Chapter 20 || Friends, Apparently

Chapter 20: 20 || Friends, Apparently

After his supposed date with Ivy, Code returned to the locker room to change.

The moment he walked in, Caden noticed his bandaged hand.

"Code! Your hand!"

Before Code could even respond, Caden had already volunteered to sign it.

Apparently, the others thought it was a good idea too.

One by one, they stepped forward with pens and markers, writing their messages across the bandage.

Code simply stood there and watched.

Riven signed first, followed by Juro.

Huegene took his time.

He carefully wrote his signature across the bandage as if his name were worth millions.

Code stared at him.

Huegene admired his work. "Perfect."

Code said nothing.

Even during his part-time job, Lyra noticed the bandage.

She smiled before taking a red marker and adding her own message.

Afterward, the two of them sat at the reading table, quietly drawing on cards.

...

Later that night, Code returned to his room.

He was dressed in black pants and a green sleeveless shirt.

Sitting in his chair, he raised his bandaged hand and stared at it.

The white bandage was now covered with colorful messages, signatures, and drawings.

Most were short.

One, however, was noticeably longer than the rest.

Code read it.

«[These guys forced me into signing his hand. I don’t even know what to say. They can’t even take no for an answer. Wait, am I writing all my thoughts down? Wait! What am I supposed to write? Ahhh, god damn it.]

— Ashir»

Code stared at it for a few seconds.

Then he moved to the next one.

«[You should be careful when cooking, Code.]

— Juro»

«[Wish you a speedy recovery, bro.]

— Ken»

«[Get well soon, Code.]

— Ivy»

«[It would have been better if I could stitch this. Get better soon.]

— Ryan»

Caden had drawn a simple smiley face.

Huegene had done nothing but leave an elaborate signature.

Code looked at each message again.

For some reason, seeing all of them written across his hand felt strange.

Then—

Beep.

Code looked toward his phone on the table.

He picked it up.

A notification appeared.

«[You’ve been added to the group "The Grents."]»

Code clicked on it.

A new group chat opened.

Riven had already sent a message.

«[Is everyone present? Please like this message so I can be certain we are.]»

Almost immediately, thumbs-up emojis and hearts began appearing beneath the message.

Code added a ??.

Then Juro sent a message.

«[I have calculated the total amount of coins we’ll need to ascend to the fourth floor together. And that’s a sum of 2,500,000 Bronze coins.]»

A wave of shocked reactions flooded the chat.

Riven immediately replied.

«[Juro, you need to correct it. It’s 2,400,000 coins. Ben... isn’t with us anymore.]»

The chat went quiet for a moment.

Sad emojis appeared beneath Riven’s message.

«[Right. My mistake. ????]

— Juro»

«[Way to spoil the mood, Four Eyes. ????]

— Meira»

Juro responded with an angry emoji.

«[You all aren’t going to make it to that amount. It’s better if everyone just settled on their payment. As for me, I’m working alone.]

— Ashir»

«[Good luck with that then. Still, if ever you change your mind, you can join us.]

— Riven»

«[You wish.]

— Ashir»

«[So how about you, Huegene?]

— Riven»

«[Rankings and ratings mean nothing to me. You all can go ahead.]

— Huegene»

«[Great. That leaves us with 2,200,000 Bronze coins to worry about.]

— Juro»

Aria finally joined the conversation.

«[How do we store the coins then?]

— Aria»

«[I suggest each person saves it in their account. It’s for the best.]

— Riven»

Aria replied almost immediately.

«[Don’t be naive, Riven. I agree on teamwork, but you can’t trust everyone to keep their own share of coins. They’ll use them, no matter what we say. Even if we set limits, excuses will come up. "I was rated low, that’s why I have fewer stars," and so on.]

— Aria»

Sena was quick to respond.

«[Just when I started to think she wasn’t as bad as she portrayed herself.]

— Sena»

«[Agreed.]

— Catherine»

Both messages received several heart reactions.

Ivy then offered another idea.

«[Since we can’t save personally, let’s settle on someone to keep the coins.]

— Ivy»

«[We can still trust Riven to keep the money, right?]

— Yua»

Riven immediately rejected the suggestion.

«[No, Yua. I don’t think that’s a good idea. You all should choose someone else, and I’ll be in support of that person.]»

His message received several thumbs-up reactions.

Lily finally typed.

«[We can give it to Ivy.]»

Then Caden sent his suggestion.

«[What about Code?]»

The chat went silent.

No one typed anything.

Code stared at the screen.

Caden...

He didn’t type a response.

A few seconds passed.

Then—

«[Seriously? Is that the best person you could think of?]

— Sena»

«[Code does nothing but sleep all the time. I wouldn’t be shocked if he eventually uses all our savings while sleepwalking.]

— Meira»

«[Whoever is with Caden should please give him a knock on the head. ??]

— Torin»

«[I wish I was there. I would have done it myself.]

— Ken»

«[Hey. I was just giving my opinion.]

— Caden»

«[Your opinion sucks, Caden. Keep it to yourself next time.]

— Meira»

Code sighed.

I’m glad that went well.

Juro returned the conversation to the original topic.

«[Who do we choose then?]»

Aria answered.

«[The ARCS.]»

Question marks immediately appeared.

So did a few confused emojis.

«[What do you mean by the ARCS, Aria?]

— Riven»

«[Since the ARCS are the ones responsible for paying us and also the conversion of our ratings to coins, we can simply open an account with them and deposit our savings in that account.]

— Aria»

«[But is that possible? Will they even agree to it?]

— Riven»

«[I don’t know, but we can find out from Miss 11 tomorrow.]

— Aria»

«[Right. We’ll do that tomorrow.]

— Riven»

The conversation went quiet for a moment.

