Mythical Shadows

Chapter 7: Relationships

I shook my head, and stared at the one pathway that led to us. What was he not understanding? "I'm just self-conscious. Worried about what people will think," I said.

In my periphery, Melon looked away from me, and down at what was going on below. "I still don't understand why," he said. I heard a very slight edge to his voice.

"Because of what—" I began, my own tone becoming harsh, but I stopped myself. If he didn't get it, he didn't get it. Pushing it would just make things worse. If he didn't want to understand . . . if he was too closed-minded . . . then it'd be a waste of time.

Eventually, the round ended.

It was now round six—the first deathmatch round, meaning we all returned to the center. But I quickly escaped any targeting, and left two people to battle it out. I climbed the spiraling path until getting halfway—not going all the way up, because it simply wasn't necessary. I instead moved into a crevice, alone, and tried to think about the situation with Melon.

We had been friends for so long—he was one of my oldest friends—and yet there was something different about our friendship. But I wouldn't say it was a good different: We only spoke about the server or about our own projects. We only did activities together. We could never simply sit down and chat; we always had to be doing something; we seemed to need a mediator. He seemed fine with this, but I was not. . . .

After Melon won the game, we went into another one. But we didn't stay together, and we didn't say anything more about all my friendship troubles. Instead, we simply played the game. And nothing more.

We played a few more games, then went back to the lobby. "Yeah, I think I'm done playing TNT Tag for today," said Melon, leaning against one of the lobby's buildings.

"You wanna come to my place to chat?" I asked, hoping I said it casually. But really, it was an important question: I was reaching out. I wanted more than a skin-deep friendship.

"Talk about what?" he asked. He frowned in a way that I felt like the answer would be a conclusive no.

"Like . . . real things," I said. "There's some stuff I'd like to get off my chest. About three months ago, and all." Really, the idea of talking to Melon about my deeply emotional feelings was . . . horrifying. But if it improved our relationship, wouldn't it be worth it?

"It'd be fun to talk about the artifacts and Sercher," he said, his eyebrows raised hopefully. "I'm still trying to figure out if he's alive or not."

I shook my head, but he wasn't really looking. "No," I said, "not like that. More like . . ."

"Yeah, I know," said Melon. He was back to frowning. "Well, I don't really want to, sorry."

I withheld a sigh. "Alright, Melon," I said, taking out my compass. "See you later."

And before I could receive a response, I was at home.

I had held in my emotions till I was gone from Melon, and I continued to hold in my emotions till I made sure that nobody was in my house. But when I knew I was alone, I collapsed onto my couch and surrendered myself to the rising anger burning inside me.

Does he not care—about me, about this stupid friendship?

I had tried my best, stepped far out of my comfort zone, and offered stuff that would be at my own expense. And yet he said no. He denied me. He chose to keep things like they always had been: shallow.

Does he not care?

I paced around my home, coming up with reasons why I was right—and then shooting them down, and coming up with better reasons. Melon didn't want to have deep conversations . . . but I also didn't want to have shallow ones . . . but he also wasn't willing to at least try . . .