Tick... tick... boom! It's February fourteenth.

Valentine's Day.

Too bad it falls on a Monday, everyone's favorite day to be alive.

But anyway, it's a romantic day for everyone. A day where everyone deserves to be at least loved and cared for. By the scenery outside, you could tell various vendors selling out flowers, bouquets, teddy bears, bears, grizzlies—oh, my scale went off the hooks. Jokes aside, it's as simple as giving chocolate or a loved possession to someone that's significant to you.

The day where all the youth's been crazy about.

Hm, I wonder if someone does love and care for me aside from my parents. I mumbled in my mind.

"Akko? Akko... Ak-ko! Oi Akko, down to Earth~! Hello? Buenas tardes?! Akko!"

I was out of my elements, then to my right I was immediately greeted with a small and cute bouquet and a wooden box.

"Awh jeez! Don't doze me off like that!"

Ala-chan imposed a pout, while I just gently held on to the small bouquet and box.

"Forgive me for the elements get the best of me."

"What are you, some romanticist poet back in the day?"

"Hmm..."

We were outside the campus gates early in the afternoon when Ala-chan helped me in looking like a still statue outside. Anyway, we started heading home as we started conversing.

"Speaking of being a romanticist, what does that mean for you Ala?"

"Hmmm... isn't that a term to refer to people who were proponents of the Romantic movement?"

"Yeah that's the term we objectively agree on. It's just sometimes that I thought it's a word that's closely related to romance."

"Y'have a point Akko, I mean the word romanticist has the root romance in it, but at the end of the day, almost everyone would refer to it as a historical term, not the term that might be assumingly related to love."

I just thought that I would call someone a romanticist to better fit today's Valentine's Day. If there's such thing as a womanizer, then I thought about a friendly but still intrusive term would be a romanticist. Maybe that's just me being weird scrambling my vocabulary.

"Let's say Ala you're a person who loves everyone so much or a woman who loves a lot of men, wouldn't it be fitting to call you a romanticist?"

Ala-chan groaned and looked at me stressfully. "Do you think I look like someone who'd speedrun every boy on campus?" she sighed. "If it's anyone's guess, you'd call me like I'm a proponent of the 1800s. Why'd you ask?"

"For instance, it's a unisex yet friendly way to call someone a womanizer."

Chop!

Ouch my head.

"You're still a Crazy Akko."

"No, I meant it in a completely different way—gah... nevermind."

I was about to defend my stance, but I gave up before I even tried when I saw Ala-chan sulking. You know some girls, at their heart of being proficient on heating up arguments, even teensy weensy bit ones, and believe that the one they argued with is wrong or felt offended by them.

Yeah, it's not all sunshine and rainbows for the both of us; Ala-chan has also things that feel too uneasy to talk about with.

Talk about word play, it's like the pronunciation between the words insane and insanity. It would be common to learn the former then the latter, then naturally carry over pronunciations, only to be corrected by individuals that both words entirely differ in pronunciation even though it has the same root meaning. I kid you not, English is really complicated when it comes to defending why such words have this spelling or pronunciation, yet we keep using it as a lingua franca. Does that mean we were left with no choice?

"Say Ala, do you sometimes believe that we were left with no choice but to live?"

She thought about it deeply this time.

"Well here's a better answer, a building is built to serve one purpose."

"Sheesh, what kind of irrelevant answer is that?"

"If you think about it, you can't just build a building without reason, that would be a waste of space—like imagine building something for no reason and just leaving it there. That would be a distraction. Like our campus is there for a reason, a bank, a train station, a restaurant, or better yet..."

, she boldly said it in my face.

"But yeah that's just my little metaphor—it's hard to answer your question——a bold question actually, like it's hard to ask someone their reason of living, or raison d'être." she added.

"Okay, let's put this into the table: why English is still used despite it having unbearable twists and loops, or why we're living in a democracy when we can just decide for ourselves to live freely."

There's a reason why, she repeated.

