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[ Bathroom. ]
He hasn't left the bathroom quite yet,
Cassius started wrapping the entire chemical disaster tightly into a crinkly plastic bag to trap the heat, so his hair could actually came out good and not shitty.
He gathered the loose edges of the thin white plastic, securing the handles into a tight, bunny-eared knot right under his chin.
Grandma style.
Once done, he stared at his reflection. With the bag puffed up around his scalp and the noxious fumes making his eyes water, he looked less like a lethal dude with twisted problems, and more like a deranged male nanny preparing for a rainstorm.
Still looked fresh even while looking like that, though. He tapped his phone screen with a damp knuckle and sighed.
Thirty minutes or so. That was when he had to take off the bag currently humping his head. Which only meant: He had time to kill.
'Montage time...' He let float around in his skull.
He grabbed the thumping JBL speaker and his pile of discarded, alley-grimed clothes, hauling them down the hall to dump into the laundry room hamper. From there, he padded into his own bedroom, slipping his bare feet into a pair of clean, black-and-white Adidas slides.
As he scanned his room with unbothered eyes, one could only say one thing about it.
Ordinary. Ordinary as fuck.
Like, normal, normal.
For a guy who practically radiated 'the fuck you lookin' at?' Aura, his personal space looked like it belonged to a remarkably average high schooler.
A meticulously organized rack of expensive sneakers, ranging from Jordan's and upwards, sat majestically by his room door.
A classic case of: Sneaker head movement.
Fun fact: Some of them were stolen. Either from him robbing teenage wannabe thugs, or being a little rebellious and bored, and just running out of footwear stores yelling 'Boonkgang~!' For the fuck of it.
He also hasn't been caught till this day. Impressive, huh? Those temptations were a roller-coaster of emotions. As long as he loved every bit of it, that was all that mattered to him.
(Note~ Yes, MC is a very rebellious person. More of that in future chapters.)
Elsewhere in his room, a cheap wooden desk, placed in the corner of his room, held an array of scattered pens and looseleaf paper, which was homework and art he wasn't planning on doing yet.
As for his room walls, ones thick with white paint, was a cool, collective mix of different posters of his favorite fighters:
Buakaw Banchamek. A legendary Muay Thai Fighter.
Rod Tang. Another legend Muay Thai Fighter.
Nate Diaz. One of his favorite fighters.
Prime Mike Tyson. A beast in the boxing scene.
Muhammad Ali. One of the kings of boxing.
Canelo Alvarez. Weaving Demon Himself.
Ben Whittaker. One of captain whitebeards crew members.
Allen Iverson. Father of the crossover.
Kobe Bryant. The goat of NBA.
Micheal Jordan. The king of NBA.
And many other formidable fighters from different sports and more other different sports that weren't fighting. Like, football, basketball, etc.
Unfortunately, Ah-Rin took down the beautiful women that were scattered on his walls. Leaving only what was seen as, 'boy things'.
A true pity. Cassius really liked looking at them while drifting off too sleep. But oh well. Good things must come to end, eventually.
As for the rest of his room, it was only his bed left. It was sitting squarely in the far end of the room, made and untouched, with the most beautiful drawings ever stuck just above where his headboard is.
For a greedy motherfucker, he really had childish, but classic taste. His bed was adorned with a painfully un-ironic, brightly colored Shrek blanket.
Mmhmm. Shrek. The famous ogre himself.
Not just him, though. There was donkey. Puss in boots. Princess Fiona. Pinocchio, etc, etc. With his pillow being one of the normal things there.
Poooof~!
Cassius spun a full one-eightie-degress, back-flopping onto the ogre's face, the plastic bag on his head crinkling violently against the mattress.
Once fully comfortable, he pulled out his phone, swiped past his lock screen lazily, and clicked the little camera icon at the bottom right.
The app was Instagram. One of most famous, and used apps in the whole world.
He waited for it load up, only taking a quick two seconds, before his timeline stared back at him.
Now, to the untrained eye, his page was catastrophically boring.
Someone out in the world, someone stalking his page, had most differently thought he was acting all mysterious and shit. Especially with how his account looked.
Zero posts. Zero stories and highlights.
[ Following: 1. ]
[ Followers: 1. ]
[ Friends: 1 ]
The only things that had life, added that his profile picture also simmered with a soul.
Both of those singular metrics belonged exclusively to Ah-Rin.
