Chapter 305.<h4><b><strong>Chapter 305. My Birthday: </strong>Training Course. (4/8)</b></h4>
<span style="font-weight:400">“Isn’t the reason for your boyfriendless status and guys not wanting to date you actually just because you’re always wearing that face mask?”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Ah…” The realization suddenly dawned on her.
<span style="font-weight:400">“For real? You think that’s why?”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Yeah.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Hmm… but I can’t do anything about that. I’m Faceless’s gang leader.” She tilted her head to one side with a serious look in her eyes.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Hello everyone, I’ll be your instructor today.”
<span style="font-weight:400">It’s about time. I’d managed to distract her long enough for the instructor to show up.
<span style="font-weight:400">When I looked over to the instructor I realized he was… unexpectedly normal. He didn’t look scary or intimidating at all like the receptionist. He was just a scrawny beanstalk with sses, simple boots, blue jeans, and a blue denim jacket.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Well, we’ll first begin with a short half-hour in-ss lesson to go over some basic stuff before we move to the practical stuff outside. Please follow me to the ssroom.”
<span style="font-weight:400">Everyone stood up from their seats and followed behind the instructor to the small ssroom with three rows of three desks.
<span style="font-weight:400">The wannabe gangster girl ended up seated near me again.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Hey, sit somewhere else.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“This again? I sat down here first this time.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Then give up your seat to me.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Why would I do that?”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Because I’m a g-”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Wannabe gang leader? Don’t you ever get tired of this? Look, just take the other corner seat and we won’t be seated next to each other. Why do you insist on taking the center seat?”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Because the gang leader is the central figure in the gang. It’s only natural for me to sit at the center.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“If you want to sit at the center shouldn’t you take the seat in front of you instead?
<span style="font-weight:400">“No way, sitting at the back is cooler.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“I see… so that’s why…”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Huh? That’s why what?”
<span style="font-weight:400">“So that’s why you’re such an idiot. You always sat at the back of the ss where you couldn’t see what your teachers wrote on the board at the front of the ss, right?”
<span style="font-weight:400">“You’re underestimating me.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“I am? How?”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Even if I sat at the front, I wouldn’t understand a single thing.” She said that like it was something she was proud of.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Hey, how did you even graduate high school?”
<span style="font-weight:400">“With guts.”
<span style="font-weight:400">I facepalmed.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Are you really going to be able to pass the road test like this?”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Heh, the road test. That’s the easiest part of getting my license. It’s not even a challenge. I’m not worried in the slightest. Rather than worrying about me, are you going to be okay? You reek of a total greenhorn.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Huh? What do you mean?”
<span style="font-weight:400">“You don’t lookfortable at all in your jacket. It looks pretty new and isn’t worn at all, you only just got it, didn’t you?”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Oh, that’s a pretty good observation... for an idiot.” I silently pped and congratted her.
<span style="font-weight:400">“You two chattering at the back. Are you here for the ss or did you want to leave now?”
<span style="font-weight:400">When we were called out by the instructor, the two of us shut our mouths and turned our attention to the front of the ss. We didn’t speak another word and quietly listened to the instructor’s lesson for the next half hour.
<span style="font-weight:400">When the lesson was over we were taken out to the back of the dealership which had arge open square-shaped area paved with concrete.
<span style="font-weight:400">There were nine motorcycles painted ck and blue lined up for us. They were 50 motorcycles the training school provided us to use for the day.
<span style="font-weight:400">The first exercise we did was simple, getting used to the motorcycle. We held down the clutch to change the gear into first gear. To confirm we were in first gear we were instructed to ease off the clutch then try to move forward. If the motorcycle stopped, we were in gear, if it kept rolling forward we were in neutral. It was pretty simplemon sense stuff, but it was stillpletely new to me.
<span style="font-weight:400">Everyone else looked prettyfortable with everything including the wannabe gang leader girl beside me. It seemed despite failing written exams she was at least good in practice.
<span style="font-weight:400">After that, in neutral, we cranked the bikes up and the engines let out an obnoxious loud rumble. When I turned the right handle toward me, the engine revved.
<span style="font-weight:400">I thought we’d get to go and ride them after turning them on, but I was wrong. Rather than ride them, we were forced to… push the bike around in neutral to get used to the brake.
<span style="font-weight:400">What the hell was this hell? It was hard as hell to push this thing. For this exercise, I was stuck behind the wannabe gang leader. She was having a stughing at me struggling to move around with it. She lookedpletelyfortablepared to me and did it effortlessly.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Hey, is there some sort of cheap trick to this that makes it easier that nobody’s telling me about?” I couldn’t help but call out and ask her that.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Yeah, there is actually.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Oh? Really? What is it?”
<span style="font-weight:400">“It’s called… get gud nub. Hahaha!”
<span style="font-weight:400">When she finally held the superior position, she was more than happy to get even with me.
<span style="font-weight:400">When we finished getting ustomed to the motorcycles, the second exercise began.
<span style="font-weight:400">We got to turn them on for this one, but… we still didn’t ride them…
<span style="font-weight:400">We just straddled them and walked from one end of the track to the next. This was apparently to get familiar with the friction zone… whatever that was supposed to mean.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Pfft, you look like a dork.”
<span style="font-weight:400">Once again I was subject to her ridicule. I kept my mouth shut and epted it. I might be better with tests, but she was obviously much more experienced than me in this area.
<span style="font-weight:400">When I didn’t say anything she slowed down until I caught up to her. When I was beside her she raised her arm, pped me on the back, and jubntly asked, “What? Not going to say anything back? Where’d that cockiness from before go? Huh?”
<span style="font-weight:400">“I’ll talk shit when there’s shit to talk. Even if you’re dumb, it’s still fact that I’m not as experienced with motorcycles as you are. I’m only 16 after all.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Using your age as a shield and hidin behind it, what a coward. I rode my first motorcycle on my own when I was only 13.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Huh? That early?”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Yeah. Shit was tough growin up. I grew up homeless out on the streets after all. Since I was young, I’ve been workin in a ghetto mechanic repair shop. We get cheap parts from junk and scrap yards in the city. But I’m dumb and don’t remember stuff easy. I do things based on what feels right. I don’t get all the small stuff for those annoying tests.”
<span style="font-weight:400">It was my first time running into such a person. Hearing her story though… made me wonder whether she was telling the truth about the whole gang leader thing.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Are you lookin down on me for bein a street rat?”
<span style="font-weight:400">“No. I just thought I might need to reassess my evaluation of you if your story is true. I’m sure you’ve developed street smarts, so though you may be considered an idiot by the snobby overachieving pampered elitists attending university with their heads shoved far up their asses, you wouldn’t necessarily be dumber than them when it rtes to real-world stuff that actually affects your day-to-day life.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Anyway, what I’m trying to say is, if I was dumped on the street one day and asked who I’d choose as a partner to survive on the streets between you and one of them, I’d choose you I guess.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Huh? Wha-what are you’d sayin all ob a sudden? Isn’t that like a proposal? You can’t be doin that if you already got a girlfriend.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“I take back my reevaluation of you, it seems that street smarts might be my imagination after all. Seriously, how did you get a proposal out of what I said just now? Something’s really wrong with your head after all.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Haha… right… I’m dumb after all. Nobody would go and randomly propose to a street rat.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“I’ve got no qualms about street rats. I used to live with rats after all.” Though it was in another country and not for a very long period of my life.
<span style="font-weight:400">“Huh? You lived with rats? But you don’t seem the type at all. You sound pretty smart when you talk.”
<span style="font-weight:400">“Haaaaah. I’m not smart at all. I’m just another random idiot in the world, just like you.”