Hi everyone, I'm still here.

Apologize for no updates for a few days, was busy with college and had to take a break from writing because I've worked a little bit hard last week.

But here's chapter 7, I hope you all enjoy it.

Weakness

~Overcome Them~

August 24th, 2019

Ugh...

I can't go to sleep.

I don't know why but for some reason, I already feel more refreshed than I was back in the morning. I've been staring at my phone for hours now, just watching YouTube and playing any video games that are available on my phone, thankfully Joy already connects my phone to the WIFI in his house. I check the time on my phone again.

It shows 4 AM. I just stay awake for the whole night. I hear a few roosters outside and I swear they're very loud. This ear makes everything 2 times louder.

Other than keep going back and forth between watching YouTube and playing video games, I decided to see some news on the internet again. I miss a lot of things that have happened since the transformation. All international travel and shipping have been canceled. Airports and seaports are closed too, I forgot about people that had transformed when they were in mid-flight... dammit I'm starting to overthink again.

I quickly change the news to another. Let's see, an exclusion zone in the area that is highly affected, riots and unrest is happening in Europe and USA. The Middle East and the Balkans are falling, and unrest in Papua is getting more violent. Millions of people losing their job and probably their lives too, basically the world is in total crisis. I'm not sure how our government will handle this situation. When I'm still looking at the news, I get a notification on my phone, it's a WhatsApp notification from Rian. It has been a while since I talked to him and I start to miss him so I immediately open it.

"Hey Agung, are you awake?" The message reads.

"Yeah, I am," I reply.

"Are you just waking up or you haven't got any sleep?"

"I don't get any sleep"

"Same here :p"

"What's up? are you just lonely or there is something that you need to talk about?"

"Well lonely yes, but there is one thing that I want to talk about with you"

"Alright, what is it?"

"Have you seen or got any messages from Agus?"

Agus. He is my second closest friend other than Rian. How the hell could I forget about him?! I quickly close the chatroom of Rian and quickly navigate to the chat group of my classmates. I then start scrolling up to see any message from him after the transformation. I didn't see any and it quickly make my heart sink. I then open back the chatroom of Rian and start typing as quickly as I can with a cold sweat.

"No, I haven't, have you contacted him yet?!" After sending it, I'm starting to not feel good in my stomach and my heart starts beating faster as I get more cold sweat.

"I already did, but he did not pick it up," Rian replies.

"Have you visited his house?!" I ask again. I'm getting more and more panicky and my vision starts to get a bit wavy.

"I already did but when his dad saw me he started to swear and try to kick me away," He replies again.

"Do you think he gets transformed too?" He adds, but I can't reply to him anymore, I feel my body shaking and becoming stiff from the intense panic that I experience and I see my phone slowly flips away from my paw and fall into the bed.

I'm starting to feel a mix of cold and regular sweat as I hyperventilate. What is this? it feels different, unlike when my parents left me here. My stomach feels very awful and everything sounds muffled. I also start to get dizzy

"Hey, Agung are you ok?!" I hear a voice calling me out, I try to turn to where the voice is coming from but I am still unable to move my body.

I suddenly feel something hop onto the bed before it hugs me and all of my emotions are changing from panic into something more, calming and relaxing. I still feel shaky and have a cold sweat, but at least I'm starting to get my vision back. When I get my eyes to adjust, I can see Joy sitting in front of me with all of his ribbons currently wrap me around, and after that, I feel tears flowing out from my eyes and start hugging him with both of my hands and ribbons.

"Hey what's wrong? you okay?" he asks me as I quietly cry on his fur before I can reply.

"...It's about my friends..."

"Your friends? what happened to them?" Joy asks me again.

"I don't know... but I'm pretty sure something bad had happened to them..." I reply as I cry even more before suddenly Joy hugs me even more.

"There there, It's going to be okay," He says as he slowly strokes my back with his ribbon

"...have you ever lost someone close to you?" I ask before suddenly I feel his hug become weaker and he also stopped stroking my back, it feels like he just paused in time.

"Joy...?"

"You wanna hear about it?" he replies with a warm smile which makes me both shocked and relieved because I thought I do something wrong.

"Umm... if you don't mind, " I say as I slowly wipe my tears away. I could say no but I still want to know more about Joy. He feels like a mysterious stranger that I just get along with yesterday.

I then stop hugging him and he also does the same to me before we both sit down in our comfortable position.

"Before we talk about it, I wanna ask you something," says Joy.

"What is it?" I reply as my head tilts a little bit to my left.

"What is your personality? Like, are you the type of person who likes to get along with people or not?" asks Joy as he looks at me.

"I... don't want to talk about it," I answer as my ears flop down.

"Why not? you are talking with a psychologist, well a psychologist student, but that still counts," he says with a warm smile, I'm not sure if he likes doing it or if that's just his habit.

