PIXELATED | Lee Felix

Chapter 6

"..."

"..."

Eugene looks at her new neighbour with a sour expression, and thank God, he can't see it since her face is technically pixels in his view.

But the silence between them is very strong, awkward and also tense. It's almost as if the two have transformed into ticking bombs, ready to explode at any given time.

And no one's there to defuse it.

"Ok so—"

"Why." Felix cuts her off with huge annoyance in his voice. "Why do you have to be my neighbour?"

"Hey? I have been living here way longer before you. If anything, why are YOU here? There are many other halls, yet you chose this one." Eugene isn't having any of it. She crosses her arms in disapproval, not liking the way Felix is shoving the blame on her.

"Did you think I have the choice to pick a room? Someone happened to leave this room, which is why I got this one!" He doesn't sound too happy either.

"Okay well? If this is out of our control, then there's no need to shift the blame." The female uses a firm tone this time, trying to be as objective as possible. "I heard from Chris last night that you needed help with settling in, so I was requested to be a good neighbour for you." The tone she uses has hints of sarcasm in it.

"So you have to be grateful before I actually decide to ignore your whole ass existence," Eugene says, truly, still unable to accept that this pixelated man is now her new neighbour. One thing that she's grateful for though, is that they both can finally hold a pretty long conversation, even though it isn't necessarily peaceful.

"So rude for what?" Felix replies in an offended manner.

"You're rude for telling our advisor that I'm your source of stress like excuse me? Did you know that you bumped into me on that one rainy day and made my poster wet from the rain? Did you know that I lost my grades from that?" Eugene makes her statement without a pause, with no signs of hesitation—just full annoyance sprinkled with a bit of rage.

"And what did I get? A half-assed apology. You didn't even bother giving me a glance. You probably didn't know your bump made me lose my grip on my poster."

"Huh?! I don't remember...?" He seems genuinely forgetful about it but doesn't exactly show any concern either about the fact that she lost some points on her assignment.

"Of course, you don't remember." Eugene sighs heavily and has the intense urge to really just stomp on his feet, inflicting a pain that isn't too strong to injure him, but not too weak to let him off.

But as she takes a step closer, the male inches away again with his palm in front of him.

"Three. Meters. Away."

"Felix, you—"

"Oh, do I need to drag you back to elementary school?"

Eugene grumbles under her breath and walks back to the door of her room. Any sort of conversation with Felix is always futile, and she hates the fact that she has to communicate with him still—now that she's, his neighbour.

"I swear. I wonder why you're so different from Chris. How could he be so nice and helpful, then he gets to befriend a demon like you—"

"Excuse me?" His deep voice booms, sounding offended again. "You did not just berate me like that."

"But legit, everybody loves Chris and then you're here, breathing in peaceful air and emitting toxic air. What are you, a League of Legends player?"

"Yes but—"

"Makes sense." She nods aggressively and unlocks the door to her room, "Pretty sure you're single asf as well."

Felix wants to give her another reply but the girl already went into her room, not having the mood to talk to the man at all. He groans in distress as he tries to push the heavy boxes into his room.

"Felix! Sorry, I'm late. I just finished class." Chris comes to him panting, surprised to see that there are quite a lot of things still lingering outside the room. "Oh, you're taking a while."

"Yeah no shit since my neighbour just went in and decided not to help." He talks in a matter-of-fact tone and carries one of the boxes, mainly containing his cooking utensils, inside his room. It makes a loud THUD when he plops it down, and it makes Chris flinch a little bit.

"You sound annoyed. Is everything okay?" He asks in worry, only to receive a side eye from Felix. "No. That neighbour earlier just talked about how we both are oddly friends because you're nice and I'm like Satan."

Chris can't help but laugh at the remark, which makes Felix frown. "Chris! That's not funny!"

"No no no, I know Eugene wouldn't call you that if it weren't for something. You probably didn't give the best impression that she had to label you like that." He laughs at the whole situation. "Though, the first time I met you in one of our classes, I thought you were pretty sweet. So what did you do to her huh?" He raises his brows with a smug, curiosity written all over his face.

"Christopher Bang." Felix decides to use his full name and gives him a look. "She is the one that I told you about. The one with the pixelated face, the source of my fucking stress."

"... Seriously?"

"Yeah. We both have no idea why this is happening when everybody else sees us normally." Felix sighs. "But I can't bear seeing that ugly ass pixelated face of hers. It's creepy as fuck."

"Ohoho, Felix." Chris chuckles playfully, giving him another smug look. "If you truly can't see her, fine. But Eugene is actually such a visually appealing girl. I bet you can tell by the way she highlights and styles her hair."

"No one gives a shit. If she's pretty but her personality is intolerable, there's no use. She keeps trying to push the boundaries and I hate that." Felix rolls his eyes and then picks up one of the boxes. "Now that she's non-existent, can you please help me?"

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Author's Note: AYAYAY DOUBLE UPDATE YAY coz I'm sick so I can't exactly go outside or work so yes I managed to write another chapter :3 

Also, for those confused: Students in the university can apply as residential advisors. Chris is older than Felix but took an elective unit back then and it was a first-year unit, therefore they clashed and clicked well after having a group work together.  

See you next week!

- Howley.