Dominate Showbiz: Media Tycoon Discovered My Talent-Chapter 45: Let’s Call It an Extra Bad Mood

Kaija’s hands gave in, and her stiff muscles relaxed completely as she let Antony press her hands closer to his face. With his large fingers filling the small gaps between hers, she could feel the heat from his skin sinking into her palms.

They stayed like that for how long, she didn’t know. But when Antony finally spoke again, the gold in his eyes had softened, quieter now, looking into hers with a strange tenderness, and something almost like... longing.

"Thank you," he whispered, lowering her hands onto his lap.

"You’re feeling okay now?" she asked, watching him closely.

He didn’t answer that, but his face had composed again, and that alone made her feel relieved. "The festival is in a month?" he asked instead.

She nodded quietly. "Do you think... I’ll stand a chance?"

His calm expression twitched for a split second, then he suddenly burst into a laugh. He reached up and gave her head a gentle pat casually, as if she hadn’t spent the past two months maintaining a safe distance from him. "If I didn’t think you could win, I wouldn’t have brought you here," he said, his voice low and earnest.

Her cheeks tingled with shyness. Hope flooded through her all over again. "Thank you," she said, smiling wide like an idiot.

Suddenly, he pulled his hand back and shot up from the couch, his face turning away. "I’ll let you know when I finish the beat. Just leave the lyrics here. You can go now," he said quickly, the words clumsy and rushed.

She frowned at the abrupt change in his tone. How could this guy go from unbelievably warm and sweet one second to kicking her out the next? She guessed he was still the Antony she knew.

She glanced at the clock. It was stupidly late. She honestly had no idea how Antony could work this second role at night and then show up in the dance studio in the morning like nothing happened. Now she was starting to wonder if his cranky attitude and mood swings were just the result of chronic sleep deprivation and overworking himself into oblivion.

"Then I should go. Thank you again, instructor. See you in the morning." She stood and gave him one last grateful smile before leaving.

When morning came and Kaija arrived at the dance studio, it was like the Antony who’d sat beside her at that record-breaking close distance just a few hours ago had vanished off the face of the earth.

His face was stern again, his voice cold, and his commands sharp as he ordered her and the girls around during our choreography practice. That invisible sticky note that read "don’t you dare touch me" had appeared on his forehead again.

She simply told herself to keep a polite universe-sized distance from him to help preserve world peace.

Once the session finished, Dani came over and asked, "Hey, your schedule clear this evening? How about we go downtown for some fresh air?"

Kaija’s jaw hit the floor. Did Dani just ask her out, just the two of them? She could never imagine Dani initiating something like that. Clearly either her charm had already started to work its magic, or Dani had been secretly enjoying the clinginess she’d been showering her with all this time.

"You wanna hang out outside the campus?" Kaija asked, jumping at Dani.

Dani raised a brow at her, as if already regretting her own words. "Well, yeah. I can’t stay on campus for too long. I need to get out every now and then and interact with normal human beings."

A laugh burst out of Kaija. "Sounds good to me. Evening then." She gave Dani a fist bump. Maybe she needed that too. She’d been stuck on campus for a whole month now.

They took a cab to the pedestrian district around 8 PM. The streets were buzzing, people everywhere. The two girls wandered from one street to another, boba teas in their hand.

"There’s no bad day a good boba tea can’t fix," Kaija mumbled, chewing the pudding with satisfaction.

Dani took a deep sip that made the pearls shoot up her straw like bullets loading into a gun. "Indeed. But something was horribly wrong with Antony today," Dani commented casually.

Kaija shot her an amused glance. "What makes you say that?"

Dani shrugged like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "His perfectionism was cranked up like five notches, and his irritation was up by, like, ten." 𝒇𝒓𝙚𝒆𝔀𝓮𝓫𝒏𝓸𝙫𝓮𝓵.𝓬𝙤𝙢

Kaija thought back on the day, then every other day, and still had no clue what Dani was talking about. "I thought Antony was always like that?"

"Not at all," Dani said, shaking her head with conviction. "I’ve been here long enough to know when Antony is just being Antony, versus when he’s in a bad mood. Today he wasn’t just in a bad mood. He was... something I’ve never seen before. Let’s call it an extra bad mood."

Kaija took her words with a wry smile. If Dani said so, it was probably true. Dani’s observation skills were always scary accurate.

For some reason, walking next to Dani and chatting like this reminded her of Marja — or more precisely, of their good old days. If things didn’t go so horribly wrong between the two of them, maybe she would’ve already introduced Marja to Dani by now.

The street started getting more crowded. She had to hold onto Dani’s hand to make it through the river of people.

Suddenly, from behind them, someone’s footsteps stomped onto her shoe. She stumbled forward and out of Dani’s hand, landing on her knees on the rough stone pavement.

Kaija was wearing a mini skirt. A sharp pain spread outward and up from both her knees. She could already tell the cuts were pretty deep.

"Goodness, ladies, watch your steps!" a scornful male voice muttered behind them with pure disdain.

"Oh no! We’re so sorry. Are you okay?" a soft, lovely female voice cried apologetically.

Kaija’s body went frozen on the ground upon recognizing whose voices those were. An unfathomable contempt surged through her veins.

"Kaija!" Dani shouted, dropping to the ground beside Kaija, pulled at her arms to help her stand, but her limbs were lead-heavy.

"Kaija...?" the male voice muttered again, now tinged with doubt and disbelief.

"Let’s go, Dani," Kaija whispered, standing up fully despite the pain. She turned to Dani, still sick with worry, and grabbed her hand without a word.

"Hey, wait!" the male voice came again.

She pulled Dani straight ahead as fast as she could, but the street was packed with people.

"I said wait up!" the man yelled.

His large hand suddenly grabbed her shoulder, yanking her back and spinning her around.