Morning arrived and Zordyz got up earlier than usual. He waited for Yuenelia to come knocking on his door to wake him up like she always did.
Time ticked by but she never came.
He sighed.
"Figures."
He checks his mobile phone one last time. The text message he sent at dawn was left unread.
'Did anything happen yesterday?' he asked vaguely in his text. He didn't dare to ask more for fear of stepping on landmines that will make it worse.
He walked in front of her house, taking in the smell of the gardenia flowers.
"Good morning, Zor." Yuenelia's mother greeted him.
"Good morning, Aunt Val."
"It's rare to see you up so early for school. How's the basketball tournament? Has it ended?" she asked while watering the flowers.
"No, today's the quarter-finals."
"Did Yue leave?" he asked, looking up at her window.
"Yue's staying home today. She's not feeling well." Valerie replied, tending the garden. Coincidentally, it was her day off.
Worried, he automatically went for the door.
"Oh, and she insisted not to let you visit. She doesn't want you to catch anything from her." Valerie stopped him.
"You're still in the middle of the tournament. It's best to stay away for now."
'She's definitely avoiding me.'
"I'll visit some other time then," Zordyz said with an awkward smile.
"Good luck with your match."
He nodded and went off to school.
Yuenelia peeked out from behind the window curtain as he left. She was glad he didn't pursue her condition any further.
"I can't go to school with this," she looked at the worsening bruise on her wrist.
"Tev!"
A soft light enveloped the affected area, cooling it down. The spell only provided temporary relief.
If it was a normal bruise, it would've been healed by now.
Aside from the strong grip, Zordyz's contained a great amount of breeve magic particles in it. The high energy kind at that. Contrary to spark and twill, breeve magic is used for defensive purposes. It can also act as an imprint and repellant.
Zordyz unconsciously coated himself with a layer of breeve particles as a defence mechanism after he grabbed her. Since the bruise is under the breeve particles, it became impossible to heal with magic externally.
It was the first time Yuenelia experienced the power of defensive magic that was used offensively.
"His strength was no joke too. The cold compress has almost no effect. This is going to take a while to heal."
High energy breeve particles can take days or weeks to disintegrate. All she could do is apply cold compress magic and try to slowly break down the particles with cancellation spells.
She laid back down on her bed.
Yesterday's incident gave her a scare.
Zordyz had always recovered well when she's there with him. He liked to joke about it and pretended to have it sometimes.
It has become significantly difficult for her to distinguish whether he was joking or not. Every time it happens, it felt so real that she couldn't take it as him fooling around with her anymore.
'I never want to see that expression again, but it's inevitable. No matter how much I wish Zor could one day just recover naturally, it's impossible.'
'It'll only get worse from here on out. There will be more and more of these instances. My heart won't last.'
An encounter that only lasted for a short moment has left Yuenelia emotionally exhausted. She curled into a ball and fell asleep.
Zordyz was in no better condition mentally. His mind was full of Yuenelia. They argue all the time, but it never came to this point.
This was the first time she has avoided him. It would have been fine if he knew what was bothering her to the point of avoiding him. It would have been better if she scolded him. That way, he can fix his mistake.
Not knowing the reason put him in a super depressed mood.
"Doesn't he look terrible today?" Raysa pointed it out to Ayden who was doing warmup stretches with him. "He tripped and banged his head at least 5 times in school before coming to the match."
"The only person who can turn him into a mess is Yuenelia. He probably made her really mad or something." Ayden looked at Zordyz sitting on the bench and staring into space.
'Did he offend her in any way? Poor dude can't remember.'
"I do recall her ignoring him for a whole day back in middle school. He was so flustered that he looked like a different person." Raysa chuckled.
"Are you sure it's okay to leave him alone?" Hima came over to check on them.
"Today's match belongs to the upperclassmen. We are only backups. Here, put this on him. He would at least be useful that way." Ayden gave Hima a towel.
He went over and covered Zordyz's head with the towel, concealing his expression. Even if Zordyz was out of it, his presence on the bench still posed a threat to the opposing team.
"He'll be back to normal once they reconciled," Ayden reassured them.
"Let's focus on the game. We are up against the fourth seed today."