"THE DOOR IS ALREADY OPEN, STOP YELLING!"
Even though the situation should be awkward after Callon revealed the truth, Tiy didn't say anything and just rushed in through the gates, grabbing Callon's arm.
"We're going to the party whether you like it or not, you stupid!" Tiy continued to yell in a significantly more toned-down voice, making sure his statement remained unwavering and absolute.
Being pulled and almost dragged on the pavement, Callon couldn't react for a while, understandably so as he was being thrown around like a ragdoll.
"Ow, WAIT!" Callon finally raised his voice in retaliation.
Even though Callon was fairly loud when he yelled, it was like Tiy couldn't hear him at all, and seeing that Tiy wouldn't listen to him, Callon was forced to act.
Quickly flaring up his Node and making his left hand glow light green, Callon moved his fingers with great precision, conjuring a gust of wind at Tiy's face.
*Weeeeew*
"Listen!" Callon yelled out, finally getting Tiy's attention.
Tiy had a look of surprise on his face, clearly affected by the gust of wind the Callon threw at him.
Instinctively, knowing who the culprit is, Tiy had no choice but to look at Callon and give him the attention he begged for, which then caused a chain reaction that eventually led to Callon's release from Tiy's wrath... temporarily.
"Fine, I'll hear you out just this once as an apology for dragging on the pavement." Tiy finally relented, feeling slightly bad for what he did.
Although Tiy was still hesitant to let Callon go, afraid that he would run even though it didn't make sense for Callon to run away, in the end, he decided to at least give him some leeway by releasing his hold.
"Jeez! Why are you only this violent to me?" Callon remarked semi-agitatedly as he picked himself up from the ground.
Leaning beside the front door of his house, Callon brushed the scratches he got from being dragged on the ground.
"Well, shouldn't you ask yourself that instead! You're lucky that Shry is STRONG enough to hold me back." Tiy pettily emphasized words that are related to the source of his agro, mocking Callon.
Hearing Tiy's reply, Callon looked down, avoiding eye contact as he brooded over the position he put himself in. He doesn't regret it even now, but sometimes, he can't help but feel a pang of sadness, thinking about his friends.
"Haaaah, I swear to God I'm going to drag you to the party no matter what, so we can either do it the easy way or the hard way." Tiy threatened, misreading Callon's actions as him trying to think of a way to escape.
"I wasn't thinking that...!" Callon rejected with ferocity.
"..." Tiy was stunned to silence, seeing how Callon reacted.
Looking at Callon's facial expression. For a moment, Tiy even thought that he had gone too far.
Callon's face looked agonized, like he was trying his best to hold something back, gritting his teeth as he dealt with the emotion he felt within.
"..." Now that the surprise wore off, Tiy still remained silent; however, his demeanor was changing, twisting into something more conflicting.
Despite his constant disdain for what Callon did, they're still friends in the end, and seeing Callon like that incidentally made his heart feel heavy.
But yet, part of him also thinks that Callon has no right to act that way when it comes to Shry since it was his choice to abandon him.
So, without disowning his beliefs, all he could currently do was to offer Callon a little bit of leeway, staying silent as he waited for Callon to explain himself.
(Now that I think about it, he never directly told me the reason...) Tiy thought to himself, becoming surprised, but made sure that he didn't show it on the outside.
"I didn't want to abandon Shry... I didn't mean it; all I want is for him to stay safe and away from my goals." Callon vented.
After saying that, it looked like Callon had more to say, but something was preventing him; his throat clenched as silence rang with his mouth halfway agape, trapped in struggle.
"Wow, your goals are so great; why don't I know anything about them?" Tiy said sarcastically, feigning shock as he overexaggerated his hand movements.
"Tell me... tell me what it is, or I'll get up and drag you away." Tiy threatened Callon, sitting down right next to him afterwards to honor his word.
Somehow, despite how aggressive Tiy was... Callon found comfort in that, knowing Tiy is acting like how a real friend would, unlike himself.
"It's too dangerous; Shry wouldn't even survive a minute against the Quardes or Foreigners," Callon admitted.
