Grunting, Kaj pushed up one last time. His neck strained, and so did his shoulders and abdomen. Just when his arms were about to fail him, Noah grabbed the bar and helped him set it back on the rack.
“Not bad,” Noah said, walking around the bench to stand beside Kaj as he sat up. “What’s next?”
“Lat pulldown.” Kaj wiped his face with a towel, realizing then what that question meant. “You seriously gonna follow me around all the time?”
“Can you quit being a jerk? Nobody else is here.Quid pro quo.”
“You want me to help you now?” Kaj scoffed before taking a swig of water.
“So nice of you to offer. Thanks.” Noah took off his hoodie and walked toward the four-stack cable machine.
As they were adjusting the weight of their respective equipment, Noah’s brows furrowed. He shoved his hand into the pocket of his sweats and pulled out his phone. He seemed a little checked out as he read whatever he’d received, but it wasn’t Kaj’s business, so he looked away and started pulling the bar down to his chin.
As soon as Noah pocketed his device, without saying anything else, he reached for the tricep rope and started his routine. Each of them was in their own little world, doing their thing in company but in silence, which Kaj found to be a blessing, until Noah opened his mouth again.
“Can I ask you something?”
Kaj sighed dramatically. “Yeah.”
“It’s just… Fans are going a bit crazy, which is cool, not complaining, but—” Noah twisted his mouth.
“But?”
“Not everything is good.”
“Welcome to fame, rockstar,” Kaj said, returning the bar to the starting position. “The higher you climb, the more people will want to see you fall.”
“I know.”
“Just gotta learn how to take the criticism. It’s gonna happena lot.”
Noah scoffed. “I’d say it’s more than a littlecriticism.”
“Haters are gonna hate, dude.” Kaj pulled the bar down again.
“I’m not new to keyboard warriors.” Noah huffed as he pulled the rope down, his triceps bulking with the effort. “I’m talking about personal attacks.”
With a twinge of sympathy he didn’t want to feel, as Kaj finished his third set of repetitions, he wiped his hands with the towel and outstretched one toward Noah. “Show me.”
The vocalist hesitated for a second, but he ended up complying.
Kaj scrolled through the sea of spam messages. Most were praise and other gibberish, but a few were concerning. Amongst those that said things like “you’re not as great as you think you are”, “go back to your country”, “fucking slitty eyes”, or “you’re ruining the band’s sound”, there were threats to his persona and his cats?
“Do you have cats?” Kaj asked Noah.
“Two. Yeah.”
Fuck.
“But everyone who follows my channel probably knows that,” Noah rushed to add. “They sometimes join me when I’m filming.”
“Oh, okay…” Kaj relaxed, remembering there were one or two cats in a bunch of the videos he’d watched months ago. “I still don’t like the message that says ‘Watch your back next time you come home alone.’ Tell Niels.”
Noah chuckled bitterly. “I wasn’t sure if I was being too paranoid and this was normal or what.”
“Definitely the norm, but that doesn’t mean Niels shouldn’t monitor it. Gotta get used to security being a priority over privacy from now on.” Kaj handed Noah’s phone back, intending to go back to his workout.
“How do you deal with this shit?” Noah huffed, looking frustrated. “I already got a lot of messages before, but this is overwhelming.”
