Chapter 33

Lighthearted pop music was playing in the room.

"RIGHT!"

As I heard the command, I ducked, leaning to the left slightly.

"LEFT!"

The same movement, with the only difference being made that I ducked right.

"ONE-TWO!"

I made two fast punches towards the punch mitts.

"FRONT!"

As one of the punching mitts was coming straight at me, I leaned backward, barely avoiding the strike.

"BEEP! a loud siren stopped whatever was happening in the room.

"Fuuuh, Erlig, honestly, I doubt what I see every time I train you," Patrice exhaled. After throwing the mitts, he started rubbing his face, which sweated profusely, with a towel.

"Why?" I smiled as I took a towel of my own and wiped my face.

"You were training for less than two months. You were getting tired early as you started. And look at you now," Patrice sighed and shook his head as he looked at me. "Not only is your endurance abnormal, but you also get better at the frightening speed."

"A simple explanation, I'm a hard worker."

"What!? Hard worker? Stop joking!" Jessie went from the changing room after taking a shower. Her hair was wet, slicked back neatly. "If you were such a hard worker, you would stay here till the late evening. Honestly, I now think it was a mistake to take you into our team," she pouted.

"Hahaha, stop being jealous of my talent." I could only laugh at her, seeing her acting so girlish. When we sparred or trained, she would have this fervent concentrated face. She definitely didn't like to lose or slack off. Fighting was her biggest passion.

"You wanna go!?" she lifted her left eyebrow. The piercing she usually wore wasn't there because otherwise, it would disturb her training.

"Stop your quarrel already." Patrice intervened. "Jessie, can you please help me with cleaning up? Erlig, you should go and take a shower already." he scrunched his nose. "You smell."

I lifted up my arm, sniffed my armpit, and it was true. I was reeking of sweat.

"Why do you even do this? Everyone can smell you from afar, even from the shower room." Jessie said as she pinched her nose.

"Yes, yes." I went towards the men's changing room.

As I got naked in the changing room, my gaze stopped at my own figure in the mirror. It wasn't long ago since I started working out, yet my figure changed tremendously.

All the muscles that were previously bulging out now were much smaller. My overall physique now looks quite dense, if I can say it like that. I got leaner, and it looked like my body was carved from a solid piece of stone.

Also, my face changed from before as well. I had a scrawny physique in my previous life, and my face looked accordingly to my body. Narrow, with slightly sunken cheeks. Yet when I ended up in this body, it was slightly round. It didn't look fat or something like this. It was a plain face.

However, right now, I have much sharper features. I couldn't judge if I was handsome or not. The only thing that I could tell was that I liked myself in the mirror much more now. I started resembling myself from my previous life.

After taking a quick shower, I changed into my casual clothes that consisted of a simple sweater and jeans. I went out of the changing room carrying my bag.

"Hey, Erlig, what's up?"

"Training hard every day without exception? Hahahaha."

A few guys from the team joked.

"You all better train harder before I overtook you." I decided to throw a joke at them in return.

"Hey Bill, you heard him?"

"We should probably train as hard as him. That way, we would be able to maintain the distance."

"As well as slack off for a few years."

""Hahahahaha.""

Two guys continued joking as I walked towards Jessie and Patrice with my bag on my shoulder.

"What's up? Should I help with cleaning up?"

"Nah, we will let Bill and Johnny clean up." Patrice bared his pearl white teeth in a smile.

"I agree. They look too happy." Jessie nodded with a serious face.

"Wow, I thought I should be punished for being happy as well." I smiled as I winked at Patrice.

"You should…" Jessie thought for a second. "But they are happier than you."

"Just tell the truth that you can't take it when anyone jokes about your precious little brother," Patrice said as he walked towards the changing room.

"What!?"

I didn't want to hear them arguing, so I decided to retreat hastily.

"Anyway, I'm done for today, so I would like to go home."

"Eh? Wait, Erlig!"

"Can't hear you!" shouting this, I ran away from the laughing guys and fuming Jessie.

In a second, I was already out of the building walking towards the front gates. Plugging in my earphones, I chose to listen to pop songs to match my mood.

I felt great.

I couldn't help but rock my body to the beat slightly as I was walking. I probably attracted curious gazes, but I stopped caring about that.

While I was training my wrestling, I was basically sniffing or getting someone to sniff my crotch while wearing extremely tight-fitting shorts. It made me immune to dubious gazes.

"Hum-hum-hum."

Now that I think about it, back in middle school, "Or was it in high school?" I had a feeling similar to this.

I entered a new group, I was kind of getting along with them. However, I got tired of them pretty fast, and somehow I faded out of the group. I felt that my situation right now was almost the same.

'Brave and Bold.' They were almost like a school group, a group of people with similar interests, and naturally, a friendship would bloom between them.

The current of fate, which carried me like a log, stopped near them. And at least at the moment, I decided to stay here.

"If I combine all the time I spent with them, it would be almost a month, huh?" I looked at my bent fingers.

