"Wait
- Can you repeat that again?"
Josh
gave the lady at the cash register one of his best smiles and proceeded to
rattle off a long list of ingredients for his frozen treat. Devon and Jeshika silently took their orders
from the flustered employee with gratitude and sat down at one of the tables
near the windows.
It had
been a week since we restarted the guild and we had finally gotten enough money
to buy the old manor house on floor thirteen.
So, to celebrate this, Josh suggested that we should all go and get
milkshakes. It had seemed like a good
idea at the time and I figured that I could use some time outside of school and
my house; however, it seemed that Josh's only plan was to confuse the employees
by asking for as many specific toppings as possible."You'd think they'd just give up and dump a bunch of random crap on it," Andorū mused, sipping on what looked like a strawberry milkshake. It's funny, but fruity drinks and Andorū just seem.... weird together, I thought as I waited for my order from the staff, which seemed to be working on Josh's complex order now.
Andorū's hair got in his eyes and he brashly shifted it out of the way with his hand. His usually black hair was now dyed a scarlet color on the tips, apparently on suggestion from Josh. It definitely seemed to suit him, just as his red hair in ALO did. I heard a large crash from the back room and noted to myself that it was probably gonna be a while before they finished whatever monstrosity that Josh had ordered.
"Nah, it's that charisma of his," I countered, glancing over at my disheveled friend who was stirring her milkshake with her straw. Apparently, Katie had freaked out about an art project that was due on Monday and had spent all night on a self portrait, instead of spacing it out over the weekend like she normally would. "They like him too much to realize how much of a pain he is."
Catching me staring, she offered her milkshake to me and said, "Wanna try it? It's got these candies like Reese's from America." A misplaced strand of hair fell over her left eye and she blew it out of the way before giving me a drowsy smile. She was wearing an over-sized t-shirt and I could see the strap of the black tank top she was wearing underneath from her exposed shoulder.
"Sure," I said, accepting the outstretched cup and sucking on the straw before Andorū could ask what Reese's were. The sweet and salty taste of the mixture of peanut butter, chocolate, and vanilla rolled around in my mouth and I pulled away before I ended up drinking more of her milkshake than I probably should.
"You know that's like the same thing as kissing her, right?" Josh remarked, leaning against the counter, apparently oblivious to the chaos behind him. He wiggled his eyebrows and Katie glared at the ground, her face turning a bright shade of red.
"No, it's more like eating food that someone has already taken a bite of," I said, rolling my eyes and handing the shake back to my embarrassed and sleep-deprived friend. "Which is something, if I remember correctly, that you do to me on a regular basis."
Josh shrugged and gave me an apologetic smile as if he couldn't help but finish off my lunch before I got a chance to do it myself. "Hey, it's not my fault that you leave your food wide out there in the open," he said, combing his hand through his chestnut brown hair. Seeing the cash register lady gesturing for me, I walked over and got my milkshake from her.
"Between you guys and his insistence on skipping his physical therapy sessions, Eric's never gonna get better," Katie said, shaking her head, her bed head hairdo waving back and forth from the motion. "Anyways, what flavor did you get, 'archer'?"
I smiled at the mention of my new nickname, which Garrith had come up with in ALO. Seeing as how I was trying to create a new persona from the distasteful one I had created in SAO, my friend had decided to trade out "Player's Bane" with "The Archer". A bit lofty and mysterious, but I didn't mind that in comparison to the memories that my old epithet drudged up.
"I got furappuchīno," I answered, taking a sip out of the cold coffee-flavored shake. The faint buzz of the caffeine helped dull the headache that had developed in my head after the British Literature test on Friday. I guess it's not really fair to blame the pain in my head completely on the test, I thought to myself. It's probably from thinking too much on that guy, Nico.
"Isn't that just coffee frozen and blended together with ice cream?" Katie asked, yawning and blinking sleepily at me. I briefly envisioned that she had her cat-like eyes from ALO and had to shake my head to get the image out of my mind.