"I mean... English is a widely intelligible language, that's why you're thinking that we're left with no choice—you can't just start a revolution and write an entirely fitting and fixated language and persuade everyone. By human nature, that would be really tiresome. A bold example of that would be the Thai language—that language is a nightmare, but people who are born with it just have to learn it for their sake of reason for being and their cultural identity. As for living under a democracy and asking for liberation..."

It's almost certain that'll lead to mutiny or worse, anarchy. Ala-chan emphasized.

"Why?"

"W-why you ask? We have a bajillion minds that perceive peace and order differently. That's why there's a unitary government who'll idealize peace and order to the masses. Of course, it all depends on who governs it because at the end of the day, it's their perception of peace and order."

It's tough to remove your footprint in your works, huh.

I sighed. "I guess we have to adapt to it."

"More like we'll learn to live with it."

A bittersweet line, yet it's one of the best choices we have to make now.

"Not really my primary sense of belief, but Akko, I'll take my words from along the lines of everything happens for a reason."

After all of that serious brain candy, it just so happens that we arrived at the same intersection before the third railway crossing. As usual, Ala-chan and I bid farewell to each other.

"Byy the way Akkochii~ You take care and have fun in your reunion laturr~" she blurted out in a distance whilst giving a huge wave.

⁂

Arriving at the apartments at this time around, I was wary of myself because I have to ask the telltale question:

"Shoot, what will I eat for lunch?"

I lied when I said I'll never get fed up with eating rice and luncheon meat, that only applies to my breakfast. Planning to eat the same thing at lunchtime is a wholly different story. Of course I can't bust out my alternate breakfast of eating toasted bread spread with white cheese, that'll get me hungry quick!

This isn't a novel SOS call, it's something that I'm used to ever since I started moving in the apartments.

Of course ever since I moved out of my home, my parents would settle and arrange my allowance in my account: from my monthly pay in the apartments, approximation of food, down to occasional checks that I'll be paying upfront in the uni for my tuition... Yeah I'm not a scholar—I told you I'm average.

But why is it you ask that I'm having a problem with food despite having the money to do so?

Simple, I don't spend the money, I make it my savings.

Clever, huh?

It has a twist, I'd be like a poor old man in the streets in starvation. Ever wondered why I'm really really grateful to Ala-chan and sometimes to Tomo about them paying whenever I hangout with them?

It's not all the time I make it my savings, there are times that I have to pay at least a little amount on a group hangout. Undeterred, it's not all the time I profit from my savings.

Basically, I've turned my tactic of turning my food part of my money into a stock market where my profit ends up in an ebb-and-flow scenario; it's either I yield great or yield less for one day. There are days where it really hit hard on my savings that it's like a stock market ticker where it has been deducted greatly with bold red text.

So yeah, that's not a smooth-sailing life hack of a journey I made for myself—what I just witnessed basically applies to something that inputs hard work like maintaining a business. In terms of livelihood, life is hard even when you try to make it easier, it'll haunt you with great difficulties from that ease.

Shoot, I could've been fit to become an accountant then!

All of that trivia aside, I was blessed by the gods when Aka called me out before I went upstairs to my room.

"Kid, today's a great day for 'ya, let's dine in my place for the noon"

It seems like I'm starting to frequent Aka's place. Gosh her room is a godsend of interior design. It's like I just realized why people go into museums—to admire beauty. Coupled with the fact that everything is nice and cozy in her room is a really good feeling.

But what's not godsend for me is that I'll have to use chopsticks yet again.

Not that I have anything against Aka. More like I'm against myself for not knowing how to use these properly.

Anyway, Aka told me we're having gyudon. It's a simpler setup in that we only have two rice bowls with a lot of beef on top. She even went the extra mile to have eggs on top, so it's a petite yet appetizing meal once more. It's like a very run-the-mill version of a shawarma.

I can say that I sided to the political indulgency of "The Unbeatable Aka Honda" in terms of culinary.

"Seems like you truly juvenated Valentine's by what you got there—some flowers and a treat."

"Yeah, Ala-chan gave it to me."

She leaned closer to me. "Hold on, do you happen to know if Ala is heavily Japanese?"

