Rewind With A Superstar System

Chapter 182: Rehearsal

<🎧 Song Recommendation: Friends Don’t by Alexander Stewart, Lauren Spencer Smith>

...

Von felt a gentle touch on his face and immediately turned to see Chloe smiling at him. "Oh, you’re back?"

"Yup, I am," Chloe said with a bright smile. She raised her hands to show him what she had found. "I just went to get some papers. You’ll need it for the scene. I couldn’t find a bag unfortunately."

"Oh cool," Von muttered. He took the papers from her and handed her the expensive phone back. "I’m done with the script by the way."

Chloe looked at him like a mad man. "Huh? That’s not possible!"

She stared at him in disbelief. She had only been gone for a few minutes. There was no way a normal person could memorize the scene that quickly.

Von just shrugged his shoulders. "Well, it is now. When do we start?"

Chloe found him really strange, but it only made her admire him the more. She let out a small breath.

"Okay. If you say you’re ready, then let’s get started."

They walked to the middle of the hallway, which was where the scene was going to play out.

As they moved into position, Von thought about the script he had just read. When Von was reading it, he found this scene really interesting because it was going to decide a lot in the dynamic between Camila and Aiden. It was the breaking point where everything changed.

After they reached the position, they immediately got into acting on Chloe’s signal.

At that moment, she began walking in his opposite direction, putting some distance between them to start the sequence.

Von activated the basic [Emote] then and got into character. It only allowed him to project an emotion he wasn’t really feeling, and this time, it was mild happiness. His posture relaxed, and a gentle smile formed on his face.

***

"Hey, Camila!" Aiden called up to the blonde girl walking just ahead of him while waving his hands slightly to draw her attention.

He used a low voice to call her name so as not to attract the attention of the other people currently in the hallway, but it was more than enough to make her turn in his direction.

Camila stopped in her tracks and turned to his approaching figure with a really wide smile.

"Aiden!" She pulled him into a slight friendly hug while smiling at him. "I was even looking for you. The essay is due this morning, were you able to complete it?"

She asked the latter question with a pleading look on her face that was difficult to resist. She looked completely innocent, like she hadn’t just forced him to do her work.

"Oh, about that... I’ve told you I felt ill during the weekend. I wasn’t able to do it," Aiden said.

He sounded completely different from how he usually would talk. He was usually quiet and reserved, but right now it felt like nonchalance.

But Camila saw it exactly as that, and she didn’t find it funny. Her innocent expression vanished in a second.

"How could you, Aiden? I trusted you. Why did you accept originally if you knew you were going to disappoint me? Now everything is ruined, all because of you!"

Camila had a really annoyed expression while saying that, and she raised her voice too, but it wasn’t loud enough for others to notice them.

"Calm down, Camila," Aiden held her shoulders and said with his calm face.

"It’s your fault, too. I told you two days ago that I fell ill and couldn’t do it, but you pleaded I should try anyway. And I also told you not to have your hopes high, so why didn’t you do it just in case?"

"Don’t touch me!" Camila whispered in anger at Aiden, pulling his hand off her shoulders with a furious expression.

"You can’t even do one thing right. We’re no longer friends, Aiden. Bye, it’s over between us."

She had a saddened look on her face as she walked off further ahead. For some seconds she kept walking, contemplating what to do regarding the assignment when she felt a firm hand grab her shoulders. Turning around, Camila saw Aiden looking down at her.

"I told you to not—"

"Keep quiet, Camila," Aiden used his index finger to seal her lips, making her look really small against his figure. This time he had a really angry expression on his face.

"Friends? Really? What sort of friend takes advantage of the one person that has their back? What kind of friend ignores your condition just so they can get what they want?"

"Real friendship isn’t a one-way street you can walk all over whenever it suits you. It’s trust. It’s loyalty. It’s caring even when there’s nothing for you to gain. But you wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?"

At that point, Camila was already shivering hearing Aiden’s tone. The (students) in the hallway were already focused on the two of them, but ignoring everything, Aiden dropped the final bomb.

"We were never friends, Camila."

He pulled the stack of papers that he was holding behind him and dropped them onto the space between them.

"Take your shitty homework. I regret every second I wasted doing this for you. Consider it my final favor. I’m done."

Aiden walked away furiously, and he kept walking down the corridor for some more seconds before he stopped in his tracks.

***

"You still standing there? Weren’t you meant to follow me?" Von asked with a light face-palm and a chuckle, seeing Chloe still rooted to the spot as Camila.

Even though he didn’t use [Immersion] to become Aiden, portraying all emotions of him was more than enough to play it perfectly. And Von had to admit that he felt a bit of those emotions.

Chloe snapped out of her daze. She ran up to him and said, "I’m sorry. I can’t believe I’m the one who messed up in the end."

She had some real tears in her eyes that made Von feel bad immediately for calling her out. Her emotional investment in the scene was really intense.