She was the only reason he even had social media apps.
But if you actually tapped the little heart icon at the top right corner, the reality of his digital footprint was vastly different.
His notification feed was a graveyard of unrequited thirst. Over a thousand pending follow requests. Seventie unread direct messages from total strangers --- girls, women, and dudes from different countries, and many more.
When he first seen the pile of notifications, he knew why the woman and girls followed or messaged him, he did not know why dudes did, though.
Was it because of his profile picture? Differently.
His profile picture was a verified thirst trap, captured in a moment of peak "I don't give a fuck." It was Cassius, obviously, his face sharp and high-definition, casually flipping a bold middle finger at the lens.
He was wearing a smirk that looked like it was designed specifically to ruin someone's life --- the kind of expression that promised a very thrilling, very 'life changing' mistake.
The quality was nothing but perfection. No grain, no blur, just crisp, lethal pixels that showed him.
Cassius stared at the "99+" red dot with the same enthusiasm one might reserve for a pile of laundry.
He ignored it. All of it.
The masses were, by his own definition, irrelevant. In his world, a flood of horny strangers and "inexperienced" girls didn't represent a life. They represented a nightmare of STDs, drama, and the kind of problems that won't go away with a "Block" button.
His only objective was seeing if the single person he actually cared about had left him a DM.
He opened Ah-Rin's chat. He shot back a quick, teasing reply to her last message she had sent almost an hour ago, but seeing the little green dot absent from her profile, he immediately lost interest and closed the app.
YouTube it was.
He navigated through all his apps, finding the red playbutton icon in two screen swipes.
He loaded it up.
Once loaded, he typed 'bare-knuckle street fights' into the search bar and started to get even more comfortable.
"Time to be a four eyes for about... five minutes? Maybe ten." Cassius muttered to the air, clicking on a video showing promise.
And just like that, the time ticked.
At some videos, Cassius, overwhelmed with that masculine energy, genuinely got hyped as he watched video after video, nodding in approval at well-timed liver hooks or a beautifully executed sprawl.
He'd even weave his own head at times, too absorbed in the watch to notice. He'd laugh at ridiculous moves that somehow landed. He'd repeatedly say, 'ouuuch~' at kicks that broke a body part.
But at other videos? He just physically cringed. He'll cringe at the sloppy footwork, the wide, telegraphed haymakers, the complete lack of spatial awareness, the 'openings' not taken.
It was embarrassing. Watching amateurs flail around with zero fundamental technique actually offended his muscle memory.
However, even as he mocked a sloppy brawl, he felt that familiar, begrudging respect. After all, It took a specific brand of stupidity --- or a very sturdy set of family jewels --- to step into those homemade rings knowing you were about to get your jaw fucked up.
He gave them credit for the grit, even if their technique was a reason to commit suicide.
But the vicarious thrill only went so far.
A restless, jittery energy began to claw at his being His legs felt heavy, then twitchy, then like they were vibrating out of his skin. Ten minutes. That was his limit. Ten minutes of lying still before his body started demanding he get the fuck up.
"Alrighty then..."
Cassius rolled off the Shrek blanket, landing into a pushup stance before hauling himself up.
He kicked off his slides, they clattered against the baseboard with a hollow, pathetic thud that echoed the general emptiness of his room.
He looked at his wall. It was a vast of nothingness. No posters unlike his other walls. Just straight drywall.
He dropped.
Palms slammed into the floor, catching his weight with a jarring familiarity. He swung his legs up, locking his body into a vertical line, barefoot kissing the wall.
One.
He lowered himself until his nose brushed the floor, then snapped back up.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Five.
Six.
Seven.
Eight.
Nine.
Ten.
By thw time he hit twenty six, there was a flicker in his deltoids. A tiny, nagging sensation that most people would call "the burn." To Cassius, the feeling was unnoticed.
Thirtie-four.
He hit thirtie-five and stayed there, suspended, staring at the dust bunnies migrating under his bed.
To someone like Cassius, with such a body like his, could go on and on for hours. He could probably do this until his hair started growing into the floorboards, and he still wouldn't feel like he'd actually done anything.
Meaning only one thing: This shit was pointless.
With a long sigh leaving his lips, he flipped back down, landing in a crouch that made not one sound.
The silence in the room was suddenly loud. Aggressively, so.
He had spent high-quality chocolate to buy this silence from Daemon and Hazel, and now that he had it, he hated it.
