17 New Friend

"Yo, how did you do half of those things? It was sick!" Josh exclaimed, his mouth gaping open. Yu Pengkai didn't reply.

Instead, remembering that this wasn't even his own account and that he was planning on never playing again, Yu Pengkai hovered over the "Deny" option of the friend request without much of a second thought.

"Wait!" A series of light pats on Yu Pengkai's back suddenly jerked him back to reality, and he spun around to see a small crowd gathered behind him. Hearing the commotion around this lab bench, three wide-eyed classmates had slowly made their way over to spectate the somewhat surprising turn of events.

"You should accept!" Someone commented.

"Yeah! I wanna see what the Cleo has to say!" Someone else added excitedly.

"Sorry, this isn't my account," Yu Pengkai's voice was calm, a stark contrast to those around him. "I don't think I should add anyone without the account owner's permission."

He hovered over the "Deny," again, ready to delete the friend request.

"Aww come on, man. You could always delete them before returning the account! The Cleo was such a good player!"

Thinking back to all the mistakes the Cleopatra had made, both errors in judgement and issues with playstyle, Yu Pengkai grimaced. "At best, she is recyclable trash—one tier above most current players." Before he knew it, the words were already out of his mouth.

The people around him immediately turned silent as no one knew how to respond to such a burning statement. After all, considering the game's recent release, such a player was surely considered God-tier. Plus, no one had thought the Yu Pengkai they knew would give such a rude comment.

At least, Kevin was a bit taken aback. To him previously, the only words that came to his mind when thinking of Yu Pengkai were quiet, reserved, and calm. He was the type to continue working on his newest projects even when the room was literally shaking during an earthquake. Adding rude and judgmental to that list simply didn't seem like it fit the profile of Yu Pengkai he had in mind.

Silently, Kevin snaked his arm Yu Pengkai's back, careful not to accidentally scrape against the shirt fabric as he did so. His outstretched fingers inched closer and closer to the mouse that rested under Yu Pengkai's hand—

"Aha!" Kevin exclaimed triumphantly, wrestling the mouse from Yu Pengkai's control. "This is my brother's account, so I say we accept the friend request! Here…"

The excitement in his voice quickly died off as he openly gawked at the computer screen. In the cartoons, this is usually the scene where the character's mouth drops dramatically to the group as black lines form on their foreheads.

During the process of taking the mouse from Yu Pengkai, Kevin accidentally clicked on the mouse's left key, effectively clicking the "Deny" option and deleting the friend request.

"Nooooooooo!" Kevin whined, an edge of melodrama to his voice as he began scratching his head. "I wanted to ask what he thought of playing against me and if he had some tips for me!" As his voice changed in pitch, the curls in his hair bobbed up and down, making quite a scene.

Yu Pengkai rolled his eyes, shoving the mouse and keyboard aside as he got up and plopped into Kevin's empty seat. Now that the game had ended, it was like all the light and energy suddenly disappeared from his world again as his thoughts returned back to the gray classroom.

He flipped to the familiar page in the chemistry textbook, the very same that he had read at least five times but still didn't fully understand, and tried to block out the cacophony.

After the exciting match, it suddenly appeared as if the yellow lights grew into an even ghastlier shade, and the ant-like words in his textbook became even smaller and more boring. He could feel his heartbeat grow slow as all the adrenaline coursing through him crashed back to base levels.

Yu Pengkai read the line yet again: "The absolute pressure exerted by a given mass of an ideal gas…"

"Wait what if we send a friend request?" The small group were still openly trying to add Cleopatra on Kings of Valor. But since they didn't know which tab represented a catalogue of past match histories, it was more like they clicked on every single tab of the game interface.

As Yu Pengkai stared blankly at the textbook, all he could think of was how quickly he lost control. While he had promised to not touch the game again, he somehow found himself in front of the digital arena once more. Surely, Kings of Valor was like the one drug he knew he had to quit. But every time he tried to put an end to his addictions, it would nag at his heart like never before.

"Wait Kai, I know that this is your first time playing, but can you give some tips?" Kevin hopped back over to Yu Pengkai's side and began tapping on the chemistry textbook as if it was his keyboard.

"No," Yu Pengkai buried his head back into his studies. He looked up to see Kevin's crestfallen game.

"But you're a natural! Heck, if this is your first time, imagine what you can do after five games!" If there was one thing about Kevin, it was that he didn't know when to give up.

All Yu Pengkai wanted was to get Kevin off his back. And in a bright flash of inspiration, he realized that these comments would be better-served for the Cleopatra player.

"Here, give me this," Yu Pengai naturally took over the keyboard and mouse again, angling them both towards him. In the "+ friends" bar, he typed out the online name "SupremeDragonLord."

Before the minute had passed, a little blue circle shone brightly in his friends list.

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SupremeDragonLord is now your friend.

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