"Nuh uh." Speaking of which, I haven't asked her that much about her origin. "I just figured she's a very normal culture-neutral girl."

Mystified as to why Aka asked, she later oriented me that White Day exists, especially for the Far East. They are mostly celebrated by Japanese and occur a month after Valentine's Day, so March 14th. In short, if you received something from Valentine's, you have to give or reciprocate back.

But I'm much more mystified as to why it's called White Day.

Shucks, I really do hope Ala-chan is not expecting anything in return from that. She bears a heavily western vibe, so I'm sure she doesn't have any Japanese ancestry. The only concrete evidence that I have is that her name doesn't bear any meaning, let alone her last name which is totally foreign to my ears.

Honestly, I just don't want to spend any more money.

This time, I took care of washing the dishes despite being in Aka's room. In most households, it wouldn't be practical to let the visitor do all the dirty work. But eh, I'll take it with the kindness of my heart. There aren't that many to wash anyway, just two bowls and some chopsticks.

Speaking of chopsticks, yes I survived the second wave of struggling with it. I somewhat eat faster while struggling to use them (mostly just because I really want the food inside my mouth).

Nothing much after that, I took my leave and thanked Aka for a lovely lunch.

"Kind regards to your reunion later kid, enjoy."

That was the first time that Aka and I had a very casual time talking with each other. No deep talks whatsoever like I do with Ala-chan except it's on a much deeper scale. It's a simple matter of hello's, how's each other's day, and farewells.

That's just more than what I just realized today—almost everyone seems to be kind and thankful about me having this reunion party. I don't know—sure I'm not used to getting praised or having any regards, but honestly, it feels eerie—like honestly I thought it would be cringy on their part, but they sent my regards as if it's natural.

Enough said, here we are now in my room, simply waiting for the time.

"Six huh? I'll be taking the train at around five-thirty."

I still have the whole vacancy of my afternoon, though it sucks having to wait for such an event that I'm excited to see what it's like.

As usual, I spent the afternoon like any nerd would: play Solitaire on their computer, then later on to my actual set of fifty two cards. Still the same, nothing changed.

"Hmm.. I haven't played HeroTom yet."

Then after a while, I shifted into playing that. It's anything but fancy compared to Tomo where she can leave her computer in the morning and let the joy of automatically grinding her way up. Sure I can have my laptop do that in school, but I wouldn't have any more juice to do school stuff. Plus, I get totally mentally absent whenever I don't have a computer around.

Speaking of Tomo and HeroTom (that was a mouthful to say), we actually started conversing some more and we played with each other every day since Saturday last week, the following day after I had my visit there. It's a special kind of conversation in that we'd always video chat just like I do with Ala-chan. What worries me though is that I no longer have the time around evening to video chat with her.

But it's strange that I don't frequently video chat with Ala-chan as much these days. I wonder how she's faring these past days? Even I am worried about some happy-go-lucky hyper maniac.

If only there was a way where both of them are in the call.

Opening up the game and immediately hovering over my friend list, I can see that Tomo is online as usual. Man is she a sucker for this game? Even I can't get myself to play this for sixteen hours or so—let alone an hour of playing it.

Today she's level twenty-five. I'm still level twenty-one. I'm still leagues away from her. Isn't there going to be a time where I'll be ahead of her even once?

Anyway I opened up my Chat program.

"Yo, want to call or something?" I messaged Tomo.

. . . . !

"Let's go!"

That was quick. No questions asked—just without hesitation that she wanted to see me again.

Instead of clicking the camcorder button for a video chat, I opted to click the phone button for a voice chat.

. . . . . . .

"Hallu Akko~" she greeted in an uplifting tone.

"Yeah, hello."

"Whuh—why are we doing a voice call? I want to see you badly."

"Let's just say my internet isn't doing good, also we'll be seeing each other later—hold your horses."

In reality, I just want to surprise myself with what she'll be wearing later. I just didn't say that up-straight since I figured I'd sound like a horrendous serial killer getting more intel—or more accurately, that'll be awkward of me.

