A/N: If you’re wondering about what happened, well, this chapter explains it all, and then some.

Chapter 17: Knights in Shining Armor Don’t Always Get the Girl

Don’t touch my hand and say that this is love,

Unless you can hold it tightly tonight;

If you’re not strong enough.

-Trisha Teo-

**********************************

It wasn’t meant to be this civil.

It wasn’t meant to be this….*calm*.

“Do you really have to go?”

It was a redundant question when they were already this far ahead.

“You know I have to, Chris.”

Chris Hoh felt the sucker-punch in those words of hers, but he had to keep a straight face.

“I know. But I just hoped that you’d change your mind,” he said ruefully, wiping the tear that sneaked its way across his face.

Vivian smiled too, wiping that tear from his face with a gentle finger, Chris silently savoring her touch. It could have very well been the last, for all he knew.

“Don’t give me that, okay? Come here,” she said soothingly, wrapping her arms around Chris. Vivian’s touch was the warmest thing he knew and he was sure as hell going to miss it. He was going to miss *her*.

“You’ll find a good girl someday, one that’s better than me,” she continued, and that broke him down. He almost collapsed on the floor if his left arm didn’t immediately grab the railing next to him.

He has heard that line so many times, from too many girls, his heart broken too many times over. How long will it take before they realize that that particular line had lost its meaning?

“Have you not realized that I only want you?”Chris asked weakly, gripping onto Vivian ever-so-tighter.

“Please, Chris…you need to let me go,” Vivian said, kissing his cheek as she loosed the hug. “I may never be coming back.”

“Then I’ll come to you,” Chris replied instantly. Did he really mean it? Of course he did. At least, in his mind, he was.

“Chris, stop, please,” Vivian asked, that little firmness in her tone so evident.

“I’m going to have to move on with life. I want you to do the same, do you understand?”

This was going against every fiber of Chris’s being. He wanted her, and nothing else. Was that so hard? Was it enough for here to stay?

But it was the small voice on the back of his head that told him otherwise.

Vivian going off to England to further her studies was a good thing. She deserved this chance to move on and make someone out of herself, right?

Wrong.

It would never be right in the small, selfish little corner in Chris’s mind. The rest of his mind was agreeing for her to go, despite his heart’s bleeding cries otherwise.

If she was only going there to study, it wasn’t that bad. She’d come back one day, right?

Wrong again.

She got a full scholarship that ended with her having to work at the sponsor’s company in Great Manchester. He should be happy for her, career-wise, but he couldn’t be any more crossed.

“I’ll come to you when I’m done with my studies. I promise,” Chris said, his eyes burning with such intensity that Vivian was actually frozen in her steps. Still, she knew her resolve.

“You know as well as I do that I can’t come back home for a very long time, Chris. That’s why my family is coming with me. And as for you, your life is here. You can’t move just because of me,” she explained, stroking his cheek all the while.

Chris was slightly wondering why was she still touching him like this when things were just going to end here, today? He then bit his lower lips as he remembered that it’s better to count your blessings, not question them.

“You are the most important person in my life, Viv, and I would do anythi-”

He would have expected her to slap him midsentence, but she only placed a gentle finger to his lips, silencing him nevertheless.

“That’s your hormones talking, Chris. Or maybe it’s your heart, as misguided as it may be right now,” she said with a grin, a warm grin.

It hurt him for her to say that, but it sounded more like a joke anyway.

He didn’t reply her immediately.

“Chris?”

Okay, that was an indication that he was silent for long enough.

“Yeah?” he asked with the straightest face he could pull.

“I’m going to miss you too, y’know. It isn’t easy for me either,” she said affectionately.

The rest of the following conversations were needless, Chris lamented in his mind.

Seeing her waving him goodbye as she disappeared down the departure hall was the final time he ever saw her.

Was he angry? Was he disappointed? Of course he was.

He couldn’t bring it to himself to direct those feelings towards her anyway. It was the *circumstances* that should be blamed. Right?

“I wouldn’t be too sure about not putting even a little of the blame on her…” Leon muttered, half-burying his head in his arms.

“Why?” Peter asked in return, looking a little curious.

The other boys were just as curious about Leon’s answer as they sat at the campus park after Chris decided to let the others in on what transpired just a few days ago.

“As much as you’d like to gratify her or say ‘It’s not her fault’,” Leon began, almost repeating word-for-word of a similar advice he was given just a few days ago too. “You have to face the fact that she’s just human.”