"No, it's a sweet, cold beverage made from milk and ice cream mixed together with a coffee syrup," I stated matter-of-factly, struggling to keep a smirk down. I eventually resolved to hide it by sucking on my milkshake and keeping my head down.
Katie giggled and Josh shook his head and muttered something about birds. "So where's the big guy?" he asked, tapping his fingers on the counter. I saw one of the employees carrying a box marked "Kiwi" into the back room and briefly wondered what exactly what it was that my best friend had ordered.
"He's working on the truck's engine," I replied, gesturing behind me at the glass doors that led to the parking lot. I glanced around to check just in case Garrith had managed to walk in without me noticing; however, it seemed that he wasn't the only one missing from the group when I counted heads. "Where's Matt? Did he not come with you guys?"
"Saturdays are his studying days," Andorū replied, walking over to one of the larger circular tables in the middle of the café, apparently tired of standing around waiting for Josh's order to be finished. Katie and I followed him, taking seats on the other side of the glossy white ceramic table. "He spends all day researching the latest MMO developments and cheats that have been found."
"That sounds like our Mattias," I murmured, mimicking how Katie stirred her milkshake before drinking it. Although Matt could be an important and helpful member of the team, the arrogance that apparently comes with intelligence would lead to him taking on extra quests and tasks to become the strongest player in a fair number of the MMOs that we played together.
"Well, isn't this the picture of friendly social interactions," Jinx said with a nasally voice, cracking a grin and carrying a cup that I took to be his order. Taking a closer look, I thought I saw a small bread square pocking over the lid and made a note to not pry further into what exactly was in my friend's milkshake. He pulled out a chair next to Andorū and took a sip from the cold concoction in his hand before sitting down.
"Except for those two," Andorū said, gesturing towards where Devon and Jeshika were sitting quietly. To an outsider, it would have looked as if they were siblings, with their heads of raven black hair, that had come back from a funeral; however, Jeshika's facial expression revealed her animated personality . Devon was muttering something but I couldn’t make out what it was, but I could tell it was a topic of great interest to the both of them.
"You know, for a couple that met in SAO, they're pretty weird, aren't they?" Josh commented offhandedly before taking a drink. "I mean: compared to most couples from SAO, they're pretty weird. They almost seem to just be friends in real life, but in ALO, they're the tightest couple ever."
I nodded but didn't comment as to what I thought about my roommate's relationship. Part of the reason why there was such a disconnect between the behavior of the duo in game and in real life was due to Devon himself. His personality changed a lot between the virtual world and the real world, becoming more lively and less pessimistic when he put on his Amusphere. However, that didn't mean that his relationship with Jeshika stopped as soon as he logged out of the VRMMO.
In SAO, Jesse had been a beta-tester and a unique skill user, one of the very few that I knew of. Vin had been dueling in the arena on the first floor a couple of days after we recruited Auser when he met her. He had been on a long winning streak and had been planning on retiring for the day when she requested a duel with him. The duel was fierce and, for a long time, neither side seemed to be taking damage. It wasn't until Jesse ended up using her unique skill, Dark Lightning, that she was finally able to get the upper hand on the other player.
After his loss, Vin ended up asking Jesse if she would join Darkness Falls and, after a bit of thought, she ended up agreeing to it. After a couple months of fighting and living together in the guild house, the two got married, surprising almost everyone in the group, who didn't realize the relationship between the two. Vin and Jesse were almost inseparable from that point on and it was clear that the two planned to continue the relationship when the death game ended.
When SAO ended, however, Jeshika never woke up and this broke Devon to his core. He didn't speak at all the entire time that the other half of him slept in a coma. It would get to the point to where Josh would try anything from pinching him to begging him, just to see if he would make a sound. Every single day, no matter what the weather was like, he would visit her and hold her hand; when Kirito found the hidden scheme in ALO and all the captured players were released, Devon finally started speaking again.
