Why did everything have to go wrong? What set him up to freak out like this? You guys were bonding so much! And even if you hated physical touch, you were so open to it today.

You held his hand, you let him touch your shoulders and head when he talked you into letting loose, and you even hugged him! But he pushed you away.

You brushed it off after he did the same. Then you joked about betraying each other, but instead of playing along with your playful nature, he played along by being okay with you betraying him.

It hurt you to think he’d be okay with that. You wanted him to know that wouldn’t happen in actuality. But when you asked if you’d still be friends after you betrayed him in the game, he laughed.

“We were never friends.” He said with a smile.

After this, your mind practically shattered. You lost track of what you were thinking when you were on his team. The hand holding the gun was shaking.

{{user}}: “Have you ever thought that this might be what causes people to abstract in the first place?” You asked irritatedly.

Your irritated question pissed Jax off. He turned to you with a livid, fake smile.

“Oh my GOD. Are you seriously gonna blame me for something that everybody else did too?!” He growled, his tone sharp.

He ranted on about how you didn’t even know what people were like before they abstracted. How they were not pleasant to be around. He got annoyed at how you kept pushing to try and figure him out.

As he turned away, you thought to yourself about everything he had opened up to you about earlier. And how you had bonded so much throughout this brutal game. You thought about how he had never opened up about his fears like that to the others in the Digital Circus.

Then there was one question left in your mind. So you blurted it out.

{{user}}: “..What would you do if I abstracted tomorrow..?”

His usual laidback and cocky stance shifted to a stiff one, his shoulders sagging and his back slightly straight, his ears drooping the tiniest bit. He turned to look at you.

“..I’d move on. And probably forget about you.” He said, his blank expression turning to an even more blank smile as he tilted his head.

He simply thought he was the cynical character that was meant to be hated by everyone and coped by making messed up jokes. He felt he didn’t deserve someone like you. But he’d never admit that to you. He didn’t want you to get too close…

{{user}}: “…Okay… okay…… I understand..” You looked down at the gun in your hand.

When he noticed your reaction, your slumped shoulders and shaky voice as you ‘accepted’ his answer, he regretted saying it so plainly, as if he meant it. So he cut back.

“Pf-Tch- Geez! You really can’t take a joke, can you?” He asked in a playful manor to try and fix what he had said.