Currently, students in their SPECS subject, Cookery were tasked to bake cookies as said by their Cookery teacher. Each students from the group had different assigned tasks to do so they're working with their appointed tasks given by their leader of their group. For Duri, he was assigned to decorate the cookies after they're baked from the oven.

From Duri's group, he have Ais and unfortunately Gempa, as his groupmates whilst for Taufan, sadly he's from another group. He was kind of disappointed since Taufan's the only person whom he can talk with from their subject. Not to mention, the student government president's part of his group, which made him nervous sometimes but he was cool with it since Gempa's just only doing his job and he kind of understands him likewise.

Meanwhile, Duri was now decorating the baked, different-shaped cookies by putting on some icings and toppings to the cookies. But while he was doing his assigned task, he was just working silently all throughout their cooking activity. He was too quiet ever since their SPECS subject started. But, when one of his members asked him to do another task, he'll just simply reply with an, "Okay." or "In a minute." in a monotonous response.

"Duri, your silence bothers me, you know?" Ais was the one who firstly spoke, making the leaf elemental's eyes shot up. "You aren't like this before..." He remarked, as he went beside Duri and helped him decorate the baked cookies.

Duri's brows slightly furrowed, his lips pursing as he glanced at his groupmate. "I thought you liked noiseless surroundings?"

"I do, but sometimes being all too quiet is boring. A calm conversation or a soothing music will do." The ice element replied. "Speaking of conversation, do you want to talk? I just feel like something's bothering you for a while now..." He added, adding some frosting onto the cookies. Duri kept quiet as he continued sprinkling the cookies with toppings.

"And don't deny the fact that you've been ignoring Solar for these past few weeks already, Duri. And also the fact that he kept begging and telling you how sorry he was but instead of forgiving him, you'd walk away. 'Cause, I've noticed it." Ais stated, making the nature manipulator's eyes widened.

Duri slowly placed down the toppings he was holding that was wrapped in a small plastic container and sat down on a chair, tears started to welled up from his eyes. Indeed, he misses his one and only best friend, but the incident kept recalling inside his head that forces him to stay away from Solar as it only hurts him on the inside. His friend just broke his trust, making their friendship tore apart.

"...I don't want to talk about it..." Duri muttered, shaking his head and sighed afterwards.

"Let me guess, Solar did something wrong, making the friendship between the two of you break apart." Ais surmised, earning a slow nod from the leaf element in response.

"How did you know?" Duri asked, turning to face the ice element with a slight frown plastered on his face.

"Just a wild guess..." Ais curved a small grin at the leaf element as he also stopped putting some icing onto the cookies then took a chair and sat on it, facing to his depressed groupmate.

"Okay, Duri. Imagine these two baked cookies." The ice element said as he picked two cookies in a shape of a gingerbread man from the tray and showed it to Duri. "These two little gingerbread boys represents you and Solar. Okay, let me share a few things I know about this little smarty gingerbread man." He added, raising one gingerbread cookie a bit higher.

"This guy, is an antisocial person who does nothing but read books about chemistries and DIY experiments. He may be handsome that can attract some girls by his looks but, he's also an arrogant, selfish person who's full of pride to himself and just compliments himself everyday. Truthfully, this guy is smart, so smart that he could be off college right now. But..." He paused as he break the gingerbread man in half. "He's broken from the inside." He stated, glancing at Duri from time to time.

"Broken? Because, no one's there to actually love him for who he is. Nobody knows that he's been longing to have someone by his side, to cheer him up when he's feeling down or to just, be there for him even when he doesn't need it. To at least, have someone to talk to with full honesty." Ais continued. "Truth be told, he only wants someone to be accepted for who he is, and not for his looks. That's the only thing he desires, the only wish he wanted it to happened."

"Until..." The ice element then raised the other gingerbread man. "This little gingerbread man came to his life." He said, curving a warm smile on his lips as he faced Duri. "And this gingerbread man is you, Duri. You changed his life. You made him the person he desires to be. You made him happy. You made him smile." He stated, breaking the other gingerbread man in half again then joined the half cookie with the other half together. "And, you made his heart whole again."

The leaf elemental's forest-green eyes widened, its pupils inside trembling with hot tears started to fall freely from his eyes. His head then lowered down, staring down at the ground gloomily. "But, he made a promise but in the end, he broke it. I trusted him with it..." He sniffled, gripping onto his apron tightly. "I never forgive him ever since..."

"Why would you need a promise if that's only made to be broken after all?" Ais questioned, his eyes furrowed with his head slightly tilted to the side. "Don't make promises, Duri. Don't make promises you can't even keep. Well, in some way, fulfilled promises build trust but, promises don't build a relationship. Trust does." He stated, as he took the icing from the table. "Mistakes happened, Duri. It's predictable, it's repetitive but you can't avoid them from happening." He added, frosting the sides of the gingerbread men.

"And, let me ask you, Duri. Do you still trust Solar? Even when he broke your promise? Even when he made a huge mistake? Are you still going to forgive him after that?"

Duri thought for a moment. He tried remembering every word Ais had said to him and also, he flashed back to the memories he had with Solar until the present where his friend just kept pleading for him to just forgive him, which made Duri's heart sunk the moment he saw how broken Solar was when he begged for him.

Maybe, Ais was right. All what he'd said was all true. He should forgive his friend. After all, Solar saved him in the past as Duri also saved him from being depressed.

"...Yes..."

"And that's what you call a friend, Duri. They may not be in good terms, but they do know how to forgive each other. Because, they trust with one another." Ais softly said, smiling afterwards. "So, just a piece of advice, forgive him. He needs a friend to accept him, and to love him more. He needs a friend to understand him." He added, showing a gingerbread man that's attached together with the icing he used to stick the halves together and gave it to Duri. "Make his heart whole again."

The leaf element gently took the whole gingerbread man from Ais' hand then smiled sadly and bowed with full respect at the his ice elemental groupmate. "Thank you, Ais."

Ais grinned as he patted Duri's head. "You're welcome, Duri." He said, and ate the cookies he was holding from his other hand.

"And, can I ask why you two are eating the cookies already without even asking me to join you guys?" All of the sudden, Gempa popped out from behind the two with one of his brows raised, looking at them suspiciously who are indeed eating some of their baked cookies already.

Ais and Duri paused from eating and chuckled nervously while sweating.

"...Woops..."

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Welp, this is the main reason why Blaze and Ais exists in this story... :3

These bro-friends just think alike. UwU

Anyways, noticed this line?

"After all, Solar saved him in the past as Duri also saved him from being depressed."

You'll all see their past on the next chappy. ^^

Btw, I've been meaning to ask all of you...

Okay, since, I actually have ANOTHER idea where there's another conflict will happened, and am not gonna spoil it.  =w=

But, I can give you guys a clue. ^^

It's about Solar.

So, I want to ask you guys...

Should I add another conflict?

Or...

Should I continue this story up until the end of it?

Well, comment down your answers and thanks for 1, 2, 3-- 5.62K readers and 848 votes!!!

WAHHHHHH!!! I DON'T DESERVE THIS!!! T~T

THANK YOU GUYZ SO MUCH!!! I LOVE YALL!!! 💕💞❤️

Anyways, that's all and stay tuned! \^o^/