"Are you…" Elena narrowed her eyes. "Blackmailing me?"

Maya bit her lip, already regretting her suggestion.

"Holy hell, I must've really rubbed off on you." Elena's deep blue eyes sparkled as if she'd received a new toy.

"No. No… It's not blackmail," Maya was tinged with guilt and overcome with insecurities. For a moment, it seemed like a good idea, but Elena would surely twist this into something unpleasant.

'What should I do?'

"I didn't mean to put it that way. I just need help. I'll still keep your secret if you refuse."

Elena chuckled softly. "Don't back down now. I liked where this was going," she grinned. Doing something malicious gave Elena joy. Better yet, influencing Maya to give such a suggestion must've been even sweeter. "How do you imagine I help with your exams?"

Maya sighed, pulling her hair.

'Should I proceed?'

"You just need to write down answers, and Leo will read them for me." Maya threw a quick glance at Leo, who nodded cautiously.

"Maya, Maya…" Elena sounded… proud? "Are you sure your conscience would survive such an obscene act as cheating?" she teased.

Maya stuttered, at a loss for words. She was already burdened with guilt for cheating, but felt desperate. She struggled to keep up, especially now that she had three more elements to master. She was the one who had started this… she had truly hit rock bottom.

"This is intriguing. But I don't see why you would need me. You can just copy from anyone else. Your ghost can walk around, can't he?"

"I can't be sure their answers are the correct ones. I got burned already," Maya confessed.

A sly smile appeared on Elena's face. It seems she already suspected Maya had tested her hand at cheating, only desiring the satisfaction of having her admit it out loud. "I guess when you're at the top of the class, you can't rely on copying from others."

"That's right," Maya confirmed with regret.

"So… I'm to write the answers, wait for you to copy, then erase everything so I don't give myself away…" Elena scratched her neck and then sighed lazily. "It seems like too much work."

"Please, Elena. You're my only hope. I can't keep up with everything anymore. This will be easy for you, and there's nothing to lose."

"No one expects you to keep up with everything," Elena looked her in the eye. " Everyone's struggling. It's actually strange that you're getting such good grades with quadruple the work. Why would you need to ace everything? It's not like you'll get punished."

"But I need it, please. It's not just principle. I get merit points that alleviate my financial worries, and I can focus more on my mission."

"Fair point," Elena averted her gaze. "I guess even a homeless person can earn more money than students with demerits," she laughed at the irony.

Maya put aside her confusion about earning money while homeless. "So, you'll help me?"

"Okay," she agreed reluctantly. "But I won't do all the work. We split it 50/50. You learn one half while I try to pay attention to the other half."

"Of course. Thank you. You're the best," Maya ecstatically jumped on her to hug her. Surprisingly, Elena didn't push her right away despite it obviously being uncomfortable.

"I'm only doing this because I support your descent to the dark side," Elena added.

Maya was thrilled to have mended their friendship.

"Oh, I forgot," she said, quickly going to her wardrobe. She retrieved the backpack from Elena's dealer, which she had hidden there, and handed it to her.

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Elena's look as she took it back could only be described as disappointed but not surprised.

"You do something like this again and there won't be going back," Elena said as she looked at Maya firmly.

As if the insides were already familiar to Elena, she grabbed a bottle immediately, then proceeded to make herself comfortable under the big window and started drinking straight from it.

Maya thought she behaved like an addict just receiving their fix. It was regrettable that, after all their grievances, Elena would just return to it, but Maya didn't know an alternative to suggest. She quietly joined Elena, sitting next to her on the floor.

After a moment inside her thoughts, she asked. "Is your memory why you drink?"

Elena scowled. They had just agreed not to talk about it, but Maya kept bringing it up again.

"Please. I won't tell anyone. Help me understand," Maya said gently.

Elena sighed. "It makes life bearable."

"Doesn't it feel horrible? I don't like how it feels. It's like voluntary madness."

"You get used to it," she shrugged.

"I don't see how it would benefit you in any way."

"It's a cheap stimulant," Elena rolled her eyes as if she had to explain it to a kindergartener. "The most potent poison for its price," she pointed out with a slight smirk as if that fact was a good thing.

Maya still couldn't understand. No wonder Elena had accepted her mortality before—she was knowingly killing herself slowly and had no intention to stop. Maya hated every bit of it.

After some silence of contemplating, Maya whispered, "I don't want you to waste away."

Elena snorted.

"You have your whole life ahead of you…" Maya persisted.

"A life where I marry some schmuck, grow old and fulfilled watching my grandchildren play in the yard?" Elena sneered with bitter laughter. "I don't aspire to your ideals, Maya. I don't live in delusions. Right now, I'm in my prime. Soon enough, nothing about me will be admirable. My life may end up in a ditch, and all I can hope for is that—when you finally accomplish whatever you've set your mind to—you might spare a second to remember you once knew me."

Listening to Elena talk as if it were a fact that there was no 'tomorrow' for her would open up a pit in Maya's stomach.

"I don't understand," Maya uttered, stubbornly refusing to see Elena's viewpoint. "Why allow something so miserable to be your conclusion? You're the strongest person I know. You can't surrender to a fate like that!"

In her frustration, she even found herself raising her voice.

"I've already told you, I'm not giving up on you," Maya continued. "There's no one so far gone that they can't be saved. If your memories suck we'll make new ones. We'll make so many of them, great ones, you will never need another drop to risk forgetting them. I know that hopelessness you feel. I know it closely. But Elena, if you feel like you're at rock bottom, it means you can only move up from there."

Maya grabbed Elena's hands and repeated words from her father that suddenly surfaced in her mind. "As long as you have a life, you can always build up from there…"

The origin of this memory was hazy. Perhaps it came from a tragic story on TV, or maybe from a book too mature for her young mind. Maya's childhood questions had challenged her parent, yet her father had responded with a conviction born from his own life experiences. He deeply believed in living fully and spreading joy to others.

'The dead cannot change their fate, but the living can. As long as you're alive, you have an obligation to keep fighting…' Fragments of Maya's memories were slowly returning to the surface. Not remembering the context of her father's words left her momentarily dazed.

Elena blinked at her, taken by surprise by Maya's headstrong determination.

Maya smiled, painting over the bitterness from the sorrow that wanted to swallow her."…and why not build up something beautiful?"

"Beautiful, huh?"

Words Maya hoped would inspire, bounced off Elena like a brick off a concrete wall.

"Beauty passes. It's not something that can feed you. When beauty shrivels away and everyone abandons me again, all I'll have left is my liquor—the only thing I can truly rely on. Better to be gone before it starts to peel off. And who's to say there's no beauty in decay?"

Maya was at a loss for words. How could she reason with someone who had so stubbornly resigned themselves to their fate? Tears rolled down her cheeks as she hugged Elena's arm, resting her head on her shoulder. Elena tensed at the sudden contact, but then—almost forcefully, if such a thing were possible—made herself relax. She was slowly beginning to accept that someone cared about her.

"I hate that you think in such a horrible way," Maya said. "But I will never give up on you."

All she wanted was to give this girl a little kindness. After all, she knew the girl hadn't received much of it.

'Life is easier when you have someone you want to protect,' her father would say. 'It makes all decisions easy and your priorities are clear… So find something worthwhile to protect…'

"I'll protect you," Maya whispered, half-asleep.

As Maya slowly drifted away, still holding onto her friend, Elena pressed her lips into a thin line. The words no one had said to her before felt both warm and painful.

'Foolish Maya. You don't know anything yet… I shouldn't hold you to your word.'

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