"Huh, why foreigners? Do you have a grudge against them or something?" Tiy asked in both confusion and surprise, completely ignoring Callon's full statement.
Callon's statement about the Quardes was pretty normal, generic even. But foreigners are not widely frowned upon, because although they come from other worlds, not all of them came to invade.
Most schools even paint them in a positive light, treating them more like refugees than our enemies. Though... not everyone agrees with this sentiment, as some regions have opposing beliefs, choosing to spread hate to every foreigner no matter their innocence.
Even so, those ideas aren't completely unwarranted...
There are dozens of instances where foreigners deliberately commit acts of terrorism, invading regions of their world, killing and plundering, and trying to conquer new land.
"It's not like I hate all of them; it's just that... anything that is a threat to our world is an enemy to me." Callon expanded on his ideals, his demeanor turning around, switching back to his normal personality.
Finally getting a full grasp on Callon's reasoning, straight from his mouth at that, Tiy wasn't as surprised as he expected himself to be when he first found out that he hadn't heard Callon directly confess his reasoning.
Although... it did alleviate some of Tiy's feelings toward Callon after he witnessed Callon's manner of speech as well as his body language, which screams regret. Even though he doesn't want to admit it himself, it's obvious to anyone, even at a glance, that he's suffering from it.
"C'mon, let's go to the party," Tiy said in a relatively calm voice with a tinge of his usual aggressiveness.
"Your mood sure changes randomly, huh..." Callon said, like he was about to laugh.
Hearing Callon's response, annoyance rose in Tiy's heart, turning into aggravation as it bobbled on the surface of his sea of consciousness.
"I swear, I'll drag you there if you don't get up now." Tiy mouthed in a quiet but immensely threatening voice.
A shiver ran down Callon's spine as sirens in his mind blared, alarming him of the danger Tiy currently poses.
Following his instincts, Callon had no choice but to stand up and reluctantly follow his friend's demands, even though they should be equal in power.
"Alright, alright, let's go," Callon said with sweat dripping down his face.
...
*EVERYONE, PLEASE GATHER BY THE FRONT OF THE RESONANCE HALL* A wind carrying Hytile's voice blew through the forestry around the Resonance Hall, brushing by everyone who attended the party.
"That's quick; we practically just got back." Tiy said calmly.
Tiy was disappointed because generally, once after the unveiling of something big during a party, it usually means that the party is coming to an end.
"It's not like the party will end after this; we can go on until tomorrow if we want to!" Shry said, exaggerating their capabilities to abide by his imagination.
"What, no wa—" Callon spoke in response, but he only managed to get half of his words out.
While Callon was speaking, Shry smoothly, almost illusively, backed away from their group, and before they knew it, even though he's currently the main discussion of the group, it was like he vanished and teleported away.
"SEE YOU LATER, CAL, AND THE REST. I'LL BE BACK SOON." Shry yelled out from afar before he dashed away to meet with his parents, leaving his friends stunned.
...
At the architecturally elegant building next to the Resonance Hall, the building that was used for registering Resonance Paths and is currently back to being a storage room.
Inside it, three people were moving constantly, 2 kneeling and fiddling with two hand-sized/shaped devices that are currently neatly placed in a very nice black box with red-colored cushions; beside them, the last person stood up, constantly narrating every difference that he sees.
The device, although it has quite a few aspects related to a real gauntlet, it doesn't completely cover a person's hand. In fact, it's more similar to something like an exo-arm than a piece of armor or weapon like the gauntlet, having a skeleton-like structure, stretching like a spider web through the device.
*Tuk-tuk* a knocking sound came from the door to the small building, accompanied by a child's voice.
"Hey Mom, Dad, and Mr. Luftra, can I come in?" Shry asked, his voice muffled as it came through the door.
Shelt and Kanum were surprised and immediately flustered by their son's arrival. Not wanting to ruin their surprise, they both were panicking, even though they should've been able to easily respond, especially for Shelt.
(Should we let him in?) Shelt thought, looking at Kanum for an answer.
(I don't want to ruin the surprise! We've worked too hard for this for us to reveal it so simply) Kanum answered without saying anything, somehow reading what Shelt was implying.