He needed noise. He needed problems, always problems. Or at the very least, someone to irritate.
Also, there was the matter of the betting pool. Ah-Rin was due for a total psychological collapse tomorrow, and if he didn't set the odds now, someone else would claim the "I told you so" rights. That was a tragedy he couldn't allow.
But first, the thirst he felt needed to be cleansed.
Leaving his room and moivng down the stairs and hallways, Cassius stalked into the kitchen, his footsteps heavy and deliberate.
His grandmother was far to focused on dinner that she did not see him come in.
Once infront of the fridge, he yanked the door open with enough force to rattle it like they were in a minor earthquake.
He grabbed the orange juice carton on the bottomshelf, flipped the cap, and tipped it back. The cold, acidic flavors of processed citrus hit his throat, causing him to savor the delicious taste.
He chugged and chugged until his lungs complained, then wiped a stray drop of pulp from his chin with the back of his hand. He shoved the carton back onto the shelf, now slightly lighter.
He kicked the fridge door shut before he wandered into the living room, bracing himself for the chaos he was going to commit.
Daemon and Hazel were merged into the sofa, a sea of gold chocolate wrappers surrounding them like the hoard of a very lazy dragon.
On the massive TV screen, a frantic mess of neon colors and rapid-fire building was currently happening.
"That guy is screwed," Hazel said, her voice flat but her eyes glued to the screen. "That guy is probably not even a guy, but a kid who is eight years old and about to have his entire experience end by a meme."
"Fully screwed. After all, Fresh is a pro player," Daemon agreed, leaning so far forward he was practically part of the coffee table. "Mrfreshasian is literally hunting that poor child."
"Aaaaah~! (BANG!!) Got em!"
"Yeeees, Fresh! Dance on that soft cock! Do it, Fresh! Show him who's son you are!"
"Language, Lannan!"
BANG~!!
"Noooooo! Where the hell did he come from!"
"MOTHERFUCKER!!"
"Hahaha..."
Cassius leaned against the doorframe, watching the vibrant, chaotic insanity of Fortnite flash across their faces.
The YouTuber, someone Cassius used to actually watch back on earth, was currently on screen screaming, accompanied by another YouTuber named "LazarBeam".
'Haaa~, they're still the same even in another world...'
Just watching the vibrant, chaotic colors of the game flash across the screen was enough to cure his creeping boredom.
The father of "Dumb-shit Science" and his son "Freshy boy" will always have that effect on him. Brings back some hilarious memories, too.
And also, Cassius got the golden chance to past down such peak gaming to his siblings, getting hooked instantly.
Without a grand announcement, he pushed off the doorframe and walked behind the couch, reached over Daemon's shoulder, and smoothly scooped the TV remote right out of the ten-year-old's hands. With his other hand, he snatched his white PS5 DualSense controller from the charging dock and tapped the middle button.
The YouTube app violently snapped shut, replaced by the sleek PlayStation dashboard.
"Hey!" Daemon squawked, spinning around, his chocolate-stained mouth dropping open in sheer outrage.
"Hostile takeover!" Hazel declared, immediately clutching her throw pillow like a riot shield. "We had an agreement, you idiot! Sixty minutes of peace! That was the deal!"
Cassius held up a single finger, silencing the rebellion with four simple words.
"You'll get a turn~."
The living room went silent almost immediately.
Daemon blinked, with Hazel lowering the pillow slightly.
"Wait. Really?" Daemon asked, his voice dripping with heavy, undisguised suspicion.
Which was fair. That sentence practically never exited Cassius's mouth. When he commandeered the console, he hogged it until the controller died or someone started crying.
"Yes, really," Cassius sighed, dropping his heavy frame onto the opposite end of the sofa, propping his slides up on the coffee table. "I actually need to talk to you two degenerates about a highly lucrative business opportunity anyway. But that can wait. Let's get some dubs first, shall we~?"
Navigating through his PS5, he booted up Fortnite, the loading screen ticking up slowly.
Once in the lobby, he pressed R1 all the way to his locker tab.
His locker was aggressively stacked with rare skins, gliders, pickaxes, and an emote wheel that cost more than a reliable Honda.
"Since I'm feeling generous," Cassius navigated through the skins. "Rock, paper, scissors. Winner picks my skin for the session."
The two kids didn't need to be told twice. They immediately squared up, aggressively throwing their hands down on the count of three.
