2. Adore

The next day he left the Protectors’ house with his trainer around midday. What started as jogging training while his trainer followed him by bike, became a journey in which he came across too many people who wanted to say hi or cheer for him without disturbing his session.

At the end of his track, he felt his cheeks sore for all the smiles he had to give. It’s not that smiles were hard to do, but after needing to control his breathing and look as normal as ever, it was really a hard work that he supposed was his trainer’s aim.

He took a shower after coming back to the house, he had to go on a trip to the downtown so he could get to some TV studios where he was going to be interviewed, some even where popular variety TV shows. Back then, he never thought of himself being a celebrity, it was never his dream to be so known and kindly treated by people, he wasn’t even popular among his classmates through his school days, so now he was always nervous before coming in front of the cameras; even harder when he was meeting some true celebrities, how he used to call them.

In the last variety show they were recording, he was asked to sing, which he had to refuse because he lacked the abilities and the confidence to do it.

“Oh come one, no one will say if it was bad or not,” said one of the true celebrities while drinking from his coffee cup, he was so nervous around them that he couldn’t seeing them in the eye, even if his voice was so kind.

“Leave him be, it’s not that he grew up to be this popular, he’s not used to it yet,” defended him the program’s host, making him sigh with relief. “Although people adore you so much that even if you can’t sing, they’d think it’s cute.”

“That’s my point, you’re the most popular person in our island’s social media, have you seen it?” Without malice intended, the celebrity showed his phone with his named searched, which gave a lot of photos, mostly from his conferences and other shows, a few of them were casual photos taken from school events and the sort, surely shared by his classmates.

“No, thanks, I don’t want to know,” he said while turning his face to another side, his bother told him already all of it. “I’m still to overwhelmed by all this so… please don’t make me do it.”

“Don’t be too serious, thar’s why we asked you before doing it, we still have some backup activities and a lot more planned,” explained the host while giving him a pat in the shoulder. “People loves your smile and optimism, you’re a natural with it so that’s all we need in here.”

With just a “thanks” as an answer, the host and the celebrities started to talk about anything else while he went out to look for the restroom, not that he drank anything but to let himself be back to his calm self. Lately his doubts and hidden feelings were trying to surface, making him harder to conceal them, like this time the fear to be exposed in something as trivial as singing made the anxiousness arise.

Couldn’t he be a protector without all the celebrity part? They could thank him from far away, by the letters and emails he received or maybe just by the street, not everything else. But he understood them, they were so thankful he came to exist, that his powers manifested in the right moment. They needed the people to know he was a guy like everyone else, not some overpowered man; they thought, too, that this was the way to compensate his efforts because who never thought about being a star? Being adored by so many? Well, he didn’t.