It was now 8:00 PM.

I went to the gym at 6:10 and ended my workout at 7:10. I originally planned to hang out with Natsumi for a few minutes but we ended up talking for around an hour or so.

"It's getting pretty late now. At what time do you usually eat dinner?"

"Hmm. At 8:30. We should probably get going now."

"Yup. Do you live close by?"

"Yeah, I walk. It's a few minutes to and from the gym."

"Oh, I'll accompany you then. I'm the reason why you stayed back so late anyway and it's pretty dangerous at night."

"Ah.. okay. It feels a little weird, no one's ever walked me home before."

We get up and walk side by side.

"Well, I'm your gym buddy now so you gotta get used to it."

She lightly laughed.

"Haha, whatever."

Walking her home, we converse for a while until we're a block away.

"Alright, we're here."

"Okay, I'll see you at school tomorrow weird girl."

"Yeah sure gym buddy."

I wave at her and turn around walking back towards home.

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I get back home in under 10 minutes and unlock the door with my keys. I hear footsteps and see my sister's face pop out after opening the door.

"Heyyy, I'm back home."

"Welcome back. Dad and Mom are cooking dinner now."

I smile.

"Okay."

I enter, close, and lock the door.

"Have you done your homework yet?"

"No, I can't get this one stupid math concept and it's so annoying."

I lightly chuckle.

"I'll take a look at it after showering."

She nodded and awkwardly stood there. It seemed she wanted to say something else.

"Thank you for the smoothie, it was really good."

In my past life, I was pretty close with my sister. However, Pangaea Me wasn't too close with her even though we spent more time together. I can't help but want to dote on her now since Pangaea Charlie was more of a roommate than a brother to her.

I smile at her, "I'm glad you enjoyed it."

Coming in, I greet both of my parents and head to the shower.

Taking off my sweaty clothes, I can't help but recall how Natsumi said I smelled weird. I mentally palm my face and promise myself never to forget to spray deodorant on myself before going to the gym.

I stare at myself in the mirror and there's still not much to see. I don't look as scrawny due to adjustments from the Great Body passive, but I'm still a stick.

I sigh and take a cold shower to stifle the swelling of my muscles.

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I head to my sister's room and knock at her door.

"Who is it?"

"Charlotte, it's me."

She tells me to come in and immediately am horrified at the state of her room.

I raise my brows at her, "Why are your clothes piling up around the whole place?"

She looked around the room and her face took a red tinge.

"I dunno."

"Let's first clean up your room. Having a nice and straight environment will help your mood."

Helping her with her homework and cleaning up her room with her is to ease myself into the brother position and stop our awkwardness.

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After cleaning, we get to the math homework.

"Argh, our teacher doesn't even bother to explain!"

She's loosened quite a lot now. She's still not acting as weird as she did in the past, though, which can only mean she still is not the most comfortable with me.

"Well, have you told him to slow down? Do you ask him questions?"

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She finishes up her work with a smile.

"Thank you so much, Charlie."

That's probably the first time she's received something from her brother.

"If you ever need help just tell me."

I smile at her and just in time, our parents call us from the kitchen to go eat.

"Alright, lets go have dinner."

We head to the dinner table and on the table, there are our rice bowls with Chinese style dishes.

They stare at me checking for my reaction.

"Wow, this looks great!" I switch from English to Cantonese and smile at them with a thumbs up.

I can see the excitement on their faces because I'm finally having dinner together with them after so long. They glance at each other and smile.

"Make sure to eat more. Look at you, you're too skinny."

I laugh as they pile food upon my plate.

"Okay, thank you very much."

We pick up our chopsticks and begin to eat in silence. It's been pretty long since we've last eaten together and they're probably overthinking what to say.

I take the initiative and signal to them that they should just say whatever's on their mind.

Their tense shoulders ease up and finally, the dinner table turns into a hearty environment fitting for a loving family.

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After finishing up dinner, I insist on washing the dishes to which they very reluctantly agreed to.

Taking off the apron I used to prevent splashing water on my shirt, I walk over to my dad sitting on the couch.

"So… You wanna play a game of chess dad?"

I clearly see how his eyes instantly light up.

In both my past life and in Pangaea, my dad loved to play Chess. I would often play with him back then and we had a very one-sided streak where he would tactically outsmart me every time.

This time though, with my 14 intelligence I don't plan on losing to him.

"I'd be delighted to."

My mother smiles warmly at our interaction while my sister just watches us as she scrolls through her phone.

We take out a standard chess set and we flip a coin to decide who'll be using white pieces. At first, he wanted to give me the white pieces considering it was my first time ever playing in this world, but my pride denied that.

Still, however, I got the white pieces.

Well, e4 was my favorite starting move before, so I'll go and do that.

I directly move the pawn in front of my king up two squares and tap my chess clock timer.

We each have a total of five minutes. I'm okay at Blitz Chess.

He counters with e5, placing his pawn right in front of mine.

We glance at each other and smile.

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I forgot how completely horrible my early game(opening moves, they basically more or less dictate the way you're going to play) is. I attempted to just develop my strong pieces and quickly castle my king. I did standard moves that were neither bad nor were extremely good.

He, however, was playing as if he had Stockfish in his head. [chess players will get]

"Have you played chess before?"

I smile at him and intentionally give an oblique answer.

"Maybe."

He got a positional advantage(in simpler terms, his pieces take more, and better spots) to which I balanced out at the later stages of midgame.

"Aren't you going a little too hard on a newbie player?"

"Hoh, you aren't fooling anyone son."

Unable to keep up with his numerous attacks on my structure, we delved into an intense endgame(basically the stage where there's not many pieces left and the board is more or less cleared.) with him having material advantage(more pieces).

We begin tapping our chess timer frantically running low on the timers.

He notices that I'm way lower on time and just spams (the real term is flagging) moves, not giving me a chance to think about what to do.

The clock beeps.

I ended up losing on time, taking too long to calculate my moves.

If I had more experience this end game would've ended differently...

We both look up at the same time and he smiles triumphantly at me.

"You did great Charlie. Just not enough to beat me."

"Argh! There's no way! Again!"

And so we played another game where it ended in a crushing defeat for me after he realized I was inexperienced in early-game.

"Again!"

My mom and my sister merely glanced at each other with a knowing smile.

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We ended up 3 - 0. I definitely am going to have to work on my chess theory if I want to have a chance at beating that chess enthusiast.

After the beatdown, we switched to card games. Sitting on the carpet in the living room, we stare at each other suspiciously.

"Uno." I calmly state while holding the one card I have behind me.

"+4," Charlotte says, smiling at Mom.

"+4," Mom smiles at Dad. Oh, please don't do this...

"+4." They all grin and start laughing at me.

"NOOOOOOOOOO."

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We played a Chinese card game called "Dou di zhu" or Landlord and I absolutely destroyed them. Why, I had luck on my side of course. I had the strongest sets of cards.

Why use skill and finesse when you can just overpower through everything?

We played five times, and needless to say, I won all five rounds.

The family was finally coming together and the one who was most awkward with me, Charlotte, promptly tossed away the restraints she had with me.

"CHARLIEEEEEE! WHY DO YOU KEEP ON WINNING?!"

I laughed my head off at her while my parents just watched us, amused.

Written: Sep 23

Thank you very much for reading and don't forget to share your thoughts! They matter to me.]