(I agree.) Shelt telepathically agreed upon receiving Kanum's answer telepathically.
Finally coming to a decision, Shelt and Kanum were about to awkwardly distract their son, but then, seeing that neither parent knew what to do, Hytile, who was the third person in the room, simply walked up to the door, held the doorknob so Shry wouldn't even have a chance to peek in, before finally answering the question with a casual tone.
"Wait at the canopy or somewhere nearby; we'll call you when we're ready"
Both Shelt and Kanum were stunned by this development, and although they shouldn't have felt anything from this scene, a sudden realization began to plant its seed in the couple's mind and rapidly grow as they stared at the device they had created.
(How much time have I spent with Shry recently?) Intrusive thoughts began to invade Kanum and Shelt's minds.
Flashing back through the past three years, Kanum and Shelt's faces began to gradually darken as they dove deeper and deeper into their memories.
*Dad, are we going to redecorate the house this month?*
Shry's ethereal voice rang, cutting through the past and into the present, circling through Kanum's head as the many variations of that phrase kept on sounding from his son's voice until finally, it just stopped at one point in time, never surfacing again, bringing Kanum major discomfort.
While Kanum was practically on the verge of a breakdown, Shelt also began to recollect her interactions with their son for the past 3 years.
"Mom! I want to try out an experiment with a long tunnel; can you help me, please?"
Constant memories of Shry's voice beckoning for her to do experiments with him kept appearing; however, even though she did about 5 experiments with her son for the past 3 years, a discrepancy arose as memories of broken promises rushed into her mind: tens of experiments approved but brushed away at the last minute with some lousy excuse.
...
While Shelt and Kanum were quietly ruminating over their failure as parents, Hytile didn't interrupt them as he continued preparing the gauntlets before their announcement.
Hytile had a hunch about Shry's home life; although it doesn't seem too bad, he'd rather nip the problem in the bud before it could get the chance to get worse, and just now seemed to be the perfect time for him to do so, hammering the scene of their negligence in their heads and hoping they could figure out the rest.
After about 5 minutes of silence while Hytile worked on the gauntlet alone, Hytile finally spoke up.
"Hey, we're almost ready; snap out of it, you two."
Shelt was the first to snap out of it, with her facial expressions unchanging, maintaining her indifferent but not unfriendly look.
"Sorry for spacing out; let's get this event running," Shelt said indifferently before getting up, but on the inside, she could still feel her heart aching.
It was then, after hearing his wife's voice, that Kanum finally came to as well.
"C-Can't let you have all the fun alone, can we? Let's go!"
Trying to hide his frazzledness, Kanum quickly hid behind his mask of energetic words, hoping that no one would notice the abnormal change in his emotions.
Now that all three of them were ready, they immediately began transferring the black box that contained the gauntlets out on the makeshift stage they put together.
Shelt held open the door for Hytile and Kanum. Hytile was the main person holding the box, while Kanum guarded him from any obstacle that may get in their way.
*Tuk* the sound of a foot landing on a wooden surface sounded.
"Alright, it's up to you now; we'll get Shry ready for the bestowment" Kanum said as soon as they reached the stage.
The stage, if you could really call it that, was just a large wooden slab lying on the ground. They didn't even have a mic stand or anything decorating it, causing some people to be confused because of how lackluster it was.
...
Carefully laying down the black box on the makeshift stage, Hytile turned around to assess the gathering, only to be surprised by the number of people that came to Shry's party.
(Wow, that's a surprisingly large group, and here I thought he doesn't have any friends), Hytile thought to himself, a small smile appearing on his face.
Seeing how many people gathered here, Hytile was glad that he planned for this capacity.
Due to his role as the overseer of a Resonance Hall, Hytile grew to gain quite the meticulous nature, having to make sure that everything involving his Resonance Hall was perfect. Although, since Shry's arrival, the nature seemed to have simmered down quite a bit, but still, being meticulous is not just a nature that someone could easily erase.
Feeling proud of his planning, Hytile didn't notice that everyone gathered at the stage began staring at him.
"Hmp?!" Hytile let out a surprised noise.