Pitbabe S2, Chapter 15 pg5

 Pitbabe S2, Chapter 15 pg5

   North tilted his phone toward me. His screen showed an Instagram feed, with Charlie’s profile at the top of the story bar, marked with the symbol indicating he was currently live. For anyone else, this would be normal, but because it was Charlie, North and I exchanged stunned looks, like we’d just seen a dog give birth to eggs.

   For Charlie, posting a public photo was already a major event. Stories? He rarely posted them, and when he did, they were usually reposts from being tagged by others. If he posted something himself, it was almost always about Phii Babe. The remaining one or two percent might be about his racing schedule or sharing some academic post nobody cared about, but he’d share it anyway for his followers to scroll past.

   “What the hell?” I asked. North shook his head and tapped the circular profile picture of Charlie, which had changed from him in his racing gear to a plain black image.

   When we entered Charlie’s live, North and I grew even more confused. Of course, he wasn’t doing anything bizarre or inhuman—Charlie was just sitting with his chin propped on the table, staring silently at the screen, as if waiting for more viewers before he’d start talking. This wouldn’t be strange at all, except this was Charlie, who hated interacting with people online more than anything. And it wasn’t just that—something about him had changed.

   No… a lot of things.

   First, Charlie wasn’t wearing glasses. He almost never took them off in public before. He once said himself that he felt insecure showing his bare face to strangers without them. But today, he was exposing that insecurity on social media, with the viewer count now nearing ten thousand.

   Second, Charlie’s appearance had changed. Even though we could only see his upper half, it was glaringly obvious this wasn’t the Charlie everyone knew. He was wearing a pitch-black short-sleeved shirt, the top three buttons undone, revealing his upper chest in a way even we hadn’t seen before. Of course, only Phii Babe would’ve had the privilege of that view. On top of that, Charlie was wearing unfamiliar earrings—not the usual simple hoops or small studs, but silver hoops with thin dangling chains. As a lowly worker in the fashion world, my first thought was that they were cool. They suited his face and outfit perfectly. But they didn’t carry any trace of “Charlie” at all.

   Even Charlie’s hairstyle looked different. It wasn’t the cute, puppy-like style I remembered. I’m pretty sure he got a new haircut. It wasn’t much shorter, but the style had clearly changed. It was messy, like it hadn’t been styled at all, yet it looked unbelievably good. I’m no expert on specific haircut names, but if I had to describe the vibe, I’d say this hairstyle made Charlie look older, rougher, and less… nice.

   In summary, this was Charlie, but not Charlie. Yet, undeniably, it was Charlie.

   “Hello,” the new Charlie finally spoke. He leaned back in his chair, tilting his head to look at the screen with a faint smile. I know I’m repeating myself, but that smile wasn’t like Charlie’s at all. It wasn’t the simple, innocent smile—it was a smile that seemed to hold a billion meanings. His eyes were the same. They weren’t empty; the spark was still there, but not quite the same. If the old Charlie’s eyes were like a starry sky, this Charlie’s eyes were like the surface of water at night, rippling with moonlight. They were alive but cold. The longer you looked, the more you wondered how he did it.

   How did Charlie change this much?

   “This is my first time going live like this,” Charlie said in a calm voice. His tone was deep and low, like he wasn’t bothering to raise it to sound friendly anymore. This might be the one thing that didn’t feel like a change but more like a “return.” “I used to think I had nothing to say, so I didn’t bother. But now, there’s a lot I want to talk about, so I thought I’d give this a try.”

   North craned his neck to look outside the garage, as if he was about to call Phii Babe. But when he turned, he saw Phii Babe and Big Bro already huddled together, staring at their phone screens. No need to ask—they were obviously watching the same thing.

   Even seeing just his back, the murky aura of emotions swirling around Phii Babe was unmistakable. If I, just a friend, felt this confused seeing Charlie like this, how much more turmoil must Phii Babe, who knows every inch of that kid, be feeling? Just trying to imagine it made me so uneasy I didn’t dare dwell on it.

   I stared unblinkingly at Charlie’s face on my phone screen, searching for any flaw to prove this was an AI image, not the real Charlie. But no matter how hard I tried, the realism only hammered home that this was indeed Charlie—my real boyfriend.

   No, wait.

   Ex-boyfriend, I mean.

   The last time we talked (or rather, when Charlie did all the talking), I still felt he was the same. His warm tone, his gentle words. He said he missed me, unashamedly. I felt it and admitted I missed him too, because he made me believe we might find our way back to where we started. But seeing this Charlie now, that hope crumbled to dust.

   “Glasses?” Charlie raised an eyebrow slightly. He was probably reading the nonstop flood of comments. The viewer count was nearing fifteen thousand, clear proof of his popularity, which he’d never paid much attention to—until today. “I stopped wearing them. Honestly, I haven’t needed them for a while. I just kept them on because I wasn’t used to taking them off. But now, I think it’s time to try doing things I’m not used to.”

   Try doing things he’s not used to, huh?

   Is he talking to the audience or to me?

   “No, I didn’t get LASIK,” Charlie continued responding to comments, but the latest one he addressed made my heart lurch. I was terrified of what he might say next, yet part of me thought a kid like Charlie wouldn’t be that stupid. “I got a special sense, you know. Never told anyone, have I?”

   No.

   Is he actually this stupid?

   “I’m one of those with a sense too.”

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