Rivalry Wars [COMPLETED]

✴️ 11 - What Friends Are For ✴️

Few months have passed, the competition between the elementals and the new students still goes on. Everyday when they're in school, they never stopped giving each other names and insulting words. This truly ruined the past weeks of their school year.

Not to mention, Gempa's been avoiding his best friends ever since. He'd never talked to them, nor spend time with them during their breaks, even when one of his friends asked them if they could hang out during the weekends, Gempa would either decline their offer or just simply won't reply back. That feeling of loneliness inside him returned, just like what happened to him before he became a part of the group.

But he never thought that his friends actually noticed it and decided to confront him about it.

<=> <=> <=>

Gempa was silently walking through the hallway, making his way towards the student government office to do something important. It was still early in the morning, so he got a lot of time before their classes start. Seeing there were only a few students around him, without one of them who's actually his friends, made him looked down gloomily and sighed softly afterwards.

He just misses them, but he doesn't know how he could approach them without Glasier spying on him everyday in every move he does and makes.

Suddenly, someone pulled him inside the restroom, making him yelped in shock. The grip on his arm was tight but gentle, and he didn't feel any— not even a little— pain from the unexpected action. When he glanced at the person who dragged him, his hazel-golden eyes widened in surprise as he recognized who it was.

"Halilintar...?" He breathed, tears started forming from his glistening eyes.

"Hey, Gempa." The said student calmly greeted, giving the earth element a small, warm smile.

Soon, another two people behind the fearsome badboy greeted him with a sad, genuine smile. "Hey, Gem." It was Ais and Solar.

"Guys..." The student government secretary forced a smile. "It's nice to see you, but I can't be with any of you—"

"Tell us why." The ice element interrupted, causing the latter to look away from them, keeping his mouth shut from telling the truth.

"Gem, don't think we didn't noticed you avoiding us these past few weeks already." Solar remarked, frowning. "You're making us worried!"

"Gempa, just please tell us." Halilintar firmly said, sighing. "Why are you avoiding us all of the sudden?"

"I can't..."

"You know we won't let you go until you speak out the truth."

"It's Glasier, okay!?" Gempa snapped, his hands clenched tightly into fists as he tried to hold back his tears. "He forbid me to hang out with you guys!" He added, gritting his teeth indignantly.

"... Why?" The famed alchemist asked, staring at him in confusion.

"B-Because..."

<=====>

[Flashback]

"Why are you doing this?!" Gempa exclaimed, frustrated with his rival infront of him.

"Because that's your punishment." Glasier responded, with an expressionless look plastered on his face.

"No! I will not allow that to happen!"

"Fine then," His rival smirked. "Be with them all you want, but don't think I have the right to kick you out—"

"From being your stupid secretary? I don't care." The earth manipulator retorted.

"... to kick you out from this school premises." He finished, making Gempa's eyes to widen in shock and shake his head in disbelief.

"No... you..."

"Heh, you didn't even let me finish." Glasier scoffed, grinning afterwards. "Where's your toughness ego now?"

<=====>

"I'm just... afraid to lose you guys. I don't want to lose you all just because I got kicked out from school..." Gempa uttered, as he glanced at each one of his friends cheerlessly. "You guys hold a very special place in my heart."

Solar hummed in thought. "You know, he's not even specific if even outside of this school, you should still avoid us. But somehow, I don't think he mentioned anything about you, not hanging out with us during the weekends." He stated, shrugging his shoulders.

"What are you trying to say...?"

"Solar meant you are allowed to hang out with us when we're not in school. Like, we could go together in the park, or everywhere we wanna go. But Glasier only mentioned you can't hang out with us here in school." Ais explained, giving their earth elemental friend a reassuring smile. "You can still be with us."

"And, if we want to talk to each other, let's just do it secretly, like what we're doing now." Halilintar added, making the ice and light elemental to nod in agreement.

After hearing those statements made the depressed boy to smile widely and genuinely at them. "Thank you guys."

Solar hummed. "Actually, this is a way of thanking you for being patient to us last year. Remember when me and balloon boy kept fighting?" He asked then grinned, making Gempa to chortle from that memory.

"What will I do without you guys..." The earth element smiled at them.  He then realized something, which caused him to furrow his eyebrows in confusion. "By the way, won't you guys get caught doing this? There's a CCTV camera looking outside the restroom. And, where's Taufan, Blaze and Duri?" He asked, his friends became silent for a moment.

"Oh, about that..."

<=> <=> <=>

"You're taking too long, Blaze!" Taufan groaned impatiently as he watched his varsity buddy typing swiftly into the keyboard.

"Hacking takes time, Taufan! You should be lucky I'm part of the Computer class and our instructor taught us how to hack in some necessary times like this!" Blaze argued back, his crimson eyes focus on the monitor infront of them.

"Yeah, yeah. Just hurry up before the security guard comes back!"

"Guys, keep it down." Duri scolded, trying to be the look out for them.

"And... the footage is... deleted." The fire elemental mumbled, as he fist-bumped the air in victory. "Yeah! I managed to delete the few minutes of footage in the CCTV!" He cheerfully said, shaking both of his soccer pal's shoulders in excitement.

"Yeah! You did it, Blaze!" The cheerful boy exclaimed, with the leaf elemental on the other hand smiled from their success.

"Okay, let's go before someone sees us here in the control room."