"It's kinda funny if you think about it," Josh continued, ignorant of my trip down memory lane. "Kirito got Asuna, Vin got Jesse - but our little leader never got someone… well, unless you count the mysterious Post-it Note Girl."
I smiled when he mentioned the Post-it Note Girl; back when I was still recovering in the hospital, after the Virtual Division finally left me alone, I lost my mind. In the end, even with my friends' care, I eventually broke down, passing out and losing a large chunk of my memory. One of my first memories after that was waking up in my hospital bed and finding a post-it note on the pole of my IV that was giving me sedatives.
"You're okay" was what the note said and it was just the first of many of them. Although we were in the same hospital, Josh and the others were only allowed to see me during visitor hours since my mental breakdown. I couldn't remember everything about what was happening to me and a lot of things made me terrified of the world around me. In addition to this, I was alone a lot and I often thought about ending the pain that came with the realization that you were the reason why 287 people never woke up.
It was in the midst of this that I would come across notes that appeared almost anywhere; on the door to my room, on the bathroom sink, on the table next to my bed. "You're fine", "You're safe", "Your name is Eric McNancy", and "You're okay" were just a few of them. I remember watching Josh leave my hospital room after visiting one day and seeing a note on the back of his t-shirt that said: "You love him". Eventually, I stopped needing these reminders because I started to believe it; I was going to be okay and I was going to recover from this.
I originally thought that it had been Josh that had been writing them, but when I asked him about it he denied it. We looked at one of the notes together and saw that the handwriting was very feminine in nature and my friend dubbed the mysterious note-writer the "Post-it Note Girl".
"Eric doesn't need a girl!" Katie blurted, perking up as if jolted by something painful. I smiled at her in gratitude for coming to the defense from my nosey big brother and she blushed oddly, turning her attention back to Josh.
I leaned back in my chair while the two of them bickered once again, my mind drifting off the girl from Sword Art Online that none of my friends knew about.
+++
July 25, 2024
The streets look clear tonight, I
thought to myself, gathering my verdant cloak around myself and pulling the
hood down.
I was
crouched on top of one of the bastions of the town's wall, scouring the players
that moved among the buildings below me for any orange players. Although PKers were not usually ones to show
themselves around green players, a killing guild called Laughing Coffin had
been reported as operating in this area.It's getting late, I observed, glancing around myself to see if the NPC town guard was coming back around. Although usually useless, NPC guards had been known to attack players with orange cursors; I've already had to kill a few myself because I had been mistaken for a PKer. I doubt that they're really bold enough to attack players in the same town. If anything, that's just fool-
Just then, I saw a flash of orange moving towards the village gate and I set my jaw. Looks like I don't ever get a break, I thought, quickly getting up and leaping off of my perch towards the streets below. Feeling the rush of wind in my face, I twisted my body so that I was falling with my chest pushed forward. I ducked forward and rolled onto the roof of a general store before shifting my direction to run in the other direction.
Although I couldn't see the player anymore, I knew that he was heading to the only exit out of the town and that his sprint wasn't anywhere near as high as mine. Making it to the end of the platform of shingles, I flipped into the air and landed on the building below with a soft thump, barely audible to anyone on the streets who were listening. I sprinted towards the edge of the long roof and turned to kick off backwards with all of my strength.
Seeing the world around me rotate as I flipped through the air, I quietly thanked the acrobatic skill in this game. In real life, I couldn't even manage so much as a front flip, despite being fit enough to run half-marathons. I landed on the wall-walk above the city gate and activated my night vision skill to search for my target.
Hopping onto the battlement, I quickly located the orange player, who was running slower now that he was outside of the town. I vaulted off of the wall, my hair whipping around in the wind, and quickly grabbed an arrow loop around midway down the village's fortification. Swinging from the slit in the wall, I let go to fall towards where the oblivious player was recovering his breath.