As much as Chris didn’t want to voice it out, he had to agree with Leon. Vivian had her flaws, as did everyone. She’s not immune to the blame, but he just couldn’t hate her for it.

Ken and Jason nodded, Peter and Eric keeping silent as Chris only stared ahead. The silence that followed was as heavy as ever.

“So where did you get that piece from, eh?” Jason finally asked about Leon’s earlier advice.

“You knew it wasn’t mine?” Leon asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Duh. Sounds more like something Trisha would say. You know how she does things,” Jason continued, Leon wincing internally.

“Yeah, that’s her style, I guess. Remind me to pay her the royalties, then,” Leon said, shrugging.

It brought some laughter to the boys. At least it won’t leave the atmosphere that dry with the depression that loomed just overhead.

“Bah, we’re so full with this heartbreak crap, eh?” Eric burst out suddenly, almost scaring Ken off his seat on one of the steeper smooth-rock formations.

“Dammit, Eric. A little warning wouldn’t hurt,” Ken seethed, trying to balance himself again as the other boys had a healthy chuckle, save for Chris.

“That’s nothing. You should’ve seen him when he almost fell off a ladder last week back home. I never heard so many mixes of Cantonese and English foul swears at once. Neither did Mrs. Goh next door,” Chris said, the laughter exploding even louder.

Ken shot his younger twin a dark look, the said lad now still brooding over.

Jason took a glance from his watch and noticed that it was almost 6pm, and he had some work that needed to be done by tomorrow. He grumbled when he remembered the most important detail of it all. He had not even touched it at all.

“If only I was good in drawing too…then I’d be able to join you guys and actually have fun while doing my homework…” Jason muttered, Leon and Eric looking at him.

“If you think it’s a walk in the park, what we do, you’re wrong. If anything, our assignments are just as bad as yours are. There’s no shortcuts in college,” Leon said, Eric nodding as Jason looked puzzled for a good few seconds.

It was only after that did he nod, getting up to say goodbye to the rest. It wasn’t long before the rest went on different paths themselves, Chris plopping back onto his car.

“Chris, you go on ahead and head home. I’m gonna get something from Sunway then I’ll be back,” Ken said from the intercom the boys had in their Vortege’s.

“Fine,” was all Chris said, taking off his glasses as Eve, the AI Interface in his car smiled at him.

“Want me to drive back today?”

“It’s like you know me so well,” Chris grinned, letting the smile linger just for a few seconds before he drifted off to sleep almost immediately.

Eyes that were tired from continuous crying contributed to the 3-second knockout.

**************************

“Your equation’s wrong,” Peter muttered nonchalantly to an already irate Benedict Au, who cursed under his breath.

“Thanks,” he said anyway, furiously erasing half of the things he wrote down on that particular piece of paper.

“Actually you only got the last part wrong. The rest were fine,” Peter added, slightly amused by Ben’s handiwork. The tall lanky bespectacled teen then hit plopped his forehead onto the lecture hall desk. Hard.

The resulting thud caused several people to look at Benedict, but Peter fathomed that he couldn’t care less.

The katana wielder himself couldn’t care less either. Peter was too busy thinking about how Chris might be holding up. He still remembered the whole James ordeal that only happened less than a few months back. How much heartbreak can one guy be forced to sustain in that kind of time span?

“3 times in 3 months,” Leon mused to him earlier, that rueful smile playing on his lips again. Peter knew that the boy wasn’t lying. Who would want to lie about how many times one got heartbroken anyway?

Peter checked his watch and saw that they still had about 15 minutes before his favorite period for the day was coming. 15 minutes was too long of a wait considering this stupid algorithm in front of him.

*******************************

His heart was thumping in his ears as his legs took a life of their own.

He was cornered, but he had to get the objective done either way, even if he had to take one for the team.

He stopped for that brief second, and knew that it would be do-or-die.

They stopped too, just milliseconds after he did. If they were any good, it’d take them nothing more than a second to have reacted to his sudden stop.

Now or never. Now or never. Those 3 words played in his mind persistently as he anchored his left foot on the soft, yet firm grass, his right leg slamming the ball straight up into the sky.

They left him alone after that, pursuing the ball as it fell back onto the ground and Eric could finally fall flat on his rear on the ground, taking a breather as Leon came to ruffle his hair for the good save.

Being on the final few lines of defense was rewarding at times. Defenders don’t usually get the glory and praise unless one did something monumental.

Eric being able to hold his own for 2 whole minutes with all his bids for passing back the ball virtually blocked was credible, to say the least.

