[BONUS]
Leonel smacked the table with his hands at his good idea. "I will move here right now. Maybe I should move school as well?"
Despite everything else, Ren managed a small smile. "You have school, right? And no university would accept you this far into the semester. We only have like two months of school left."
Leonel's shoulders slumped. "Augh . . . I hate it if you're making sense."
"I'm always making sense."
The two continued to talk, and Leonel finally convinced Ren to go back to school.
"Are you sure you are going?" Leonel squinted his eyes at Ren, prying to see if he was telling the truth.
"I already told you that I will."
"You sure?"
"Just go already. You're going to be late, and I still have to take a bath." Ren then closed the door on Leonel's face.
Outside, he still heard Leonel's loud voice. "You promised, okay? No going back on your words now! I will go to your school later to check!"
"Don't!"
Ren grumbled and went to take a bath to get ready to come back to school after over a month.
----
Ren was late for his first subject, so he decided to enter his second subject and waited in the usual café he always took breakfast before his parent's came to town.
Stirring his coffee while reading the news about the boosting popularity of the Pelka Meat, Ren was in a good mood.
At least with this piece of good news, he could momentarily forget about his problems.
The [Pelka Meat] in the restaurants was all sold out, and thousands were demanding to taste it, and thousands more wanted to taste it again.
It was time to auction the [Pelka Meat]. Ren thought.
It was earlier than he expected, but he was contented with the outcome nevertheless.
The trick to auctioning something this rare was . . . auctioning smaller numbers at a time, making sure that the patrons would suffer a few days without it. Like they could never sleep and couldn't stop thinking about it, and when they were going crazy to the point of hallucinating of eating it . . . that's when he would drop another piece.
By that time, they would spend more just to acquire it.
Ren would repeat the process making sure that the interval was longer than before to add that scary notion in the people's minds that whatever [Pelka Meat] in the auction was the last meat ever.
That way, the next price would skyrocket.
Inti's set of items were also increasing in price. Now it was nearing twenty million. It was an artifact set of equipment, so the price was only right.
Ren decided to wait some more and continued the auction for Inti's Equipment.
However, soon, Ren's mood plummeted when a familiar woman suddenly sat in front of him and beamed her sweetest.
"It really is you. I thought I was only hallucinating."
"Saya." Ren wasn't surprised to see the woman again after so many weeks. Rather, he didn't care about her anymore to even elicit any emotions for her.
Saya lost weight, and even her makeup couldn't hide the dark circles on her eyes.
"I'm sorry about Aunt and Uncle. I couldn't attend their funeral because I was . . . in a bad place. You just suddenly stopped contacting me after all."
Ren didn't have the time to deal with her, and he said straight to the point, "I don't know why I should contact you after what you did."
Saya only smiled. "You and I haven't broken up, Ren."
Ren wryly sighed, and he shot to his feet. "Whatever that was between us was a lie in the first place. There's no us. Move on, Saya."
Saya's smile dropped, and her eyes burned with hate. "I can't move on from something that wasn't supposed to end."
Ren didn't say anything and left. There was no use talking to her when her mind was closed.
Only time would heal whatever problem she had.
Ren already had his hands full to be worrying about this shit.
He then paused when he realized that he didn't even drink his favorite coffee!
Ren took a deep breath and sighed over the horizon before deciding to go to school.
The school didn't change much. His classmates offered their condolences, and the day ran its usual course.
Ren felt like everything around him was turning into grey, and the noises spiraled into buzzing sounds. There was no longer that joy and excitement about going to school. Only the empty desire to finish his degree so he could make his parents proud in heaven.
Ren would try his best to finish and get through his days. He would do anything for his parent's souls to rest in peace.
After school was over, Ren went back to Diamond Palace and was greeted by two familiar faces. It was a middle age woman who was on the chubbier side. She was small and plump, with a face shining in foundation.
Beside her was a lanky man with glasses in a suit.
"Ah, Ren! You're finally here!" the woman said, and she bounced into Ren's way.
When Ren didn't show any sign of recognition, the woman's smiled drop.
"It's me. Your Aunt Hazel. Your mother's sister. And this is Mr. Fonse, my lawyer."
Ahh . . . now Ren remembered. She was his relative on his mother's side.
They did come to the funeral. However, Ren was grieving at that time and didn't really know most of the faces that attended his parents' funeral.
The last time they met, she was cursing him because he didn't want to help them or lend them any money to buy a pod.
"Is there something that you want, Aunt?" Ren asked straight to the point.
Hazel forced a smile. "Can we talk over early dinner? Your aunt has come so far and is so exhausted and famished."
As respect and honor to his mother, Ren led Hazel into the restaurant.
"Order anything you want," Ren said.
Hazel didn't shy away and did exactly that. She ordered all the expensive food on the menu before asking Ren what he wanted.
Ren didn't have any appetite, so he only ordered dessert and coffee.
After which, Hazel occupied Ren's attention with small talk. About the weather. About school. About trivial things. Before Ren had enough, and asked straight to the point.
"Why are you really here?"