Hitting the ground in a roll, I pulled out two paralyzing throwing picks and, upon coming up in an upright position, launched them at the criminal. To my surprise, the player weaved in and away from my silent attack and turned around to face me.
She had a face that seemed to be made to smile and laugh; her pale skin seemed to contrast with her slightly rounded and angular jaw line. Her eyes were large and wide open, showing irises with a million shades of a brilliant green and pupils that were dilated with the excitement of the moment. Her lips were dark and full, distinctively shaped as if drawn by a Romantic-era painter.
Her eyes shot up to my cursor and drew a strangely shaped dagger from her belt. I raised my right hand to tell her to stop while pulling three throwing daggers from behind my back. Just in case this gets out of hand like it usually does, I reminded myself, very aware that female player were just as capable of killing others as male players were.
"You are under arrest for killing another player," I said, placing my hand on Ice-Stained Blade to show that I meant what I was saying. "You're going to have to come with me to the Black Iron Prison." From the very beginning, I had learned to speak in an authorities tone and not just rely on my reputation as a PKer hunter.
"Who are you?" the girl asked anxiously, her long white hair moving in the night time wind. I could see her body tense up and I got ready to throw my projectiles if I needed to. "And I didn't kill anyone!"
"I am Player's Bane and you have killed someone; your cursor reveals everything," I retorted, still maintaining a stern tone. Although not very common, some PKers would try to lie to get away with their crimes; however, I haven't met a player killer until tonight that didn't know who I was. I guess my reputation isn't that big after all, I thought to myself. She must be from that new guild, Laughing Coffin. "Now are you going to come quietly, murderer?"
"No!" She shouted back, her voice almost going shrill. I could see that she was starting to get really nervous and I felt a pang in my chest from an emotion that was foreign to me. "And I didn't kill someone!"
I sighed internally and thought, Oh well. Without giving her a warning, I threw the daggers that I had been holding so tightly. The killer swung her dagger and it extended, knocking my projectiles out of the air. It quickly reverted back to its original form and I realized why it had such an odd shape to it; it was a whip blade, a very rare weapon in Sword Art Online.
Whip blades were exactly what they sounded like: a hybrid of a normal blade and a whip. When used in a slash attack, the blade would separate into evenly segregated parts that were connected by a single wire. But for parrying and stabbing attacks, the blade would remain in its original form. In the real world, whip blades could not exist; the whole idea of having a blade turn into a whip-like contraption was dangerous and impractical. In games like MMORPGs, however, whip blades often made appearances and were often reserved for high level players, due to their extended range.
Rolling away from her next attack, I feigned a laugh that sounded faker than usual and said, "So that's how you got the jump on your victims huh, killer?" It was important to put on this sort of macho-ish persona to distract the PKers slightly. I threw a couple of throwing picks at her, hoping that the small size would prove to be harder to block. However, she managed to knock them away before they even got close to her.
"I'm not a killer!" she insisted, twisting her weapon in mid swing and bringing down at me. I did a quick flip backwards, hitting the ground with my hands to give myself stability before completing the rotation. Seeing the blade come around towards me again, I instinctively raised my sword before lowering it and rolling to the side.
If it connects with my sword, it could activate the mechanism <<Weapon Grab>>, I thought to myself as I threw some shurikens that I had in the sleeves of my armor. I can't afford to lose Ice Stained Blade; I'll have to stick with my throwing weapons.
"If I had a nickel for every time I heard that lie," I remarked, charging towards her and throwing a hatchet that I pulled from my belt as hard as I could. Startled by my blunt and fierce offense, the PKer swing her blade in a horizontal slash.
The whip blade cut right through my projectile and I got ready to throw the daggers that I had grabbed right after I had distracted her with the hatchet. However, the extended blade came close to my face and I instinctively leaned back to avoid getting nipped by it. I lost my balance and fell on my back; seeing the opportunity, I kicked my opponent's feet out from underneath her.
