Chapter 189: Another Meeting
"So, are we going to Master Irfan’s house or what?" Claudia asked, yet not even turning her eyes away from her phone. "The others should’ve already been there. What is it that you want to ask, anyway?" This time, she put her phone on the table, meeting Sheva’s eyes directly with a questioning gaze.
Yeah, the meeting here was not for the training. Last night, Sheva suddenly asked in the group chat—yeah, they had one for the Olympiad team—for some advice. However, the boy was tight-lipped, not even wanting to spill anything before he met with the others. Of course, this only made the girl more curious.
"Eh, just be patient, will you?" Sheva smirked mischievously. "I swear, it is not something pointless."
"Well, you better be, or you will waste our precious time here." Claudia crossed her arms in front of her chest haughtily, giving the boy a stinky eye for refusing to answer her question. Then, her phone was buzzing, and after the girl checked it out, she rose from her seat immediately. "Well, Big Sis meets Master Irfan accidentally on her way here, so they would go to Master Irfan’s house immediately. Let’s go there too."
Sheva nodded, following Claudia behind. Indeed, after he chatted about wanting to ask for advice, Master Irfan said that he would only be available at 15:00 since the man had to pick up his daughters first. That was why Sheva, Anna, and Claudia decided to meet here first. But since Irfan was already back home, there was no reason to delay the meeting, and that was why Sheva didn’t complain when Claudia led him around like this.
As they arrived at the man’s house, the two teenagers had already found several people waiting in front of the gate. There, Medina, Novendra, Bagas, and Sarah were chatting casually. Yeah, even Bagas and Sarah, the two couples, were there, and somehow, they blended into the crowd pretty well.
Irfan invited those two to be a part of the PR team, clearly believing that the success of the BlackRook YouTube channel couldn’t be separated from them, and it also included Sarah. Even though the girl only appeared in the Jakarta International Festival, her popularity as a game streamer managed to attract a lot of new viewers to the community, so Irfan wanted to repeat the success on a higher stage, in the Olympiad, by recruiting the popular girl as a part of the team again.
"Shev! You are here!" It was Sarah who noticed Sheva first, as she waved at him loudly, attracting the others’ attention. "You are with Claudia, too! Where is Anna, by the way?" She couldn’t help but ask.
"Big Sis is coming together with Master Irfan. Just wait patiently." Claudia answered shortly.
Meanwhile, Sheva didn’t forget to greet the others here. Even though their first meeting was pretty hostile, since Medina and Novendra changed their attitude, Sheva had no reason to maintain the bad animosity between them. He also tried his best to avoid Bagas, who seemed not to care about the surroundings, completely engrossed in the food that the boy brought. The disgusting scene was enough to make Sheva think twice about getting associated with him.
"Anyway, where is Master Irfan?" Medina clicked her tongue, showing her dissatisfaction. She also wiped the sweat on her forehead; the hot temperature this afternoon was enough to drain her patience. "I swear, if he wasn’t here in five minutes, I’ll—"
"—You’ll, what, Med?" Suddenly, the voice that everyone had been waiting for arrived. All of them turned around, just to find out Irfan was there, followed by Anna and another familiar boy who was of Sheva’s age. They all came here with a box of lunches for them all. Then, the man who led them all smirked at Medina, whose face flushed red in embarrassment, and he couldn’t help but tease the woman. "So, you don’t want this lunch box, huh? Oh, well, fine... Shev, do you want to get her portion?"
Sheva coughed hard when his name was mentioned, and before he could even react, the chill glare from the woman was enough to shut him up. The other men there could only give him a pitying gaze, knowing that Irfan just wanted to pit those two against each other for fun.
Seeing that the atmosphere there turned awkward, Irfan finally decided to stop the fun here and said again, "Okay, why are you all standing here? Come on, let’s go inside!" He invited them all immediately, not even looking guilty after what he had done.
Then, one by one, everyone walked inside. However, before Sheva could do so, the boy who was with Anna gave him a pitying look before saying, "My condolences. It seems you really are on Sister Medina’s radar."
Sheva opened his mouth, wanting to retort to that remark. However, before he could even do that, the boy felt all the hair in his body stand, and without even turning around, Sheva knew exactly who was the source of this unpleasant feeling.
"She is exactly behind me, right?" He whispered, his body standing stiff.
"Yeah," The boy nodded solemnly. "My condolences."
Fortunately, before Medina could do anything to the boys, Irfan called them up to come inside. "Shev! Arfan! Why are you still there?! Come here and have lunch first! Also, Medina, don’t try to scare them like that!"
Hearing that, Medina just let out a big snort before walking away, leaving both Sheva and the boy, Arfan, alone. Yeah, the boy who came here with Irfan before was Arfan Aditya Bagus, the other genius whom Sheva faced in the Jakarta International Chess Festival last February. He was also a part of the team, so his presence here was quite normal.
They all gathered in the living room, with Irfan distributing the lunch boxes that he brought earlier. It came from the Padang Restaurant nearby, the infamous cuisine from West Sumatra. This kind of lunch was perfect for such a hot day, and all the people there devoured the food so quickly, as if they inhaled instead of eating the food normally.
After a while, though, with everyone finishing their lunch, Irfan finally broke the silence here with a question. "So, what do you want to talk about, Shev?"