“E-Elrik ?! What’s wrong ? Why are you crying?”

  “Anna …. Is that really you?”

  “A-Anna?” The shocked Piotr continued to be shooketh

  Dumbfounded and surprised , I answered accordingly

  “Yes, it's me . Elrik , are you sick ?”

  There was no response from Elrik

  I have always had a knack for understanding and feeling human emotions just by seeing their expressions since birth . It’s like a talent of sorts , some would say . And meeting Elrik during 1st grade till now, I understood what kind of person Elrik is , someone who's verbally crude yet has a pure heart , someone who responds to situations emotionally and yet acts immaturely , someone who doesn’t show weakness to anyone even when he is at his lowest . Despite that , that headstrong person is currently crying in front of me and Piotr . It was so out of the ordinary that even Piotr freezed beside Elrik with a shocked expression. Worriedly , I immediately paced in his direction since I figured it would be better to sort out the current situation . Upon seeing Elrik’s expression , gut-wrenching emotions of regret , guilt , shock and a sense of longing filled my mind . These emotions are of someone who has suffered a lot , but why are they coming from a highschooler?

  ‘You were always like this , suffering alone , does this friendship we have mean nothing to you?’

  I furrowed my brows , face showing nothing else but a worried look. I extend both my hands to the side of Elrik’s head , right beside his temples .

  ‘Elrik , it’s my turn to lend you a hand’

  “Wait wait wait, are you going to use your magic on him?!”

  “Yes , now be quiet , i need to focus”

  “You know It's against school rules to use magic within school grounds without a teacher’s permission”

  “Look at the state he’s in , he’s never like this , for all we know this might be the work of some pranksters that hurt him , and if that's the case, Elrik’s the victim here”

  “... Fine , I’ll guard the doors so no one enters in on us, do it quick”

  I nodded in response , and then concentrated on Elrik . After I gathered my focus , I began my casting . I gathered mana from my mana core onto my palms both located beside Elrik’s head and started chanting

  “When the unknown arrives within the dark, When the doubts start seeping into your heart , oh let the calmness guide this soul till it is all answered”

  Followed by the word needed to activate the spell

  “Calm Mind”

  A yellowish aura started surrounding Elrik , and soon it dispersed slowly . The magic casted has lost its effect , and I got exactly what I wanted from it . Elrik’s tears stopped and Elrik seemed to have snapped back to reality , his expression no longer exudes negativity .

  “Elrik , thank goodness your oka-?!”

  Instead of getting gratuity from Elrik like I expected , in a flash , his body pressed against mine , his hands placed on my back and my head, face next to mine .

  “W-w-w-wwhaa??!”

  Unable to keep my composure and comprehend the current situation , I tried to slip out to avoid getting seen in this state by anyone else , only for Elrik to hug me more tightly ,like a child not wanting to let go of their parents when being sent to their first day of school . Furthermore, I can feel his warmth . More than that , I could feel his shaky body caused by constricting his throat to try and block his voices and sobs . It was as if the spell casted wasn’t able to fully calm him down . While I felt that this was not intentional , at least not to his knowledge , I couldn't help but blush profusely , at the same time feeling my heart beating faster . I felt that I couldn't handle any more of this . So , I tried convincing him .

  “U-um , Elrik , h-how bout we stop this before others-”

  “Anna , I swear i’ll protect you this time , so please forgive me, please…”

  ‘?!!%??*&%￡!?!??’

  Ahh, there goes the final nail in the coffin.

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  I agreed to stand and be on the lookout for other students , but I can't help but be distracted by what happened .

  ‘ He never once shedded a single tear , not even a bit , but why … do I feel like its my fault’

  I can't help but feel remorse like I haven’t looked out for him as his childhood best friend , as if I'm just a bystander , watching him bottle up all these negative emotions and having to cope with himself . But being together all these years , I don't think he’d experience anything that’d make him like this … could it be that? No , I'm sure we resolved it already , yeah I'm probably just overthinking .

  ‘...’

  I should interrogate him once Anastasiya’s done calming him down .

  “Aah , those two fricking passionate lovebirds , like if you’re willing to break school rules just to not see him in distress , why don't they get together already? “

  The only reason why they aren’t is because one's too shy to make the first move and the other one’s procrastinating too much .

  ‘Seriously , the amount of times I tried to pair them together , they always managed to fumble it !’

  I rubbed the hair of the back of my head from frustration just thinking about it .

  “Wait , just now…did he call Anastasiya , Anna ? Is that a nickname , a pet name? Whatever it was , has he already made the first move ?”

  NO! I REFUSE TO BELIEVE THAT SORRY EXCUSE OF A HUMAN WOULD MAKE THE FIRST MOVE . AFTER ALL MY TROUBLES HE DARES TO WITHOUT MY SUPERVISION?! I'M GONNA TEACH HIM A LESSON HE’S NEVER GOING TO FORGET!

  I stomped the ground , switching between both legs while waving both my hands wildly out of frustration

  ‘Urgh , at this point , I can be considered a long time victim of an insufferable shitty rom com manga in the making , almost comparable to reading Rent-A-Girlfriend , but not quite’

  Realizing that I might be overreacting , I took a few deep breaths and settled my thoughts .

  Stolen novel; please report.