I saw a woman with a bold purple hairstyle passing by. The color of her hair reminded me of Violetta.

"Half a month, if I count after that incident, sigh." Even though I used her to relieve my urges a few times in the past weeks, remembering her made me gloomy.

Whatever.

The guys and even girls back at the team were all very kind to me. Some of them are cheeky, while others are kind of boring. I trained with them for not so long, yet they opened up to me easily. They didn't push me and respected my personal space back when I was too embarrassed.

While Patrice turned out to be a really great guy, just like Jessie said. I've never heard a single bad word from him. I would even doubt if a coach could be like him at some times. Usually, it's always scolding in novels or movies. So the trainee won't slack off.

The song I was listening to had a really catchy tune and chorus. I muttered a few words from the chorus. Trying to match the tune and the vocalist. As I was in a great mood, I didn't even notice that I was in front of my home.

"I'm home!" I took one earphone out and told, loudly, that I was back home. I didn't even notice how it became a habit. I've never done it in my previous life. But due to a whim of mine, I began to say it here.

"Erlig!?" Annie came from the kitchen, looking slightly flustered. "She looked at the clock hanging in the corridor. "You are early today. Did something happen?" She looked worried.

"It's the opposite, I have a great mood, so I decided to return earlier today." I beamed at her.

"Oh? O-okay." She gave me a troubled look.

"Is something the matter?"

Her flustered look turned into a bashful smile. "The food isn't ready yet. Ehehe."

I dropped my bag near my bed and started up my pc. I took my clothes that should've been washed up and took them over to the washing machine. On the way back to my room, I went to wash my face.

Finally, changing the clothes into my home wear, I let out a sigh.

"Let's see if there's anything new here." I started looking through my pc, and a messenger soon popped out.

There was a notification of a missed message from Jet.

"Let's look at what he wanted to say."

Soon after I broke up my 'friendship' with Joanne, I met with consequences.

Elle stormed to me with Jet, who was basically dragged by his collar and started arguing with me. She said how unacceptable the thing I did was and how I broke the heart of Joanne.

Long story short, I said goodbye to her as well.

Jet wanted to save the situation when we were left alone.

"Big guy, why did you do it? Was it because we didn't help you?"

"No, I've got another reason to do so."

He looked at me, expecting that I'd probably leave a way back for the friendship. His face brightened at that time.

"You should understand that she has feelings for me."

His smile was immediately washed away.

"And I can't return her feelings. The longer we keep this kind of relationship, the worse it will become. It will be strenuous for both of us. She would love this image of me, and any girl I could probably favor would be intimidated by her."

"Yeah, she's quite the beauty after all." Jet nodded, lamenting the fact that the quartet of a friend didn't last long.

"I've got advice from a certain person. If I ignore someone's feelings, I will make the person feel pain."

He nodded.

"You should understand it as well. There won't be a friendship if love is involved."

I remember his look at that time was really difficult to describe.

Was it because of Elle?

But after that day, my mood gradually improved as I interacted with the team. And Jet decided to stick with me to the end. He was really cherishing the friendship he made with the previous Erlig.

At the moment, I didn't have any intention to talk about the things he did. He was somewhat useful, and j wasn't the guy to throw all his worries at me.

"Everything is good?" was his message.

After answering him, I heard Annie calling me to eat.

After finishing a hearty lunch while talking with Annie about the training, I returned to my room.

I had a new message from Jet, "Should I give you the notes from the lectures?"

I should soon go to class to fill up my attendance list. It was a good idea to at least refresh my memories. A few minutes later, Jet mailed me the homework and the things we studied.

Quickly looking through this, I remembered most of it. When I was studying for the exams, a few parts were ingrained so deep into my brain that I would probably remember it until my death.

I was comparing the studying material with those that I had in my mind when my phone rang.

Switching my attention, I saw that it was Jessie.

"I'm listening," I answered the phone.

"You have a promotional exam tomorrow."

"Wha…"

"It's about time you go to our main training gym. You know that the one in the school is mainly for those who rest after their fights?"

"Ye-yes."

"We should transfer you into the main gym, but we won't do it just like that."

"…"

"It will be your last test. After this, you will be a part of our team. You should know that we treat each other like a family would. That's why we will have this last exam, or a ritual, use whatever word you like."

"And what is it?"

"You will have real sparring."

"But I've already sparred many times."

"Yeah, with those who go easy on you. Sparring between partners shouldn't be a full-force fight, yet you can't go too easy."

"And you were going easy on me?"

"We were," Jessie said after a few seconds' delay.

I was getting used to the team. But I think precisely because the branch gym wasn't as big. It was probably about time to get to know everyone better. But I still wasn't good at interacting with big crowds.

"Don't worry. Everything will be good. And the sparring will be with the guy from the friendly team."

"Sigh, I'm not worried about this."

"You are probably nervous about meeting with everyone, yes?"

"Yeah."

"They are all good people. You will become friends with them in no time."

Hearing her voice, which had so much confidence, yet was so soft, I involuntarily agreed with her.