As she fell forwards, I started to roll to the side but I was too slow and her body fell on top of mine. Opening my eyes to see her face blocking out my vision, I was startled for a second and froze up.
"You have really pretty blue eyes," she commented, resting her elbows on my upper chest and leaning closer to me. And your eyes are an amazing shade of green, I started to think before I regained my common sense and shook my head.
"Don't compliment me, murderer," I said, pushing off of the ground before my arms were knocked out from under me by the player on top of me. I hit the ground from the short height that I had managed to achieve and looked back up at my captor.
"I am not a murderer!" she snapped and beat my chest with her hand, her face flushing up in anger. "I never killed anyone in this game."
"And how am I supposed to believe that?" I sighed, resigning myself to my vulnerable position for now. Maybe if I can get her distracted, I can find a way to get out of this, I thought to myself. I briefly wondered if the white hair that was now touching my armor was dyed in real life or dyed in the game.
"Just your cursor is orange doesn't mean you killed someone," the girl replied, tossing her hair back and looking at me with such a serious expression that I stopped thinking of ways to escape. "It just means that you attacked someone."
"But… how am I going to be able to tell if you're telling the truth?" I retorted, understanding the point that she was trying to make. It was very possible for the player in front of me to have accidentally attacked a player and then ran because she was afraid of the village NPC guards and other players. However, it could also be a trick to get me off of her back and allow her to continue killing innocent people.
"Hmm..." the player mused and then snapped her fingers. She started to position herself better and I winced as her chest rubbed against mine. Swiping the air with her index finger, she started to tap different options on her player menu while I tried to see what she was doing. A party invite window popped up in front of my face and I looked at her questioningly.
"You can stick around with me and wait for the cursor to turn green," she explained, referencing how the time period for how long a player's cursor would remain orange depended on the severity of the player's crime. "Plus, because we're in a party, I wouldn't be able to run without you tracking me."
Processing her reasoning, I nodded without a sound and clicked on the <<accept>> option. With a smile, the player rolled off of me and stood up with a little hop. I dusted my pants with a few swipes of my hands and pushed myself off of the ground easily without the obstacle on top of me.
"My name is Seria," the player said with a happy expression that was so different from the one she had when we were fighting. She stuck her hand out towards me and I looked at, slightly startled at the movement. "What's yours?"
Remembering that I still was holding the daggers that I was going to throw at her, I put them back on my belt and grasped her hand. "I've already told you my name; I am Player's Bane," I said, quickly regaining the strict tone that I was suited with using towards player killers.
"Well, Mr. Bane, could you perhaps accompany me to the village?" Seria asked, gesturing with her head towards the same village that I had chased her from. The moonlight glinted off of her face, revealing faint, high cheekbones.
"Of course I am going to follow you into the town!" I exclaimed, surprised that the player in front of me would think that I would let her out of my sight for even a second. I immediately let go of her hand to grab Ice-Stained Blade's hilt. "Why would you need to go back there? Isn't that where you were running away from?"
"Perhaps," she replied coyly, starting to walk back towards the village without me. "But with what today is, they're having a huge festival and I can't miss that, can I?"
"Um… what is today?" I asked, confused and rushing after my target. She seems to be so alive, I thought to myself. And she's really calm, unlike when we were fighting.
"Wait, you don't know what Tanabata is, do you?" She asked, stopping and turning around to look at me with an amused expression. I stopped in my tracks and struggled to recall if I had heard the word before, but, try as I might, I couldn't seem to remember anything about it.
Taking my silence as an indication of my ignorance, she explained, "Tanabata is an annual festival in Japan. They're having a festival in town right now to celebrate. You haven't been in Japan very long have you?"
"No, I haven't," I replied briskly, not wanting to reveal too much of my real life. All that mattered now was what happened in SAO; as far as I was concerned, my real life might as well have just been a dream. "But if you want to go to this festival, I'll follow you."
