No other members came for practice on that stormy morning, probably because they were having problems in reaching school on time. Thus, Pras and Karina wrapped up the equipment and turned off the lights when they left.

They walked together while talking about Karina’s plan when she graduates later. She managed to catch Pras off-guard and made him accidentally tell her that he had been busy with Zurefgar. She was not a gamer in any sense, but she did sound interested with Pras’ journey so far. There were moments when she picked on Pras’ levelling with Mana, but she stopped soon after she saw Pras was being uncomfortable with it.

Their conversation abruptly ended when Karina spotted Mana in her gaze and chose to split. “To avoid making things more murky,” or so she said with a wink.

Pras never thought those kinds of things were necessary anyway, especially with how things are going with him and Mana.

Knowing what boundaries he was not supposed to cross, Pras barely talked to Mana for the whole day. Even at night, he would just log in and play alone. He saw Mana also logged in, but he didn’t greet her. They were playing on a different continent anyway, it would be hard or costly for him to move continents. And he didn’t feel right to let Manna move continents just to accompany him. At least, now he got warnings from Arkengrad regarding Lyra’s gang positions.

There was not much of an improvement or interaction between the two in the following days. In fact, Pras felt that the conversation between them was almost negligible. They acted normally in front of Ega and the others, but they barely had any banter with each other. It was almost like the days before the seat changes happened.

However, Pras' gloominess was too apparent for his family. His sister quickly deduced that Mana was the reason and gave a bizarre advice, “Valentine is coming, she might be waiting for you to make the move.”

The words got a dismissal snort from Pras’ parents and also Pras. However it does make him wonder a bit if it was really true. Perhaps he did hold some hope.

And that hope was raised when Manna joined him and Renma in the Plagued Continent on Thursday night. Though they don’t talk much other than giving shot calls, Pras started to feel that perhaps Manna was just being awkward or something. Nevertheless, he was rather thankful on how oblivious Renma was about the lack of interaction between Tier and Manna.

The problem was, perhaps he expected too much that during Saturday, 10th of February, Karina caught him not focusing.

“Seriously, I’m getting more jealous of her.” Karina giggled as she smacked Pras’ back, pulling him back from his mind wondering about Mana.

“And I’m seriously wondering what’s to be envied about being fancied by someone like me,” Pras groaned. He tried to rub his back in hope of easing up the pain caused by Karina.

Karina sat down on a bench right next to Pras. Her eyes were eyeing the other club members who were taking turns to shoot. She said, “You seriously don’t understand, huh?”

“I don’t, you dated several guys before, some hotshots or whatever.”

“Barely anyone lasted more than a month, though.” Karina smiled shyly.

As the source of the problem was clear, Pras groaned in protest, “I think you are the source of the problem then.”

“Perhaps.” Karina nodded, then turned at Pras. “Though, it might be fascinating to have someone who keeps being interested with me for years after all ups and downs.”

“I’m done training,” Pras snorted. He was rather uncomfortable with Karina’s pestering over his love interest. Though she might have found it romantic, Pras felt like he was not any better than a stalker or simply a loser that can only long for the moon.

Though irked, he still waved at Karina and the others after he finished stashing his equipment and left the practice room.

Today Pras didn’t see Manna in the badminton practice area despite him seeing some basketball guys around. He would’ve thought that those guys would be here for her, but apparently she already left. Those guys were now actually chatting with Mana’s friends in badminton extracurricular.

However, just as he got out from the indoor court, he saw a glimpse of one of the basketball guys turned at the corner of the building. If he wasn’t mistaken, that guy’s name was Aksa. He was tall, had short spiky hair, and was rather good looking.

Pras’ heart skipped a beat when his mind tried to link the events that happened just now. Both Mana and Aksa’s friends were chatting but they were not there.

Swiftly and silently, he followed Aksa who was walking through the corridors at the perimeter of the sports hall. Then, before Aksa managed to turn at the corner towards the back of the sports hall, he saw Mana.

Waves of crashing emotions swirled inside Pras as he felt his steps were getting heavier the closer he was to his destination. He knew exactly what was about to transpire, yet he pressed on.

“You know, I always think you’re pretty.”

Aksa’s words were heard clearly to Pras as he stopped at the final corner before the back of the sports hall. Pras peeked and saw Mana was there with Aksa. The basketball extracurricular member brought a flower and chocolate with him, and seemed prepared.

As Aksa started to say all sorts of flowery words to Mana, Pras’ heart was ablaze. Among the pain and sadness, anger roses up. His breath was getting heavier and his mind turned hazy. The pounding on his heart was strong enough to give him the impulse to just crash the party, to stop things from happening.

But there was a part of him that stopped him from doing so. His more cowardly side had rooted his feet on the ground and weakneed his knees.

“I’ve… always liked you, would you be my girlfriend?” said Aksa clear as he could. Nevertheless, in Pras’ ears it sounded more like thunder roared across the continent. Bearing the sound of certain demise.

Pras' mind started to link events after events that led up to this condition. Whatever Mana did last week was just a way for her to play hard to get. Then, after she got what she wanted - to propel Aksa to act - she put Pras back to his place. And what she said at the cake shop earlier last Saturday was about this event. About this person named Aksa. Pras felt like a fool.

“Well, I would love to….”

Pras didn’t need to hear the whole answer from Mana and stormed away from the scene with the least amount of sound he could let out. He didn’t want to ruin their moment with loud stomping. He felt like he had no right to do so.

Despite all the emotions he felt, he still tried to control his breath. Putting away all his thoughts about Mana. Just like how last week he decided to not be obsessed about the girl from his past, being obsessed with Mana was clearly not any better. He tried to reason that perhaps this was the right path for him to finally break free from his feelings for Mana.

Lost to the cloudiness of his own thoughts, Pras didn’t realise where his feet had walked to. Then suddenly, he felt a heavy embrace on his neck.

“Yo my bro, my man, whatsuuup~!”

It was Eggi who suddenly twined his arms sideways on Pras’ neck.

That moment, some of his emotions bursted out, letting a few tears trickle at the side of his eyes. He couldn’t answer Eggi since his mind had taken a factor of his good friend as well as Mana’s childhood friend to the equation.

Should he tell Eggi what happened? About Mana? About his feelings?

But Eggi was a fiercely loyal person. If he knew what had happened, he might have gone lunatic over it and made a ruckus. A part of Pras might want that, but another part felt that it was a detestable thing to do.

“You cryin’, my man?” Eggi asked as he looked at Pras.

“No,” said the taller teenager quickly as he wiped the tears off. He drew a deep breath and emboldened himself to not do a despicable thing about Mana’s newborn relationship.

With a forced relaxed tone, he answered, “You just stink, man.”

“What the….”