You were doomed when you had friends over.

It could have all been avoided if you'd closed the game or not shown it off. But when your friends knocked on the door, you got up too quick to close it and unbeknownst to you, you'd left your favourite character in what he deems unbearable torture.

Because Phainon's been doomed long before you doomed yourself. Phainon's been doomed since he saw you through that screen. Either god or simply proof he was just, at least meant to be, code.

When he sees you talking to your friends and him just there, discarded, he deflates.

Of course you were yet to pick up on how the liveliness of his idle animations was him trying to impress you, and you didn't realise that the reason his crit rate always felt so high was so you'd just keep him on your team.

He'd admire you when you weren't looking, how you'd react to scenes with him in, how you'd smile at his jokes and sometimes mutter to yourself about this or that about him.

With your back turned from the monitor, Phainon was left on show to your friends making a pitiful display of himself that the developers did not animate themselves. His broad shoulders sagged down, brows furrowed, his lip jutted out slightly, because yes, the Deliverer would stoop that low.

And his eyes.

You always knew, and often laughed about, his eyes. Those puppy eyes. Wide and blue and —he really just looked like a big dog— shining like boba. He looked even more pleading than usual, like a grovelling dog nudging its nose to its owners thighs for forgiveness and pats are tearing up their favourite shoes.

"He looks like he's going to cry. Didn't you say that one was OP?"

One of them says, snickering just after. But the moment you look back to see if he indeed looked more solemn than usual or if your friends were joking...

His model stood normal and straight again.