Then Huegene appeared again.

«[No one has heard from the shut-in yet. I expected him to have at least contributed like he did the last time. I hope he hasn’t died somewhere.]

— Huegene»

A few seconds later, Ethan finally responded.

«[I’m alive, Huegene. I’m alive. I’m. Alive. You hear me? So go to hell.]

— Ethan»

Huegene wasn’t finished.

«[The Four Eyes should make an adjustment to the calculations from earlier. We might have a dead one among us soon. Shut-ins don’t live long. They end up dying in a corner in weird circumstances.]»

«[No one is dying, Huegene. We’re all healthy and are going to live long lives.]

— Riven»

«[You should probably check on the shut-in before making that statement. He must have locked himself in his room. It won’t be long before we hear about his death.]

— Huegene»

Meira immediately joined in.

«[Who added this jerk to the group? ????]»

Her message quickly received several heart reactions and thumbs-ups.

«[That would be me.]

— Juro»

«[Remove him.]

— Meira»

«[This isn’t your castle, Princess. You can’t control what you don’t own.]

— Huegene»

Ethan appeared again.

«[Huegene... What wrong did I do to you? Tell me so I can apologize. Because all I did was correct you and since then...]»

Torin couldn’t resist.

«[Look what you did, Huegene. You made the poor guy cry. ??]»

«[Yeah.]

— Caden»

«[I wasn’t crying, Torin.]

— Ethan»

«[??????]

— Ken»

«[Oh? I thought you were. Sorry. ??]

— Torin»

Juro finally tried to restore order.

«[Guys, this was supposed to be a group where we talk about our academics and plans for the future. Not just some random chat. Please behave.]»

Meira immediately fired back.

«[Shut up, Four Eyes. You were the one who added that jerk here in the first place.]»

«[Honestly, who even made Four Eyes in charge?]

— Sena»

Juro’s patience was clearly running thin.

«[Look, if you want to insult each other and do as you please, why not do it somewhere else? Create another group like I did and spare the rest of us from this... whatever it is.]»

Neela suddenly replied.

«[Done. ?]»

Juro stared at the message.

«[Done what?]»

«[I created a new group chat.]

— Neela»

«[Wait. What?!]

— Juro»

«[I already got an invite.]

— Sena»

«[Same here. Bye, Four Eyes. And Neela, make sure to invite Huegene also. We aren’t done with him yet.]

— Meira»

«[Okay.]

— Neela»

«[I also need an invite as well. ??]

— Kira»

«[????]

— Catherine»

Code dropped his phone onto the table.

Finally.

He left it there and walked into the kitchen.

A moment later, he returned with a can of water.

He sat down, took a few sips, closed the lid, and placed the can on the table.

Beep!

Code picked up his phone again.

Another notification appeared.

«[You’ve been added to the group "Huegene Haters ????".]»

Code sighed.

They should have just left me out of it.

Before he could put his phone down—

Beep!

«[You’ve been added to the group "Bro’s For Life".]»

Code stared at the name.

"Bro’s?"

He clicked on it.

The chat opened.

«[Hey guys ????]

— Torin»

«[What’s with the cringe name?]

— Ken»

«[Why don’t you come up with a good one, genius?]

— Torin»

«[I will right after I have a good night’s rest.]

— Ken»

Caden appeared.

«[Why don’t we call it something cool like CKTC... Or is it TKCC... No. CCTK?]»

Torin immediately responded.

«[You’re just picking the first letters of our names and combining them. How’s that cool?]»

«[Yeah. Shut up, Caden.]

— Ken»

Caden ignored them.

«[Anyone heard from Code?]»

«[No, not at all.]

— Torin»

«[Could he be sleeping?]

— Ken»

«[Hey Code, are you awake?]

— Caden»

«[Dummy. If he is sleeping, do you expect him to simply wake up just to answer your question?]

— Torin»

«[It’s past your bedtime already. Go to bed, Caden.]

— Ken»

Torin changed the subject.

«[Code. How’s your hand feeling? Are you okay?]»

«[Now who’s the dummy?]

— Caden»

«[You are. Go to bed.]

— Ken»

Code stared at the screen for a moment.

Then his fingers moved across the keyboard.

«[Yes... I’m fine.]

— Code»

Code lay down on his bed, holding his phone above his face.

Another message appeared.

«[Good. He’s here.]

— Caden»

«[What happened? You didn’t say anything in the class group. Caden even selected you to be in charge of the class’s savings.]

— Torin»

«[I was asleep. I woke up to get water when I saw the chats.]

— Code»

«[You sleep a lot, Code. Try to stay up late at least.]

— Ken»

Then Caden returned to his favorite topic.

«[Okay guys, what about CAT or KAT?]»

Torin replied almost immediately.

«[What’s the difference? And Ken’s name is missing from the first, and you and Code’s name are missing from the second.]»

«[Stop coming up with silly names. Leave it to the experts.]

— Ken»

«[There is a difference in the first name. I simply combined Code and my name. Ken’s name can be left out for rhyming sake. You all are just hating.]

— Caden»

«[??????]

— Ken»

Torin gave up.

«[You know what, forget it. We’ll figure out the naming thing some other time.]»

A moment later—

«[I think Code has fallen asleep again. ??]

— Caden»

Code looked at the screen.

«[I’m awake.]»

«[Alright then. Why don’t we spend the night talking about Caden’s hygiene? And Code, don’t fall asleep.]

— Torin»

«[????]

— Ken»

Code stared at the messages for a moment.

Then he replied.

«[Sure.]»

He placed his phone beside him.

For someone who had spent the entire day trying to avoid getting involved with anything...

Code was somehow ending the night in three different group chats.

And he had no idea how that happened.