PIXELATED | Lee Felix

Chapter 8

"Ah..." Eugene squirms in her seat, burying her face in between her arms as her laptop remains open in front of her. And behind her laptop, is another monitor screen that displays a bunch of research papers, peer-reviewed books and whatnot.

"Don't die yet, you haven't let me see Jake." Danielle monotonously makes a remark, her eyes not leaving her own screen as her fingers gloss over the keyboard, typing at a fast speed.

"If you're really that thirsty, I can buy you some bubble tea." Eugene jokes, finally facing upwards to look at her friend, "There's a 15% off today anyways."

"Sounds like a deal." She smirks, quickly turning the joke into an opportunity for a free treat. "One large, royal pearl milk tea please."

Realising what her friend is doing, Eugene gives her a shove on her ribcage with her elbow, "You smart ass. You better treat me next time too."

"We'll see about that since I'm broke." She shrugs, and then goes back to doing her assignment since the deadline is also sometime around the weekend. There is really no time for them to procrastinate, since it's almost mid-semester break, meaning it's peak assignment deadlines.

And Felix still has the audacity to play games like it is a holiday. She just can't understand how Felix is taking it easy. He still plays games almost every single night, but does end them mostly before 11 P.M. every night now ever since the first ever noise complaint she made against him.

Good, at least he knows his place. Eugene nods to herself in approval, but what bothers her is that ever since that exchange, the two of them haven't seen each other again despite literally living next door. Their different routine is already making it hard, but what makes it the hardest is that the two seems to do more assignment grinding at home than at the library nowadays.

But not like she has any purpose to see him anyway—in fact, it's always nicer to not get jump scared by a pixelated specimen every time she goes in and out of her room, or even at a random given time and place on campus.

Wait no, there's a purpose, which is to solve the phenomenon. Thinking about cooperating with Felix to solve this issue is already giving her a headache. So far, she has zero leads on what to do: no clues, no signs, no nothing. And his rejection of teamwork doubles the burden and amount of effort needed.

"Damn you, Felix. Why do you have to be such a pussy?" Eugene mutters under her breath as she makes her way to the bubble tea shop on her campus. The line is surprisingly pretty long, and looking at it is already giving her the laziness to queue.

She brings herself to the long line and sighs—why did she agree to Danielle's request again?

"Yeah, we have about 30 minutes before our next class." While Eugene is contemplating her choices, she hears the, supposedly, iconic deep voice, appearing behind her. She doesn't have to turn her body to face him to know who is currently lining up behind her.

At this point, she hopes that Felix wouldn't recognise her because she can already feel the future commotion happening in this huge ass line. But her long wolf cut with some teal highlights makes her hairstyle a little more unique than others. Sometimes she wishes she could just blend among the crowds and have a boring hair colour.

So of course, her worst nightmare came true.

"Holy shit, why are you here?!" His previously calm demeanour changes. Eugene drops her shoulders and turns to him, showing her pixelated face. "Why? Can't I grab a drink as well on campus? And I thought you've gotten used to seeing me like this, so stop overreacting!"

"I will never get used to it! At this point, it's not only your face, but your presence too!" Felix quickly inches away, accidentally bumping into his classmates who have been queuing behind him as well.