Infinite Cashback System

Chapter 331: 331 | Athletic Silk [CASTLE BONUS]

Kyle looked at Leo’s outfit. Then at Jordan. Then back at Leo.

"Did you actually bring gym clothes this time?"

Leo opened his bag and produced a pair of basketball shorts that still had the tags attached. "Brand new. Just bought them."

"They’re silk."

"They’re athletic silk. The guy at Nordstrom said athletes wear silk."

"The guy at Nordstrom lied to you."

Leo changed in the corner with the aggrieved dignity of someone who genuinely believed a hundred-dollar pair of silk basketball shorts represented appropriate boxing attire. When he emerged, the shorts hung past his knees and the waistband kept sliding down because silk has no friction and Leo’s hips were shaped like a bell curve in the wrong direction.

Jordan wrapped Leo’s hands for him while Kyle went to check the class schedule. Leo held still with uncharacteristic patience, watching Jordan’s fingers loop the cotton between his knuckles.

"So," Leo said. "How’d the thing go."

"What thing."

"The Eliza thing. The study session. The strategic indifference campaign. Whatever we’re calling it."

Jordan tucked the wrap under Leo’s thumb and started on the right hand. "I sat across the table, we worked on the outline for forty minutes, she tried to get me to look at her legs approximately fourteen times, and I left before she could start a conversation about feelings."

Leo processed this with the same face he made when calculating restaurant tips. "Did it work?"

"Forty-seven percent."

"Is that good?"

"It means she spent the weekend looking at my Instagram and asking people about my relationship status instead of spending time with her actual boyfriend."

Leo whistled, low and impressed. "Bro. That’s... that’s kind of dark."

Jordan finished the second wrap and tested the tension by having Leo make a fist. The wrap held. Leo’s form was terrible and the fist looked like a confused crab, but the wrap held.

"It’s not dark. She chose this." Jordan stood and collected the extra cotton. "She had two months to treat me like a person. She chose to take my money and let Cameron feel her up in a parking lot while I watched. The System didn’t make her do any of that."

"Yeah, but you’re like... weaponizing being hot."

"I’m being myself. The fact that being myself is now devastating to her is a consequence she built."

Leo considered this for a long moment, his silk shorts rustling as he shifted his weight.

"Okay. That’s fair. But also, like, can you teach me how to do that to Maya?"

"Maya would kill you."

"I know. But like, can you teach me how to do it anyway so I die looking cool?"

Kyle returned and saved Jordan from having to explain that no amount of strategic indifference would work on a woman who could snap Leo’s arm in three places without breaking a sweat. The beginner session ran for forty-five minutes, during which Leo lasted twelve minutes before claiming his silk shorts gave him a rash and sitting out to watch Maya demonstrate combinations with a focus so intense he forgot to blink for thirty straight seconds.

Jordan showered at the gym, dressed in clean clothes from his bag, and checked his phone in the parking lot at 5:14 PM. Eliza’s message still sat unanswered in his notifications. Below it, Chloe had sent a single line.

Chloe: How did it go.

No question mark. Chloe didn’t ask questions she might not want answered. She made statements that required responses.

Jordan: 47. Left first. She texted at 3:04.

Chloe: Did you respond.

Jordan: No.

Chloe: Good boy.

Jordan stared at those two words for a full five seconds, aware that his pulse had spiked in a way that had nothing to do with cardio and everything to do with the fact that Chloe Kim could reduce him to a puddle with two syllables and a period. He pocketed the phone and drove home.

The Cooper Garment Lofts parking structure was half-full when he pulled in at 5:38, the Honda’s headlights sweeping across concrete pillars. Kumiko’s white Civic sat in its new permanent spot three spaces from his, decorated with a small pink bow on the antenna that she had added sometime between this morning and now. Jordan took the elevator to four and walked down the hall, where the door to Unit 403 stood open and the sound of Kumiko’s voice carried through the doorway in a continuous stream of consciousness that had probably been running since dawn.

"...and the lighting in the closet is really good for filming but the angle is wrong for streaming because the ring light creates a double shadow on the far wall which Kumi-chat will notice because they notice EVERYTHING, so I’m thinking we move the desk two feet left and rotate the camera fifteen degrees which means the poster goes on the other wall but then the Miku figure would face the corner and she’d be SAD, Jordan-kun, she’d be looking at a wall and that’s basically punishment for a crime she didn’t commit..."

Jordan leaned against the doorframe. Kumiko knelt in the center of what used to be Chloe’s bedroom, surrounded by eleven cardboard boxes in varying states of assembly, a roll of packing tape stuck to her left knee, and approximately sixty-three loose keychains scattered across the floor like a colorful minefield. She wore his gray henley over pink shorts, her twin tails secured with lavender ribbons that matched her socks. The henley’s neckline gaped wide enough to show her collarbone and the faded marks Jordan had left there, still visible beneath a layer of concealer that was fighting a losing battle.

Chloe sat cross-legged on the bare mattress frame, laptop open, reviewing what appeared to be a lease transfer document while simultaneously annotating Kumiko’s monologue with corrections.

"Fifteen degrees will put glare on the monitor. Try twelve."

"Twelve is a weird number."

"Twelve works."

"But fifteen is divisible by five and five is a nice number."

"Math doesn’t care about your feelings, Kumi."

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