|03| Staying Cool

LEWY

New day, and probably a better way to meet with my elder peers.

Our night sleep was like usual, with me squirming in my own bed space and not knowing that most of my limbs were on Nate the whole time. He sometimes complained about it. Well, it's much better to know that he's occupied with my sleeping habit than recognising my little guy popping up from time to time under the recesses of our blankets.

When it's morning, I took the liberty to do the laundry for him. What? So he wouldn't have to know why his briefs from last night was extra wet. You should know that, jeez. That strawberry smell came from the new fabric softener. Nice. So as he proposed, after having an awesome breakfast he made, we toured our way downtown by driving to the central park in Cacophony.

In these past two weeks, I sort of got the gist on why some of his football friends and female friends pointed out his unlikely attitude in general, given his influence and style in school. He uh, even though he's driving a red Mustang that Pops had bought for his sixteenth birthday, you would think he'd be a speed demon especially when the roads in Furore Point pretty much tempted drivers to do doughnut drifts (you know, a lot of lanes and not much vehicles flooding them on weekends).

Nope. Now imagine a jock dude driving like a soccer mum, in a sports car. Do it. Didn't know about you but it's not so easy for me, until I saw one myself right beside me. Pretty important discovery, if you asked me.

And here we were, at the park. I remembered Nate told me that we weren't all by ourselves here, some of the football dudes and cheer girls would come along and meet us, me specifically, for the ice breaking talk.

Well, Nate knew I felt uncomfortable with high schoolers sitting way above my social status. Even though I met them in every recess, I was only approaching them to see my brother and barely spoke more than a few words to the others. Only some simple greets and crazy kisses from the girls were exchanged between us.

Because much like the television tropes, they'd either be outright rude or may put up a cool façade as per tradition in your average high school, so I allowed my shallow head assuming that one way or the other. My only wildcard for guaranteed safety was Nate. I just realised that...

Sigh. So when Nate side-parked his car near the curb, we hopped out and jogged around the park using the manmade pathway. There was a relatively small amount of people doing their pastime stuff around here, but they're not enough to fully pull my attention away from Nate's humping ass in front of me. Also, I thought I might pass out soon. Because, without sugar, I was no athlete...5

I huffed, 'Oh man...Nate, wait up. Let me catch my breath for a minute.' Sweat filmed all over my body as I stooped to regain my energy, which only lasted for half a mile or even less. Yeah, that's not great for me, was it? Sigh.

Nate turned around and waltzed beside me. He continued skipping in one place while patting on my back, saying, 'Come on, Lewy, just a few more feet until we get to the waterfall zone. They should be there by now, waiting for us.'

'Bro...can't we just walk?' I whined.

Nate clicked his tongue, 'You'll never get better at exercising if you quit that easily. Why do you think Pops and I want you to join basketball?'

'Because I suck at physical education?'

'All the more reason for you to work harder on it.' He justified, but added some assurance once he saw my facial expression turning upside down, to which it lit up to a whole new level as he beamed, 'Don't be discouraged about it. You're not by yourself, because Mike and I will be there with you. That's right, we're on the basketball team too.'