  ‘Speaking of which , Anastasiya should be done already , a simple calming spell shouldn't take this long in the first place considering her standards’

  Out of boredom and my impatience to wait any longer , I barged past the sliding doors ,only to be met with a jaw-dropping , unbelievable scene in front of me .

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  I wasn’t able to register what I saw , I wasn’t able to believe what was in front of me .

  ‘My body , it feels heavy…’

  Not only that , my breathing became heavier , tears overflowed , light unable to be focused thoroughly onto my retina and my mind , shrouded with different kinds of negative emotions . It's as if I was having a panic attack. But that soon vanished almost instantly as I suddenly calmed down , warmth surrounded my body at the same time . My vision became clear , and she was in front of me , extending her arms .

  ‘Anastasiya , it really is you’

  After that , my body acted on its own

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  (Present)

  “Ermgh…”

  With a bit of struggle , i managed to open my swollen eyes , and first i saw the windows of the classroom leading to the outside corridors , and then i felt warmth of another’s body , then the lingering scent of a girl’s shampoo , and her familiar face with her super dark brown and long hair just beside my face , and Piotr’s stunned , thunderstruck , appalled, horrified , flabbergasted , and dumbfounded Stupid face…….

  ‘What’s all this? Why is Anastasiya hugging me , no wait …. !!’

  As if i have gained peak enlightenment for the current situation , i backed off from Anastasiya and into the andromeda galaxy (basically far enough) with my hands in the air , as a sign of surrender and hopefully , forgiveness

  “AH, sorry I didn't mean to do that , please don't get the wrong idea”

  ‘Fuck , what have I done , It was all out of impulse , she knows right ? She doesn't mind , RIGHT?! ’

  Feeling embarrassed about it , I took a peek at her facial expression and coincidentally as we made eye contact , she immediately averted it with both her palms covering her beet red face.

  ‘SHE MINDS , SHE DEFINITELY MINDS, ARGHHHHH THIS ISN’T HOW I WANTED IT TO GO, SHE DEFINITELY HATES ME NOW, SHIT SHIT SHIT , GOD DAMN IT’

  Not long after I regained my happiness , I immediately lost all hope in my lifeless eyes again , as I stood there helplessly and extremely embarrassed , hoping for another miracle , or a hole so I could hide in there forever and repent for my sins. How did i still fuck up after what happened last time (chapter 2).

  “It-it’s f-fine , I don’t really mind it”

  “O-oh , i see….”

  “U-um do you feel b-better now?”

  “Uh, y-yea….”

  “I-i see…”

  We stood in front of each other , although considerably far for obvious reasons , we just looked away after the conversation so as to not let the other person see their embarrassment. The atmosphere is extremely awkward , god I really want to dig up a whole excavation site and hide in it at this point . Unable to break the ice , I looked around to find ways to remove the awkwardness and low and behold , I saw my extremely trustworthy and extremely reliable friend still standing there . With my fingers, I secretly gave him a signal to help me get out of this situation to which he agreed.

  ‘Phew , thank god you’re there Piotr , after this I definitely owe you one now ,perhaps i’ll see you in a different light’

  As he walked towards us , with a weirdly smug face , my hope for this to settle normally is dwindling with every step he takes .

  “Well, well wasn’t that oh so romantic, and by the way … did you guys kiss?”

  “?!!%??*&%￡!?!??”

  ‘THIS MOTHERFUckER ,forget breaking the ice , he made a fucking iceberg, i’ll def give you your two punches after this’

  “Ahaha , nice joke Piotr , haha funny , it was purely accidental , plus we DEFINITELY did not kiss”

  “Oh, so you mistook Anatasiya’s gesture of wanting to treat you as her wanting to hug you? I never knew you were so deprived and longing for her love, hehe”

  “ ??!”￡$%%$￡”$%^!??!”?! ”

  ‘...Piotr, you bastard, you’re courting death’

  “Alright enough with those tasteless jokes , you should take Anatasiya’s feeling into consideration , you’re going too far with those jokes”

  “Oh really, but I have proof. What was it again? Something along the lines of Anna~ I miss you , stay by my s-”

  “You Fucking Untrustworthy Unreliable Bastard , I’ll deliver your two punches that i owe you and ruin your good looking face RIGHT NOW!”

  Before he could finish taunting me , I already took the bait and in return , the satisfaction of landing two extremely clean and killer punches straight to his right cheeks and the other right under his left eye socket.

  “??!”

  To my surprise , not only did Piotr not get knocked out , he managed to retaliate by squeezing a punch in .

  “Man where did you learn how to pack a punch with that scrawny build of yours, it hurts so much”

  ‘Ah right, I’m no longer in my super toned and muscular body from my military years , i'm in my highschool self’

  It’s been so long since I felt this physically weak , since I decided to max out my physical capabilities once I graduated from highschool .

  But still , it does bring back bitter memories , this body of mine .

  “Well , time for payback , get ready Elrik , you ought to get a beating .”

  I held up my guard , clenching my fist to get ready for what’s to come

  “Bring it , fuckface”

  But that was soon short lived

  “Teacher , it's these two , they’re fighting in class!”

  Interrupted , we looked at the source of the sound , to find a finger from a bystander student pointed at us , and surrounding us were students who just finished recess that came here to see the commotion caused by us .

  “Shit” We both muttered in unison