"Alright..." I slowly take a deep breath before continuing "I'm a very closed person, I'm always scared to tell someone anything about myself, not even my parents"

"You never talk to them about it?" asks Joy with a curious face.

"Never" I reply as I slowly move my head down before suddenly being interrupted by him putting his paws around my head and making me look back at him.

"Agung, you won't be able to make progress if you are always scared to do something, 'Failure comes from a fear that is not fought' that's the saying. You can always try to be more open, no matter how slow it is, as long you keep trying you will able to do it," says Joy as he looks at me, still with his warm and usual smile, that makes me feel relaxed.

"Alright, I get it," I say as I slowly put my ears back up.

"Now tell me more about yourself, if you are comfortable you can tell me your past"

My past. I never tell anyone in my life about it. It's like I put a lot of locks on it so it can go out and wreak havoc on my well-being. But I can't always keep them, I have to let them out at some point and this is a good moment to do it, I quickly take a slow and long deep breath before starting to talk again.

"I guess I better tell you my past so you might know more about me... I'm always a crybaby since I'm a kid, I'm not sure when or why I became like that, but it makes people around me see me as a weirdo. You know how people tend to say boys are always strong and masculine?" I ask.

"Yeah, I know it" answers Joy.

"I'm always lacking in both of those. Back in Elementary school, I used to get bullied by being called sissy and girly because of those two, even the teachers start bullying me too..." I say as I start to feel a tear in my eyes again, but I should keep this momentum, if I stop, I will miss the chance of relieving myself.

"It is not happening in school too. Whenever the neighbor kids play with me and my brother, I get called out too and they do not let me play. My brother doesn't help either, he just ignores me when that happens and sometimes even bullies me too..." I can feel my eyes start watering with more tears.

I want to tell him more about my past but he suddenly interrupts me by wrapping his ribbon around my body and mouth. When I look back at Joy I can see that his eyes are a bit watery.

"...That is enough, I understand how you feeling, it must be rough. I had a similar experience too. I used to get bullied back when I was a kid because of the same things," his words surprises me, I never meet someone in my whole life that is having the same things happen to them. For some reason, I feel my heart beat faster and I quickly wipe my tears away.

"What you tell me is very much the same thing that had happened to me. But I'm able to overcome it," adds Joy.

"How?" I ask.

"Keep moving forward. If you keep looking back at your past, you will unable to improve. If your physical attributes are weak, try to exercise more," Joy answers.

"What about fixing my weak mentality?"

"Look Agung. I can't help you with that one, but I have some advice that might work for you. It doesn't matter what people say about your weak mentality, all that matter is that you don't do anything bad to others, and remember. Failures are fine, there's no shame in it as long you can still stand up and keep moving," he answers with a confident and big warm smile.

"I see... But what should I do to make me not a crybaby anymore?"

"You can't remove them completely. That is not your weakness, but rather another way to unleash your own emotions, same with mad. Crying is not a bad thing, cry all you want but after it's all done, keep moving on. You're the protagonist of your own story," Joy says to me with a confident and still with his iconic warm smile that I don't even remember how many he has done it.

"...Thank you, Joy," I say as I slowly wash any tears from my eyes before talking again "But how this is related to the friends that you lost?"

The moment I ask that I see his smile vanishes and replace by a neutral face with a bit of a frown, and I start to feel a cold sweat again. But before he can talk back, I hear another familiar voice.

"Oh, you two already awake?" the voice said before we both turn around and see Joy's father standing at the doorframe.

"Looks like you two are talking about something, are you all done?" he asks both of us.

There's no way we both are done talking, Joy haven't answers my first question. Joy suddenly looks and stares at me for a few seconds, he sighs before looking back to his father and quickly nods.

"I see. Can you two come with me for a second? there's something that I want to show to both of you," he says as he walks away from the doorframe. I was completely shocked. Why did he say that we're done talking? I then see him jump off the bed and slowly walk away.

"Joy, wait" I call him before he gets close to the doorframe and it makes him look back at me.

"Why you suddenly stopped our conversation? why you talked about being more open when you don't want to tell me about your past?" I ask him as he still looking at me with his previous expression. He then closes his eyes and put back his warm smile.

"Sorry Agung, but I guess this is not the time for it now. We can talk later alright?" he says with a bit of a happy tone before dashing out of the room.

...

'What just happened? Why did he suddenly stop talking? Is he hiding something?' my thoughts are going haywire and it makes me question Joy even more. I better not think too much about it.

After all of that, I return to my phone, which still has the chatroom of Rian open. His last messages were asking me if I'm still there before he starts sending the letter 'P' to ping me. I quickly start typing back to him.

"Come to my house today"

Chapter 7 End