*************************

Finally...Jason thought as he welcomed the now-descending ball with a bicycle kick, sending the ball to the back of the net, if it wasn’t for Ken who head-butted the ball away.

Jason, as well as his fellow strikers groaned at the hindered chance for a goal, but knew more opportunities would surface later.

But it was more onto the thrill of playing football that got them going.

Scoring goals was more of a push from the adrenaline, though. It sparked up the competitiveness in them.

**************************

“If I don’t make it out in 10 minutes, leave without me.”

“For goodness’s sake, Leon, it’s just a little dusting.”

“Tell that to the dust clumps inside there that are bigger than your head. And that’s saying something, Shaz.”

The 6-footer grunted as he made his way into the store room of his dorm, arming himself with a duster and a breathing mask.

Leon, on the other hand held tightly to the vacuum cleaner he found lying about the double-storey dorm house Shaz lived in.

“Y’know you don’t have to do this, right?”

“I know,” Leon replied. “But it’s either this or I go home early to sleep.”

Shaz began dusting the upper shelves, all the while sniggering how they were too high for Leon to reach with.

“Dammit, I’m not exactly a dwarf,” the bespectacled boy growled, sucking up literally inches of dust from the room.

“How long has it been since anyone’s been here?”

“A few months,” Shaz muttered. “The landlord said he’d offer a cut on the rental for this month if anyone was willing or stupid enough to do it. No one wanted to do it.”

“And you volunteered in the end?”

“Yup. Got nothing much to do anyway,” Shaz said casually.

They continued cleaning up the rather small room until the vacuum cleaner started to make this weird choking noise. It actually almost sounded like it was being throttled.

“Have I really sucked in so much dust with this thing till it got jammed?” Leon asked, Shaz shrugging.

“Go check it out.”

The bespectacled boy’s eyelashes disappeared clearly into his fringe once more as he scratched the back of his head.

“No way. I’m not gonna get attacked by whatever was in there before I began vacuuming.”

“Chicken.”

“I’d rather be poultry than face it, then,” Leon said with his hands raised in up in mock defeat, letting Shaz open the now-stuck contraption.

As soon as he pried open the cover, dust balls gently flew out due to the change in air pressure, Leon observing the steadily floating specks.

“See? Nothing in here but dust, dust, and more dust.”

Shaz’s look said it all. He was right.

Then Leon noticed something creeping up Shaz’s hand.

The 6-footer was still looking at Leon when he noticed the boy’s expression change straight from indifference to straight fright.

He imagined the worst. Slowly, he turned his head over to his right arm that was still holding onto the cleaner’s edge.

It was that dark brown patch on his hand that made him freeze too, and then when the two thin wires on its head moved, Shaz could only tell it was definitely a pair of antennae.

And then all hell broke loose.

Leon immediately flinched when Shaz practically erupted in that spot.

“Ahhh!” Shaz cried, scampering on the spot for several seconds before flailing his arms.

Leon instinctively shielded himself, trying to predict where Shaz would run next. The tall boy was an ex-rugby player, and the last thing Leon wanted to do was to get steamrolled over.

“Shaz! Calm down!” Leon yelled, trying to get Shaz to stop, knowing it won’t work anyway.

“Get it off! Get it off!!” Shaz cried, swiping on his arms, but the cockroach continued to scurry around him, *not* intending to give up that easily.

“How did a cockroach get into a vacuum cleaner?!” Shaz roared, slapping his arms but the small insect already was running around his body, which made him scream even more.

“Oh how the mighty have fallen,” someone said from the door.

Leon turned to see a girl standing by the doorway, her arms crossed with an evil smirk on her face.

“Bee Lian? How did you get here?” Leon asked, tilting his head slightly in curiosity.

The small girl, tall enough to reach Leon’s chin, just walked in and over to the still-panicking Shaz, and picked the cockroach from his back with a pair of tweezers from Shaz’s table nearby.

She grimaced at the struggling creature, distancing herself from the cockroach.

“Eww…where’s the toilet, Leon?” Bee Lian asked, Leon pointing to a certain door.

She went in, and less than a second later, the distinct sound of a toilet flushing echoed from it.

Shaz, who by now was taking Leon’s earlier advice of calming down, was still breathing heavily from the earlier adrenaline rush.

“Better now?” Leon asked, pulling up a chair for Shaz to sit on as Bee Lian came out of the bathroom, her hands washed thoroughly.

“You stupid chicken. You could’ve gotten rid of it easier if you just stayed still,” Bee Lian said, crossing her arms at Shaz, who wasn’t amused in the least.