"Awwiee... well, understandable. Hold on, I'll be taking the trains later at five quarter to Seiru."

"I'll be taking it by five-thirty."

There might be a possibility that it could be the same train taking a roundtrip back to Ruruteru.

"Ehhh? Wouldn't that make your arrival around six?"

"It's Seiru, that's a stop behind Merumeru, so my travel time would be less than thirty minutes—perhaps even quarter to six if I do the math."

"Oh... woopsies!" I could imagine she'd bonk her head and pull her tongue out for being a whack.

As if I sound like I know everything around these parts, no. I only know the little map inside the trains telling you where you're stopping next.

Without taking a hitch, I immediately saw a pop-up in-game about Tomo requesting to join in my world.

"Ehe."

"Hey, at least tell me when you're requesting to join!" I exclaimed.

As usual, Tomo would enter my world almost all the time and from there, we'd do daily quests together (that saves labor work from doing it individually). I don't know, I feel like her strength that's leagues away from me making everything easier makes me wary; I feel bad for the game for having multiplayer then making it easier on a less-powerful player.

In other words, what we're basically doing right now.

If we have the mood, we'd do boss fights and a couple of material grinding that cycles throughout the week. Well it's Monday, so that's where we do all of the boss fighting because barely any character nor weapon that needs materials falls today. We went to the trouble of doing three deadly boss fights today.

. . . .

It isn't surprising she'd do it without a sweat.

"Ehehe, Hingii is such a good boy, he's a tank!" she exclaimed.

"Err.. as for Hangin..."

Yeah, I'd die on occasion during boss battles. I feel bad if Tomo's doing all the work for me.

"Akko, don't worry about me... I can do this!"

Using up all of our boss battle attempts, our last thing to do was to sort of continue my main quest. Can't believe the game allows you to do so while someone's in your world.

Then the last last thing to do was to do some sort of evaluation report.

"Here, looks like I'm level twenty-two—halfway to twenty-three actually." I said.

"Ooooo... well I'm level twenty-six already—really close to twenty-seven!"

Damn it, the distance is still pretty constant. If it were us traveling through the Oregon Trail for miles and miles, my distance away from Tomo's wagon would be the same as it was when we're still at the starting point.

"Oh Akko, it's past four o'clock... Can I take my leave? I'll be prepping for the occasion later."

"Hm? Sure, no problem with me."

"Ehe, see 'ya later Akko~!" said joyfully

Despite us just having a voice chat, I'd imagine she'd do a wave in front of her camera.

Ending the call, I turned off multiplayer in my world, then just plainly shut the game down—or actually, just shutting off my laptop altogether.

"Hm, what to do next..."

I was wondering if I'll do the same thing before that, which is to go all into Solitaire craze.

But actually...

"You know what, I'll just prep myself as well."

⁂

5:40 PM

This whole time, I'm curious as to how the Seiru ward generally looks like.

While I did commute back and forth between Ruruteru and Merumeru, I didn't really pay attention outside.

Let's review at how each stop looks like from inside the train: Ruruteru looks like an extraordinary metropolis with huge skyscrapers and a monstrously-sized shopping district, and Merumeru looks like you've just traveled at the speed of light to Venice or Italy with the Venetian-like built buildings, only that the train station there is the only architecture standing out (credits to the huge breezy trees though).

I stepped out of the train as it stopped at Seiru, scanning my card from the turnstiles.

. . . .

Well even after scanning my card upon exit, I can't even see a glimpse of the outside because you've guessed it—The train station in Seiru is unusually large, like I still can't see the outside yet.

"Woah—holy hell, this looks like a shopping mall..."

That's what I meant when I say it's unusually large. It's smart of them to combine a train station and a shopping mall into one complex so that they would build less and take up less space. Like look, there's even a second floor above me for pete's sake.

Natural as the direction goes, I went straight opposite from the turnstiles. What did I just stand at earlier? An intersection.

With fancy marble floors and a humongous sunroof above, you could say this is the alter ego of the Ruruteru Shopping District; just so happens that everything is inside.