan, I add some parsley and a little chicken stock.
With the pasta now boiled, I carry it over to the pan and mix it with the parsley chicken stock.
[Ding!]
[Culinary skill has gained 10 points.]
"Charlie when did you learn to cook."
"Dunno, sometime in the past I did."
"Liar." She calls me out.
I add a little more cheese and let it cook for a little while. After tossing in the shrimp I take out a plate and mix the shrimp pasta.
[Ding!]
[Culinary skill has gained 100 points.]
[Culinary skill has gained a level! Congratulations host.]
I felt my cooking IQ raise a little bit and got a few more ideas on how to change the dish and add some more flavor to it.
Damn, what would happen if I grind this skill all the way to level 90? Would I be some Gordon Ramsay?
I serve the pasta onto a plate and deliver it to her with a fork.
Her eyes shine and she thanks me.
...
"Is there more?"
"No, are you not full yet?"
"Yes but I want to bring some to school tomorrow. Can you cook this again tomorrow morning for lunch at school?"
I consider it.
I can raise Culinary skill and Mom and Dad can be proud of their son. It doesn't take too long either.
It's a win-win situation.
"Maybe." I stand up and walk to my room,
"Can you wash the dishes? I've got something to do."
I close the door.
Well, first of all, I can get a little more friendly with the streamer guys, and then at the weekend, they'll be more than happy to have me play with them.
For now, I'll save up my 180 achievement points.
I look at the shop.
Hmm, there's not much I can get with just 180.
180?
I checked the number and it raised to 190.
A few seconds later it goes up to 194.
What?
I think the system's bugged?
Please tell me it is.
[Ding!]
[Host's piano performance is still deeply impacting other people even now! The System congratulates the Host!]
Oh, oh. This completely changes my plans.
I'll set up a youtube channel and post stream highlights there. It'll rack up so many achievement points.
I can upload piano performances. People will always go back to them even after watching it dozens of times.
I can compose songs, and people will come back to them as well.
Movies as well. People usually watch the same movie many times to experience the same feeling they had when they first watched it.
Books? People re-read their books after finishing them. Especially children.
This is exciting…
I plan for a little while on my next course of action.
Let's get started on making sure I get that spot on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday with the big names.
Hmm, I still haven't checked Reed's stream at all. I wouldn't be surprised if he's got many fans judging by the streamers he introduced me to.
Damn, he has 700K subs on Youtube and has even more followers on his streaming channel.
That's really impressive.
Curious about something else, I searched up the piece I played earlier today in the cafe shop. Surprisingly yet unsurprisingly, there are zero results.
I sigh and face the biggest dilemma I have ever had.
To plagiarize or not?
I could make pseudonyms and write the things I take under the person's name from back on Earth.
I hold my head and sigh.
It's not like Chopin or the famous musicians would still be alive at this time.
There's no Taylor Swift or Ed Sheeran here. There are no famous authors, writers, or their famous works.
If I do not put their works here, they'd probably never exist in this world.
Through that train of thought, I decided I'd be introducing the works into this world.
Now, should I completely go on with it and shamelessly say I created these works?
I hold my head. I'll think about this later.
I open up my computer and get on discord. They're the same people, again. And exactly nine again too.
I click on the voice chat.
They're all quiet. Playing Among Us again?
I mute myself in consideration for their game.
Reed sends me a message: [sup bro hop on my stream and watch how i kill these noobs]
Charlie: [hahaha okay]
This time, they're not playing Among us and are playing... Valorant?
I heard about it but I've never played it before. I searched it up and its developer is Riot Games. Does that mean League of Legends exists as well?
This is so inconsistent. How come some things exist yet some don't? Is there a pattern to it?
I sigh. Also, if they're not playing Among us how come they're quiet?
I tap the higher volume on the keyboard and hear them yelling at each other. Oh.
[Charlie: "Hey guys, how are you doing?"]
[bzoomster: "Hey Charlie. Pretty well, was your mic not working?"]
[Charlie: "Nope, I just forgot to turn on my volume and thought you guys were being quiet."]
[blacklily: "Pfffft, birds of the same feather flock together."]
They laughed.
[Charlie: "Haha. Is there some inside joke I'm not aware of?"]
[Rykun: "This happens to Redde and me very often."]
[Loafofbread: "Haha, it's not just very often. It's like every day."]
[Yvettel: "Haha. Well Charlie we're playing Valorant. Have you played it before? And I'm doing great, thanks."]
[Charlie: "No problem, and nope. What's it about?"]
[blacklily: "Such a noob, such a noob. You just shoot people."]
[Juliamn: "Lily, you haven't gotten a single kill out of these five rounds."]
[blacklily: "Shut up.."]
[bzoomster: "Basically there's two teams and 5 players in each of the two teams. Basically, one team has to plant this bomb called Spike."]
[Rykun: "Yeah and the other one has to defuse it. Even though the team that planted the bomb is dead, you still have to defuse the bomb. If you defuse the bomb even though the other team still has players you win.]
[Loafofbread: "Yup, and if there's no bomb planted and any of the other team wipes out the other, it's their win."]
[Redde: "There's also really cool abilities and stuff."]
[Rykun: "Finally decided to unmute yourself, Redde?"]
I download the Riot Games launcher which downloads rather quickly and then install the free Valorant from there.
[wipL: "You gonna play with us, Charlie?"]
[Charlie: "Yup, just let me download the game."]
[Poodlefluff: "Just saying, don't go to me for tips."]
[blacklily: "I'm really good you can ask me."]
I somehow doubted that.
[Rykun: "Yup, Lily's the best here."]
The internet is beautifully quick. I chose the name Charliey and quickly completed the tutorial.
[Author Note: If you've got name recommendations, please comment them in this paragraph. I was deciding between Charliye or Charliey. The y is his Yang surname. Please tell me which one you like more or any more ideas.]
[Charlie: "Tell me when you guys are done."]
[Yvettel: "Well, we're not even playing anymore since it's a 5v4 now. The other person randomly left and you joined a few minutes later."]
Was that my Luck at play? If it was, I am so sorry other streamer but it must be done.
[Rykun: "Yeah we're just going to leave the match."]
[Redde: "Wait! Let me and zoom finish this 1v1."]
[Yvettel: "Nobody cares about your sweaty tryhard 1v1 that's taken more than a minute already."]
We merely hear their keyboards clacking in response.
A few seconds later, Redde yells and bzoomster groans.
[Redde: "That's right, I'm top #1 Valorant player on the leaderboards."]
[blacklily: "You're almost as good as I am now but I can still wreck you easily."]
Reed began laughing his ass off at Lily's comment and the others too began laughing.
[blacklily: "You guys, it's not even that funny."]
They merely laughed at her even harder.
[blacklily: "Okay whatever. Charlie join the party!!!!!!!!"]
[Poodlefluff: "Pfft you haven't even friended Charlie yet."]
[Charlie: "Oh it's charlie and then a Y."]
[blacklily: "Charlie - y?"
I confirmed.
[blacklily: "Oke I sent it to you."]
I accepted her friend request and she added me to the party.
The game begins and as a noob, I have completely no clue what to do.
I'm in a random team with Reed, bzoomster, Juliamn, and Yvettel
[Author Note: I just realized I had written 10 streamer names so 11 people were playing all along in the Among Us chapter. Swabloon has temporarily been removed and will appear another day :(.
I hope you guys enjoyed the chapter. Thank you very much all once again for reading and don't forget to drop some power stones!]