"Great!" Seria exclaimed, clasping her hands together. I started to wonder what it was about this player that had me so confused and stuttering. "I'll just have to get ready."
+++
I
knocked on the door before saying "Remind me why exactly you rented this
room?"
There
was some shuffling and then the door swung open, almost hitting me. "Because," Seria stated, with an
exaggerated wave of her hand and a smirk.
She had changed from her form fitting armor into a black dress with a
leather corset. Ebony velvet gloves
covered her hands and forearm, stopping just before her elbows. "I had to change clothes for the
festival. Are you not going to change
clothes?"I shook my head, not mentioning that her clothes seemed to be more suiting for a ball than a festival. She looks really good, I thought to myself, startling myself with the musing.
"At least take this off," She said, flicking the lid of my verdant hood and putting her other hand on her hip, where I noticed that her dagger was missing. If she's going weaponless, I don't really see the danger in going without the cloak, I thought to myself. I opened my player menu and made sure to remove the daggers and throwing picks that were hidden by the piece of equipment before removing the cloak.
"That's better," Seria said with a quirky smile and I felt myself blush slightly before I regained my composure. She offered her arm to me and I awkwardly placed my hand on it, fully aware that I was probably doing it wrong.
"No, like this," She said, confirming my suspicions as she moved my arm around in a different position and easily sliding her arm into the shape that my arm was making. "You were doing it the way the girl is supposed to." She started to walk forward and, with a start, I started to move forward, trying to match her stride as closely as I could.
"I knew that," I retorted, realizing how ridiculous I sounded as we made our way towards the door out of the inn. Why is my heart beating so fast? This isn't like me, I thought to myself. The spots where our skin touched was tingling and I realized that it had been years since the last time I had been touched for any extended length of time.
It wasn't because I hadn't allowed anyone to come near me or touch me; it just wasn't something that seemed to happen after the car accident. Before I distanced myself from my family, there would be times when my parents would hug me or tap me on the arm to tell me things. Without these interactions, I had been going without physical interaction for a long time; there was also the fact that obviously, in Sword Art Online, there were very few people that would come close to me now.
Glancing over at Seria, I could see that she had a rather strange expression on her face. "What's your favorite color?" I asked abruptly, startling myself with how loud my voice was.
Jumping a bit at the sudden break in the short silence that had developed between the two of us, the player gave me a quizzical glance. "…Purple? Why?" Looking at her face, I noticed that her raised eyebrow was a light blonde and came to the conclusion that her hair was dyed in real life. If you dyed your hair in the game, all of your hair would be changed to that one color; however, if you dyed your hair in real life, it would be nearly impossible to dye such a spot.
"I was just wondering; I figured that I could speed this up if I could figure out if you're innocent by asking you some questions," I responded, randomly trying to come up with an excuse why I even wanted to know. The truth was, I didn't even know why I cared at all to begin with; it wasn't like me to be so enthralled by someone.
"And… you need to know what my favorite color is?" Seria replied, the corners of her mouth curling upwards slightly. Her bright green eyes sparkled in the street lights and I felt something in my chest stutter a bit. "Anyways, you'll have to postpone your questioning session."
We stopped and I tore my eyes away from her to notice the scene around us. Glittering lights covered every surface of the market place and there was a crowd of people dancing in the center of town. Seria started towards them, pulling me along with her before I started walking again.
Within a few moments, we had made our way into the center of shifting bodies and I felt the beat of the music in my feet. Pulling away to position herself opposite from me, Seria started to move her body with the rhythm of the instrumental song and gestured for me to as well.
Hesitating, I started to shift from one foot to the other, blushing fiercely. Seria started to giggle and I stopped, embarrassed and wishing to be anywhere else than where I was. If her plan is to humiliate me until she escapes, it's definitely working, I thought to myself as the player continued to laugh, albeit quieter.
