New Life: A Second Chance

Kyle winced upon the sudden grab of his arm. He could have easily avoided it, but as she wasn't a threat, he decided to bear with it.

Right now, they were in public so he wanted a low profile.

Still smiling gently at her, Kyle simply put her phone on the arm that was holding on to him for dear life, "Here, just take your phone back, please."

The girl shook her head, now using both hands to hold onto him, coming closer to stare at his face.

Kyle turned to look at the other girl pleadingly, his eyes gentle while he had a sad expression his face.

The girl saw how Kyle was really trying to hold back the pain and she saw how her friend was basically hanging onto Kyle's arm for dear life. She noted with dismay that her friend's grip appeared like claws as her hold created creases on his arm. It was only now that realised why Kyle had this slightly pained look on his face.

She quickly took the phone, while pinching her friend's waist to make her let go. She hissed in her ear, "Let go! You're hurting him. Stop embarrassing me like this!"

The girl seemed to have snapped out of her dazed look as she saw how she was gripping Kyle's arm and so she immediately let go. Kyle gave out a breath of relief and started rubbing that spot which had been grabbed.

The two girls bowed several times, apologizing profusely.

"I'm so sorry about that. We'll be going now," one of them said.

Kyle nodded in return and sat back on the chair, rubbing the arm that had been grabbed, his face in a slight grimace. The girls, upon seeing this, felt even more guilty and ran off quickly.

"They're gone," Xing Han said, his eyes not leaving the phone.

Kyle stopped rubbing his arm. It wasn't really painful but he needed them gone without answering the question or raising a ruckus. Playing the victim card was very useful in this situation.

Xing Han handed Kyle his phone, and the John Wick teaser trailer came on, "It was this."

Kyle took the phone and watched it.

His head went back a bit at the 'naked' scene and he silently cursed the people who came up with this teaser trailer.

[In a land, far far away, members of a certain production team, started sneezing at the same time]

"The fact that they could recognize you from that half-a-second-blurry face picture, says a lot you know," Xing Han said with a grin.

"Damn it," Kyle muttered, "This came out faster than I anticipated. I thought it would be next year, at least."

"Well, it's out now," Xing Han replied, "If they could figure out it's you, so can others."

"Heck, even though my name is in the credits under that video, there are so many other unknown names there as well. I'm not the only new character in the film!" Kyle complained, handing Xing Han back his phone.

"You underestimate the power of the fans," Xing Han said, "They must have googled every single name in there and put two-and-two together. Kyle R. Smith. I'm sure your internet presence is quite high so your name was probably the top hit for that."

"Damn it," Kyle cursed again, "Why do I suddenly feel that there's going to be a repeat of the valentine's day thing?"

"Of course it isn't," Xing Han said seriously, "It's going to be worse."

[Gah. Kay, is it possible to erase my name from being hit from any search list?] Kyle asked desperately. He thought he would be mentally prepared for this, but it turns out that he wasn't.

That V-Day had certainly created a fear in him that he couldn't quite get rid of.

Instead of an answer, Kyle heard Kay's laughter echoing in his mind.

[Kay, this isn't funny!] Kyle whined.

[Oh yes it is, dear brother. You thought increasing the security at the school was enough? You're out there, walking about freely ... so, yeah.]

[I can tell how much you feel for me, my dear sister]

[Hah. You reap what you sow, my dear brother] Kay said without sympathy.

[As for your question. Yes, of course, it is possible to do so. It'll take a lot of work but with my skills, not a problem]

[However] Kay warned [It's not a simple matter of just making you invisible online. Remember. You're famous. Youngest bouldering champion. Restu top scorer. Sakura Academy's idol. Spiderman Kyle. CEO Kyle. Need I go on?]

[It's not just hundreds, but it will be thousands - if not millions - of possible hits that your name would get that has to be considered. So, if your presence suddenly disappeared online, it would be too weird and that would cause a commotion] Kay explained.

Kyle sighed.

[Stop being a baby. Suck it up and learn to deal with the girls. When you have to go to promote the film, it's just going to get worse, oh my dear, dear brother]

Kyle cringed.

Yes, he knew full well that he was being a baby about this. Still, knowing it and having your own 'baby' sister - that you had been taking care of since you had been in the womb, scold you ... well, it made him feel a bit miffed.

Fine, so even an old soul can be reprimanded like a kid.

And deserved it.

Didn't mean he liked it.

While Kyle was wallowing in self-pity and despair, he felt his back being patted. He turned his head, to see a highly amused Xing Han looking at him.

"You're enjoying this, aren't you?" Kyle accused him.

Xing Han tried to give an appropriate sympathetic look, his mouth going downwards in an upside-down smile but it just looked like he was making fun of Kyle instead. Which he was, really.

Failing miserably to maintain that look, Xing Han laughed and said, "Of course. I live for these moments."

Kyle groaned.

✿ ✿ ✿ ✿

Turns out that while Kyle was happily having fun at Xing Han's house, the teaser trailer had caused quite a huge commotion. Everyone was wondering, "Who is this 'rival' of John Wick?"

There were a lot of theories and discussions.

It created a lot of hype that Chad, the producer and all the investors in the movie, was extremely happy about. The anticipation that a mere teaser trailer generated was gold for them.

There were discussions over the storyline, as a lot were scoffing over the fact that no one could beat John Wick. There were some that said 'John Wick is the past. The guy is the future'.

There were discussions on the mysterious new actor that was playing that young boy. Netizens did their best to dig out who this 'Kyle R. Smith' was but the name generated a lot of possible people. It wasn't a unique name like Keanu Reeves, you see.

Still, due to someone being extremely high profile lately, it was only to be expected that his name was the top of the search results. Thus, his IG received even more hits and fans, with it actually crashing when people were sending messages to ask if he as 'The One' in the trailer.

All of that, in a week.

Kyle had never thought, in his wildest dream, that the 'fan service' picture which he had done for Kay would have caused so many ... problems ... for him in the future.

As Kyle and Xing Han was still sitting peacefully at the airport lounge, the actions of two separate group of girls were soon going to make that peaceful state ... not so peaceful.

The first was actually made by the two girls that had approached Kyle at the airport. They took a picture of him secretly to post. It was his side profile,as he was looking at the phone, his face all serious.

They posted it, added the tags #Dreamboat #KyleSmith #JohnWick4? and location - Airport Dx

The second was by Rose and Jessica.

During Kyle's entire week there, they had taken a lot of pictures. For personal purposes, of course. So there they were, happily uploading his pictures (and unfortunately, there were some pictures that had Xing Han in it as well) onto their IG and Twitter accounts.

There were even two special comparison pictures that they had done of Kyle and the 'mysterious boy' in John Wick 4 teaser trailer. The picture on the left would be from the teaser trailer while the picture on the right would be of Kyle.

The first had the image of the 'mysterious guy' doing his training. The black and white picture of his back, lifting weights with one hand - next to a picture of Kyle's back, at the swimming pool, stretching.

The second was the infamous 'face' picture at the end of the teaser trailer - next to a close-up (but slightly blurry) picture of Kyle's face.

The similarities, though not perfect, was extremely convincing.

Tagging it #KyleSmith #JohnWick4? #hothothot didn't help either.

At the end of it, they put on a selfie of their sad faces with the caption, "Dream week over. He's now at the airport."

By itself, their post was damaging enough but along with the first group's post ... things were beginning to stir at Country Tz.

After all, Kyle was from Country Tz and they were beginning to feel rather proud of that. Proud, and excited.

While the rest of the world ... was beginning to take notice.

Yet, Kyle and Xing Han were two oblivious guys at the airport, waiting for their plane to be called.