“What happened?” Eggi asked Pras right when Mana disappeared during the first break in that Friday.

Pras was reluctant to answer, but then Pitoy came to his rescue. “Mana took down the snow jaguar when Pras was taming it. Now, Pras is at risk of not being able to join Clashing Realms. And before you ask, the creature's respawn time is a whole real world week if killed or around some dozens of hours if tamed.”

“36 hours to be exact,” Pras said begrudgingly.

“And it would definitely be a gamble since we only have two windows left to tame it before the registration closes,” Pitoy added.

“That’s absurd,” Eggi sighed. “Why would she do that? Also can’t you tame another creature?”

“No.” Pras shook his head. “There is this one custom ability that I have registered for my character with the limitation that only snow jaguar could use it. Failing to tame it would make my character incomplete, and….”

“Why didn’t you tell us then, man?”

Pras was rather irritated with Eggi’s pestering, he barked, “I was completely fine even without telling you guys, up until she figured out what I was doing and started messing around! I even tried and begged for her to stop, but she didn’t listen because apparently she muted everyone else.”

“Ugh, that girl, she never changes.”

“Uh, sorry to jump in as usual, bro,” Ega chimed in, “I know she’s kinda strong, but was she so strong that you can’t take her down before she kills the jaguar?”

Pras fell silent. The event was still so clear in his mind that he couldn’t grasp the proper word for the action he chose.

It was Pitoy who then answered in his stead, “Pras could’ve landed the final blow. But he didn’t, because… you know, Mana’s status.”

“Should’ve landed the strike,” Ega mumbled. “That’s her fault for not heeding other people. You’re just too lenient on her.”

Ega’s words rang some truth in Pras’ mind, he regretted the moment that he didn’t strike her down. However, there was another surge of emotion that pummeled their way out from the depths of his heart.

Pras whimpered, “Is it wrong that I liked her? Is it my fault that I just want a piece of her attention? What if… I just want to see her genuinely smiling? Is it a mistake that I… nevermind.”

“Geez.” Ega sighed. “It’s not wrong, it's just that, I do feel like there are moments where you need to prioritise yourself.”

“And that’s where you might be mistaken, mate, though only a bit,” said Fathan while clapping his hands once. “With love comes jealousy, awkwardness, then hate,” he continued flamboyantly.

“What the heck are you smokin’ huh?” Pitoy snapped at the seemingly ever calm Fathan.

The handsome teenager would just answer with a chuckle, “We are not allowed to smoke yet.”

It was the usual disgusting vibe that he brought today when he said those words. Yet, part of Pras felt like there was some true advice there. Pras mused if the root of this all was due to his jealousy. Because Pras felt that Mana was acting special around him and that might be some false alarm due to his infatuation. And when those wishes were unfulfilled, he felt jealous and angry.

Later that night, Tier logged in much earlier than his friends to start levelling alone around coalbeard mountain. He saw Manna was online but didn’t bother trying to contact her. He still felt bitter about what happened between them, though part of him still thought that he might be mistaken.

Later on, Renma and Nubram joined him while Rushvatte and Flick were there for Manna. For the coming days, this kind of arrangement happened where one or two would join Tier while the others go with Manna. The exception was Nubram since most of the time he would go with Tier even when Tier was grouping up with other players.

There are a couple of times in the weekend where Tier and Nubram played together with Zackhs. As usual, the overpositivity of the avengers kind of rubbed off on Tier. However, surprisingly, he didn’t ask anything about Manna. It was at this session that Nubram asked for Zackhs help to go to dungeon next week when they would be reaching level 78 or 79.

Zackhs just agreed with it and he also didn’t ask about Manna. Which is completely weird since that guy often teases Tier about her.

The following weekdays were still painted in silence between Pras and Mana. His bitterness grew as he was too late to tame the snow jaguar during Wednesday, 21st of February, as someone else seemed to have tamed it when he logged in. He was late since he needed to help his mom in the kitchen to cook since his sister was going out. This caused the dinner to start late and thus making him late to log in.

Pras was irked, but he can’t really blame his mom. In the end, like Mana said before, it was just a game. However, he was still fuming. During the week’s Friday, at school, around the exact time when the jaguar was supposed to respawn, Pras pondered about everything. Perhaps his chance to get to Zurefgar was already gone.

Just like his chance to make amends with Mana. The girl seemed to get a bit more outgoing and cheered up a bit. Perhaps she had moved on, unlike Pras. It was then that he decided that it might be the time to finally throw away what he had cherished about her. They are just deskmates, no more nor less.

No more would his heart be bound by her presence, and there shall be void and bitterness left.

When he walked home in the afternoon, Pras walked slowly even if the sky was filled with overcast dark clouds. Pitoy even offered to ride him home, but Pras refused.

His pace was heavier when the downpour started to fall on him, who was not bothering to take a shade nor use his umbrella. He just let the rain wash away his thoughts, leaving an empty shell inside. Let his soaked clothes be the burden he had to bear to at least let him feel something.

The cold and stifling sensation somehow gave him some room to breathe in this sullen warmth. His eyes gazed at the darkened sky and his wish imagined the shadow of a jet plane dashed through the overcast to meet a clear stratosphere.

Pras tried to convince himself that all these will pass away like the dark clouds after the heavy downpour. Yet, it was unfortunate that the clear sky he imagined came to his mind together with Mana’s smile.

At home, Pras tried his best to avoid the series of concerned questioning from his mother since he arrived soaked. Then he quickly took a shower and just lay helplessly on his bed.

He couldn’t fully fathom what he felt. All this time he always tried to run away from his feelings, but it kept getting stronger when things didn’t turn out like he expected. The next thing he did was of course tried to forget his feelings again. This cycle has happened for the past one and a half years. Though he was in pain, he still felt like he could move on.

Yet, he felt crushed today. Akin or even worse than that time he was betrayed by Vertoc and his team. The warmth of the bed and blanket had failed to warm the very core of his heart.

He told himself over and over again that he was supposed to be ready for this since he kept trying to forget his feelings. Such a void was bound to happen, yet he kept wondering why he was so restless. He kept rolling on his bed anxiously without heeding attention to the pets that broke into his room. The only thing pictured in his head was Mana’s warm smile.

Pras didn’t play for the night and just decided to procrastinate on everything while wailing in his heart.

On the next day, Pras met Ega when he was about to take his lunch after an archery session - which for the first time in months that he didn’t try to even glance at Mana. His former deskmate seemed uncertain during lunch until he finally asked a question that Pras couldn’t fully fathom.

“I know I shouldn’t ask about this, but are you and Mana still uh… having a cold war or something?”

Pras shrugged. “Depends on how you see it. She seems fine already. It’s just me that worries about it, I guess. Why ask?”

Ega scratched his nose while asking, “Uh, don’t know how to say this, but Mana’s been asking a lot about you since this past week. And by a lot I mean A LOT.”

“What? She wanted to find something to snitch on me or use me again?”

“I don’t know about that,” Ega mumbled, “The problem was she often asked about your previous social media account and… I don’t know where she got this, she asked if you were Taz’D.”

Pras almost choked on his tea when he heard of that. The first thing that came to his mind was accusing Eggi of spilling stuff to Mana, yet none of them ever told Eggi about Taz’d. Then he started to wonder if Mana would utilise that past to perform even more wrongdoings. No wonder she was rather happy lately, perhaps she had already found a weapon to strike back at him.

The void in his heart quickly rekindled by a smouldering wrath. He growled menacingly at Ega, “Where did she get that? And what did you tell her?”