She moved closer to me, still smiling, and took my hand. Before I could ask what she was doing, she placed it on her hip and pushed me to the side so I spun around her like a horizontal pendulum. Almost forcefully, she pulled me closer, so that we were inches apart from each other and I felt my breath catch in my throat.
Instinctively, I started to pull away when I realized that my feet were now matching the beat of the song and we were spinning around as if we had been dancing for our entire lives. My hand on her hip and her arms around my neck almost surreal and I caught myself staring at her, dumbfounded.
"You know, bad habits don't suit you, Mr. Bane," Seria said, smiling at my apparently humorous antics. I felt my face flush up and opened my mouth to reply, but her expression told me not to ruin the moment with my mouth.
I lost track of time, paying attention only to the person in front of me and my placement of my feet. It wasn't until a peal of familiar laughter broke the silence that had somehow creeped onto the scene and saw a smile break out on Seria's face that I snapped back into reality.
"Just wanted to let you know, my cursor turned green a while," Seria offhandedly mentioned, gesturing to the spot above her head as we stopped moving. "Also… I'm pretty sure everyone left a while ago."
I felt my face heat up as I came to the same conclusion; it wasn't like me to become so unfocused and detached from the world around me. "Y-yeah it seems so."
Seria gave me a faint smile and pulled away from me, apparently realizing that we were still close to each other. "It's rather late; you should probably get a room in a inn," she said, straightening the ruffles out of her dress. "I mean, that's what I'm going to do."
I nodded and scratched the back of my head. "Yeah… the only problem with that is that I don't have any col on me." Cursing Mattias for restricting the amount of money that I was allowed to carry, I pulled up my player menu to start getting suited up for the travel back to the guild house.
"Well, you can share a room with me," Seria said, flicking the front of my armor and giving me a grin. "Come on; you know I'm not a killer now, so there's no danger."
About an hour later, I was lying awake in bed with a girl next to me. The room only had one bed and we had gotten changed to sleeping clothes in the dark. I was trying my hardest to keep my breathing steady and not disruptive at all. I didn't want to ruin the moment that I was in at all and I turned on my side to look at Seria.
"What's up?" she whispered, almost sleepily and smirking coyly. She had been adamant that there was no need to spend money on an extra room and that sleeping in the same bed would be fine. I was beginning to fall in love with her quirky, reckless personality and I wasn't exactly sure how I felt about that.
I opened my mouth, hesitating with what I was about to say, and said, "Do you mind if I try something kinda weird?" I winced a little bit at how the wording came out but I didn't try to remedy it, afraid that I would only botch it up more.
Seria shrugged lightheartedly despite the awkward question and replied, "Sure, weird is cool."
Leaning forward carefully, I lightly kissed the tip of her nose and pulled back. Almost terrified to think of what I might find there, I anxiously searched her face in the darkness for some sign as to how she felt.
"You can be really cute sometimes, you know," she stated with an adorable grin and closed her eyes. I waited for her to say something else, but her relaxed breathing told me that she had fallen asleep. Closing my eyes with a light feeling in my heart, I soon drifted off as well.
When I woke up that morning, Seria was gone and there was no note as to where she went; in addition, according to the system, she had left the party a few hours before I had woken up. I search all over town but I couldn't find any indication as to where she went; no one had seen her and, moreover, didn't want anything to do with a PKer hunter. My search was cut short when I got sent an invitation to a meeting about a raid on Laughing Coffin's headquarters, but I never truly stopped looking for her. Even when I got back to the real world, I tried to gather as much information as I could but I wasn't able to find out if she was even alive.
After time, and with everything else that was going on around me, the thought of her was pushed towards the back of my mind. I never did forget about her, though, and there would be times when I'd go on random searches through the internet in hopes of finding her. Try as I might, I never was able to get any information about her.
No comments:
Post a Comment