“Shut up, you stupid shorty. It’s not as if you’d be any better fending it off if it was on you,” Shaz muttered, looking the other way.

“Maybe, but I wouldn’t prance around like the big klutz you are and panic like that,” she countered, Shaz harrumphing.

Leon held back a snigger. These 2 weren’t going out with each other, but they could bicker like any old married couples would.

“By the way, I never got an answer from you about how you managed to open the front door. I remember locking it using Shaz’s keys,” Leon said.

“I made a copy when he left it behind in Drawing class last time,” she said, holding a silver version of the brass key Shaz used for the front door-grille.

“Hey! Give it back! You don’t have the right to have a key to the door!” Shaz said, almost out of his chair, though he restrained himself.

“No Shaz. I keep this just in case something bad happens and I’m the only one that’ll be stupid enough to come help you anyway. Like today,” she said with that little bite in her tone.

That did it.

Shaz stood up from the chair, his face mirroring a stony cold stare as he dangerously approached the now slightly backing-off Bee Lian.

“Uh...Shaz…what are you…” she said, slightly trying to size herself up to him, and failing miserably.

He stopped mere centimeters from her, the girl finally refusing to budge any further backwards.

They both stared each other down for what seemed like forever, until Shaz promptly turned her around and wrapped a forearm around her head from the eyes and upwards.

She froze for a second, her mind not yet registering what exactly happened, and then she squealed.

“Ahhh! Let go of me, you stupid big lummox!” she cried, flailing her hands aimlessly as she was practically pinned by the bigger and more capable Shaz.

“Not until you gimme back the key,” Shaz said, keeping his iron grip on her tight enough for her not to escape. She’s actually done that before.

“No! It’s my set! I get to decide what to do with it!” she protested.

“Fine. No key, no letting go,” Shaz said before tightening the grip ever-so-slightly. Shaz didn’t wanna be too rough on her. Bee Lian was a delicate girl, deep, deep down inside….

Leon tried his best to ignore the renewed –and louder squeals from Bee Lian and decided to let them sort this out by themselves. They preferred it that way.

The boy then sat down and stared out the window, benign-ing himself the constant struggle between the giant and the midget.

He then noticed a couple walking down the street, recognized the girl and the swordsman immediately growled his disapproval of them.

“Why couldn’t you have picked me instead?”

****************************

“Hey, what’s got you down in the dumps this time?”

Chris was finding this amusing as usually Leon was the one asking the rest how they were doing. Usually.

“Nothing much. You’ve got problems with girls, I’ve got problems with girls. Nothing new, then,” Leon said dryly, the wind gently blowing several strands of both their unruly hairs.

“Has the main block’s roof become a rally point of some sort for us whenever we get all emo?” Chris asked, Leon shrugging. Peter was reading a book nearby, Ken taking a snooze under the carpet-grass.

“Aren’t we all inside, empty? Void of all joys that we so wish to have?”

Leon and Chris turned around to see Peter lamenting from the book, his open hand held highly as he continued to read passage upon passage dramatically.

“Geez, could you lighten up with the drama?” Trisha asked from her spot on one of the benches before burying herself into the novel she was leisurely reading before.

Peter genuinely seemed to forget that there was a girl amongst them for a change, so he apologized briefly before returning to his safe haven within the velvet book.

“Maybe you should’ve reconsidered bestowing her title of Ace of The Domineering Thunder,” Terry said as he lied on an empty bench. “I mean, the only thing louder than her guns is her-”

“I dare you to complete that sentence,” Trisha muttered, one of her pistols already drawn out.

What made it amusing was that her book was completely obscuring her from actually aiming the gun, but wherever Terry budged to avoid it, the pistol was pointed straight at his head.

Some of the boys were stifling their laughs; some almost on the verge of erupting in laughter as Terry gingerly moved his body ever-so-slightly, trying not to make even the slightest hint that he was avoiding the gun’s barrel. It didn’t work.

“Go on. Speak up,” said, as if completely oblivious to the fact that she herself was able to deflate Terry’s head with just a twitch of her finger.

The boy nervously gulped.

“As the Ace of The Glorious Lightning, I think I can take you on, Trisha Teo,” Terry said, trying to size himself up.

“Glorious? Who penned that one up?” Jason whispered to Eric, who was still studying Trisha’s moves. She was still reading, and from his position, he could clearly see her face from the side. It was as beautiful as always, although it was just expressionless. “He declared himself as that, Jason.”

