[Music Recommendation: "A Sweet Smile" by Yu-Peng Chen (Genshin Impact OST)-available in Youtube or Spotify] ~ Please listen to it in a loop while you read this part to experience the utmost beauty of this chapter ~

Ken finished setting up the game and gave me a controller to use. It was a controller you hold with your two hands, not too big, just the right size, with a couple of buttons and analog sticks on each side. I had to create some sort of “Game Station” account to save my progress.

“You’ll be thankful you just need to create an account and save your progress on the hard drive of the console itself,” he kindly informed me as if that’s something I should feel extremely grateful about. “On the earlier versions, we had to use memory cards and save our progress a LOT of time to make sure we don’t end up repeating the whole game from the start.”

I tried to ponder what he just said. Luckily, I had been gifted by wits so even if what he said was a bunch of jargons to a non-gamer like me, I somehow understood it. This was one of the times I felt glad being a quick learner.

“I see… kinda like how our current phones worked with memory cards. If we don’t have enough storage in the phone, then we use the memory cards. Unless we sync our files or pictures there, then nothing gets saved and we lose them all. Having hard drives in consoles is indeed convenient—just needs a large memory capacity.”

“Yes! Exactly!” he agreed to me with a bit of a surprised face. I guess he didn’t expect me to understand what he said.

“Uhhh…,” Hora grunted, mulling over something. “I give up. I have no clue what you two are talking about.”

“Pft! Ha-ha-ha-ha!” we laughed at her cuteness. Hora’s really adorable.

After a good laugh, I started playing the game. Hora sat near me on my right, carefully watching the game unfold. She seemed to be deliberating if it's a game she’d like to play or not. Ken was on my other side, giving me tips and instructions on how to do certain things. Having them beside me was fun. Sometimes I wish that they’re my brothers and sisters by blood.

The game started with me creating a character—an avatar. There were lots of options to choose from. From hairstyles and color, to eye shape, nose, lips, height, complexion, even the clothes that the character wore. I could even change my gender to male if I wanted to. There were presets too in case anyone’s too lazy to customize but I enjoyed myself by creating my own character. I mostly chose how I looked in person—ginger orange hair, emerald green eyes, a bit of a rosy white complexion, pretty tall nose, thin lips, etc. I adjusted my eyes by making it like that of a doll—round almond shape, that slants up a bit at the edges. I thought it made my avatar look prettier.

“Wow! Those are really pretty eyes! Just like yours,” Hora complimented me.

“Huh? That’s not how my eyes look like,” I disagreed because my eyes were just normal ones.

“Yes it does,” she argued.

“I agree,” Ken just joined the argument.

“But it’s really not.” Now, I’m confused. I started doubting if that really was the case.

“You’re very beautiful, you know,” Hora continued. “You just don’t accept compliments because you’re too critical about yourself. But in truth, our classmates think of you as an unreachable queen.”

“What?! You’re kidding. There’s no way that’s true. It’s bad to lie, Hora.”

I felt Ken’s stares prickling me. Turning to him, I said, “Yes, Ken? Anything to say? And don’t you dare lie—”

“It’s true,” he cut me off. “You really are beautiful.” He said that with a very serious face that my heart almost jumped out of my chest.

I quickly turned the other way. Blood rushed over to my face. I must have looked too red right now. That was really embarrassing. Hora’s right on the part that I’m not good with compliments. Ugh. I felt so embarrassed I wanna hide somewhere. Come on ground, go swallow me up.

In my attempt to escape the scenario, I pressed the “start” button and a loud upbeat music played, along with some 3d animated scenes. Fortunately, the sound caught their attention and we all continued the game. I went with story mode first and Ken helped me with the controls.

Hours passed as I played. Hora was interested in the beginning but she got bored midway. She always preferred simulation games or anything that involves designing something rather than fighting. In contrast, I think I’m getting hooked into the story of the game. Everything had been entertaining so far, maybe except for the fact that I had to grind by killing monsters over and over on some parts. I just wanted to get on with the story but I couldn’t because my level was still low. Just a few more of these useless fights to get experience and I’d be irritated.

As I struggled leveling up, I didn’t notice that the sun had already set. Ken and Hora fell asleep on the couch beside me, using my lap as their pillow. What nice friends I had. No wonder I felt my thighs were beginning to get sore. I put down the controller for a moment and flicked their foreheads, waking them up. Afterwards, we went down to eat dinner. Mom and dad were still not home and my younger brother was holed up in his room. Thanks to that, dinner was rowdier than usual. Once done, I bid them farewell since they needed to go home of course. Good thing we didn’t have any assignments that day.

I felt a bit sad with them leaving, so I decided I’d just go to shower and sleep.

As I slumped myself to bed, trying to sleep, I was reminded of the fact that I still needed to talk to my dad which I wasn’t ready for yet. Trying to retreat from reality, I went back to the game I left running.

“I want to escape from reality a bit more but I’m too tired grinding. I don’t want to kill a bunch of monsters anymore,” I complained to myself.

Then, I remembered Ken mentioned about the 2nd mode—an open world version. Thinking that, I decided to try it out, and this time, without guidance.