"One, two, three!"
Hazel threw rock. Daemon threw paper.
Yes!" Daemon screamed, nearly falling off the couch as he pointed a sticky, chocolate-smeared finger at the screen. "The banana! Put on the giant banana skin!"
Cassius's thumb hovered over the 'Peely' icon. His head tilted sideways.
"Peely? Seriously, Daemon? Bro, look at this locker. I have knights. I have literal gods. OG skins, even. I have stuff people would sell a kidney for on eBay. And you want me to run around as a six-foot, neon-yellow stick of potassium?"
"You said winner picks," Daemon smirked, his eyes glinting with a truly wicked joy. "Wear the fruit, brother."
Cassius could only sigh with annoyance. "Fuck..."
He clicked 'Equip.' "If I get sniped from three hundred meters because I'm a glowing beacon of fruit, I'm superman punching you through a wall."
He stared at the yellow monstrosity on the screen. And for some odd reason, It reminded him of how he'd gotten the console in the first place --- a memory that always tasted better than the orange juice he'd just finished.
On a very boring, mundane Tuesday, he was out roaming, doing his usual routine, nothing mayjor.
Until it was.
He'd watched a local neighborhood dickhead decide it was a good idea to shove a elderly woman and her little granddaughter into a hedge just for existing in his path.
Very unnecessary.
The kid obviously never heard, "Respect your elders," ever in his miserable life before.
Cassius had watched the groceries spill. Observed a granny's helplessness and decided in that moment of observation, that the kid had too many nice things for someone with such a shit soul.
So what did our glamorous protagonist do? He followed the kid home. Not in a creepy, stalking way, he just followed lazily.
The guy walked like he owned the sidewalk, oblivious to the fact that someone was essentially auditing his life right behind him.
When the kid went inside, Cassius made his move. Without a knock or shout. He just kicked the front door in with the kind of casual force that suggested he was just checking if the hinges worked.
"Yoo~," Cassius had said, stepping over the splintered wood.
The kid had been mid-sandwich, his eyes bulging at the intruder. "What the...? Man, what the fuck! Get the fuck out of my house, dude!"
Cassius had looked around the room with an unbothered gaze, his hands stuffed into his pockets. "Nah, I'm good, thanks."
"W-what the fuck! I said out! Now! Else I'll fucking kill yo---?"
"Have fun trying, lol," Cassius interrupted. "However, if you move toward that phone or door, I'm going to make sure your knees never work the same way again. Now, pack up the PS5. The wires too. And those shoes, aswell. Those are mine now. And that. That to. Also..."
He'd walked out ten minutes later with the console, clothes, the shoes, and enough of the kid's money to buy three massive bags of groceries for the grandma and a teddy bear so big the granddaughter could barely carry it.
He ended up flipping one of the footwear boxes, hustling an inexperienced teenager for about $600 bucks.
(Note~ I have zero clue on how 'Won' money works, very hard to understand (cbf researching either) so no "1000WON" or whatever. Just straight USD.)
Back in the living room, Cassius adjusted his grip on the controller.
"Good times..." He muttered to himself.
He loaded up a Duos game, grabbed his wired headset from the coffee table, and plugged the jack directly into the bottom of the DualSense. He left the TV audio output on, preferring the heavy bass of the game to rattle the living room while he played.
The loading screen faded, dropping him directly onto Spawn Island amidst the chaotic gunfire and dancing avatars.
Cassius immediately checked the top left corner of the screen. His random fill duo was a default skin doing the basic dance right beside him, sporting the gamertag: xX_Lunagurl_Xx
Cassius leaned back, adjusting the mic close to his mouth. That username was a massive red flag. It was either a genuine teenage girl, or a forty-year-old dude named Greg pretending to be one for free loot.
Voice changer and all.
He pressed the push-to-talk button.
"Yoo~," Cassius drawled, letting his deep, smooth tone effortlessly bleed through the cheap plastic microphone. "Got a mic?"
For a second, there was nothing but the sound of digital pickaxes swing, builds being placed close by and shooting from the 96 other players in this match.
Then, the little speaker icon next to the name lit up.
"Um, yeah. I have one."
A girl's voice shook his eardrums. Soft, slightly hesitant, and echoing clearly out of the living room television speakers.
<><><><><><>
END.
( Cheak out the YouTubers mentioned:
LazarBeam.
Fresh.
Is their channel names for some peak gaming content. )