Chapter 138 - Confession

"One paper down, five more to go." Sato breathed out a sigh of lamentation. Not even the genius student himself enjoyed doing examination papers that lasted for three full hours. Looking down at his phone, he realized that he finished the paper an hour earlier. Sato dialed his phone, calling someone.

"Hello? You finished already?" The familiar voice sounded slightly surprised. He laughed lightly.

"Yeah, Gray. The paper came out topics that I studied in detail for." Sato smiled, feeling proud.

"Alright. Then could you wait for thirty minutes? I have to hand this report to my subordinate."

"Sure. Drop a message when you are done. Bye!" Sato was understanding of Gray. After all, he was the one that finished his paper early. As he hung up the phone, he decided to go for a walk around the university campus.

The current campus he was located in was called Langers Town, which was named after Joey Langers. He was a famous engineer that was migrated to Country Z after its founding. Joey Langers had created the Xeron Scope Engine that was eventually commercialized and used in all airplanes in the 22nd century. After earning a bucket load of wealth from the patent, Joey Langers sponsored the engineering and computer science department, thus, his name will be forever remembered in University Z.

Sato sat by the fountain seats which he loved the most. Beside him was a bronze statue of Joey Langers, an idol of Sato's. For many engineering students, their end goal was to be able to contribute greatly to the world with their creations and calculations. Sato read through some new articles on his phone, keeping up with world affairs. It was then, a person walking by had caught the young man's eye.

"Ming?" Sato recognized the familiar shoes that his best friend wore. Looking up, he realized it really was Ming, who had been avoiding his all this while. After not properly seeing him for several weeks, he noticed the physical changes of his friend.

The already skinny Ming had lost even more weight. It was to the point that he now looked like Sato when he first lost his scholarship grant. To make it worse, there were dark circles under the young man's eyes and his hair was disheveled. It was obvious to anyone that Ming had gotten no sleep for many days. The slouching body added on to his current exhausted outlook.

"Sato?" Not believing that the person in front of his was Sato, Ming shook his head slightly and focused his tired eyes. The man's eyes suddenly widen in shock that it was actually Sato. Ming quickly turned around, in attempts to walk away from the fountain area.

"Hey, stop!" Sato flung his backpack to the side of his chair as he stood up and chased after the boy. It didn't take much effort for Sato to reach his tired-looking friend. Sato asked apprehensively as he held onto Ming's wrist tightly. "Why are you avoiding me?"

"Wha..What do you mean? I wasn't avoiding you." Ming's head was turned away from Sato, both his fists were clenched close.

"If you're not avoiding me, then why won't you look into my eye?" Sato's tone of voice was a mix of anger and sadness.

Over the past few weeks, even though the young man was filled with love in his life, there was always a part of him that was distracted. He could never give his one hundred percent on any matter as he was always thinking of Ming.

The thought that his best friend was avoiding him for an unknown reason, made him uncomfortable, and resulted in many sleepless nights. It was why Sato had resulted in increased training and exercising right before he slept. If he was not totally exhausted, the random thoughts and worries would pop up in his head. Seeing Ming run away from him, even after Sato called out his name, it felt like a dagger had been stabbed into his heart and was being wrenched out slowly.

Seeing that Ming was not giving up on walking away, Sato could result in asking another question. This time, his tone leaned towards sadness.

"Could you at least give me a reason why you are avoiding me? I really have no clue in what way I had hurt you."

Avoiding you? A reason? Ming's heart quivered at the words of Sato. Why had Ming started to avoid Sato in the first place? Was it an act of jealousy? Was it an act of distress? That night in the amus.e.m.e.nt park was the first time Ming felt the way he did in his entire life. Watching the one person he loves, get taken away by someone else, had changed him as a person.

The days after the outing was long and painful. He stayed in bed for multiple days and only when his body started to convulse in hunger, did he get out to eat and drink minimally. When he wasn't doing that, he was trying to sleep. He was trying to sleep away from the scene that he saw that night. It was an attempt to forget everything that had happened that night, an attempt to treat it like a dream. Evidently, it was in vain. Whenever he thought about Sato or even saw his shadow, the only thing that would pop up in his head was him kissing Gray. Unlucky? Unfortunate? In the wrong place at the wrong time? That could be all used to describe Ming's circ.u.mstances.

Hearing what Sato had said, Ming turned around slowly and looked at the boy that had caused so much joy and yet, so much pain in his life. Sato's grip loosen when he caught a proper glimpse of Ming's face. Only one word could describe the feeling expressed by his best friend. Despair. There was only despair written all over Ming's face. Uncontrollable, tears started coming down from Sato's face. There wasn't a frown while the tears rolled down Sato's pale face. He was stuck in a state of shock.

Ming noticed that Sato was crying and his heart ached even more. What did I do to deserve your tears? Ming raised his bony hands as he wiped away the tears that came down from both sides. Moving in, he planted a forced kiss onto his best friend's lips. A coldness moved into Sato's body speedily. His eyes widen in surprise from what Ming had done. Before Sato could even react, Ming had already turned his back and ran off clumsily.

However, this was all Sato needed to be able to figure out the reason behind their growing rift in their friendship.