“You may try, Terry, but arrogance will not serve you well,” Trisha said.

With that, she pulled the hammer back, priming the gun.

Was she seriously going to pull through with this?

“She’s almost as trigger-happy as you are,” Chris commented to Leon, who shrugged. He didn’t need to see what was going on. He already knew the outcome.

But past mistakes told him that if he could expect one thing from Trisha, it’s that she’ll do the unexpected whenever she fancied.

“If you’re gonna blow off Terry’s head, could you use the silencer this time? Your gun’s almost as annoying as Leon’s M4,” Shaz said while cleaning his overly large axe.

The bespectacled boy did not appreciate the crack at him, but he couldn’t do much except scowl. If he overreacted, it’d only look bad on him.

“Things don’t look good these days, huh?” Ken asked as he joined the archer and the swordsman.

“Not in the least,” Leon said grumpily before Chris could even utter a word.

“You, my friend, have issues,” Ken said as he conjured up a few ice cubes and tossed it into his open bottle.

“Don’t we all?” Leon grumbled.

“Some more than others,” another voice said from behind the three of them.

“Give it a rest already, won’t you, Shaz?” Leon said, pinching the bridge of his nose. Almost everyone knew that he couldn’t handle pressure all that well by himself.

“Tsk, you gotta learn to take things easier, Leon. Life isn’t meant to be spent being all stressed-out,” Shaz said, patting the boy’s back before walking off.

“He’s got a point,” Ken said before he too walked off to join Jason and Eric. Trisha was still effortlessly aiming the gun dead centre at Terry’s head.

“Alright, I give. You win. Lemme out already!” Terry whined, Jason and Ken sniggering.

Some others on the roof garden were watching intently at Trisha’s stunt. Some entertainment was appreciated every now and then, right?

“Just control that mouth of yours, will you? Not everyone is as forgiving as we are,” Trisha said before withdrawing her weapon.

“What’s her problem?” Terry mouthed to Leon, who uttered his silent reply. “Not in the mood.”

Did he mean her? Or himself? Terry pondered over before shaking his head.

“I gotta go home anyway. Bye guys,” Terry said before trotting off.

“You could’ve taken it lighter, princess,” Leon said as he moved to plop himself near her, careful of his distance.

“Like you told Terry, I’m not in the mood,” she said grumpily. It was one of the few times Leon heard her sound this moody.

Wait…

“You saw me mouthing my reply to Terry? You were reading your book throughout. I made sure of it,” Leon said, scowling slightly.

“Well I can still do things that even you don’t know of,” Trisha said with that telltale hint of a smile gracing those soft pink lips of hers.

“If you say so,” Leon said, shrugging. He was too tired to prolong this anyway.

“You don’t look all that super. Anything you wanna share?” she asked, eyes still focused on the book.

“Now that’s strange. Usually you’re the one to just listen as I dump all my issues for you to analyze,” Leon said, raising an eyebrow.

“I’m in the mood for that,” was all the girl said.

“Girl trouble. Work pressure. Constantly being teased. The usual,” Leon said nonchalantly.

The girl sighed.

“It’s like Shaz said. Take everything in stride. Don’t let these petty things get you down, okay? You can handle yourself against monsters and annoying people itching for a fight, and yet you’re whining about girls and being teased about?”

Leon winced. Sometimes he wondered if Shaz and Trish were related. Their views of life and sentiments were almost always spot-on with each other.

“Thanks for the advice, Trish. Just wish I could repay you for all the things you do for me,” the boy weakly replied, smiling at her.

She took a glance at Leon and noticed the warm smile that he gave her. He really appreciated her, didn’t he?

“Stop giving me those puppy dog eyes, you twerp. I’m not gonna pat your head or something,” Trisha said, gently nudging Leon’s forehead.

“Alright, alright, I’ll stop,” Leon said, chuckling with the gunslinger girl.

“Like Shaz said before, will you two just get a room?”

Leon’s and Trisha’s death glares never failed to shut Jason up.

*************************

A/N: Okay, here’s something to clarify bout my novel. As COD left a review saying I’m copying characters from COD4 and shouldn’t then consider this a genuine original novel, lemme make this clear.

I used the COD4 characters for the sake of entertaining my friends, never for once mentioning a COD-related storyline. I do appreciate your concern, however, as you actually took the time to leave a review.

Thanks, COD, and I do hope you’ll continue to read this novel, despite the prologue. Many have approached me as to why I even wrote it in the first place, and I’m beginning to think I shouldn’t have, in the first place.