Date written: 19/09/12 – 26/09/12
Date rewritten: 19/12/12 – 07/01/13
Posted on FanFiction: 08/01/13
A/N: Excuse me while I pause my Ragnarok Online II game to post this chapter…
Okay, then, I know this one's a long time coming but I didn't want to release until I was sure of the path I wanted to take. This chapter requires a bit of foreknowing, especially with how I structure future chapters the way I do. The end result is not as grandiose as I had first imagined this part of the story to be, but I'm, all in all, content with it. It cut off probably forty to fifty thousand words worth of uncontrollable drama. I was not ready for such an endeavor, and it got too complicated right from the start, so it had to be scrapped and the chapter rewritten to accommodate a more humble scene to press the story forward—and away from that particular road.
The chapter name, however, remains since that's basically the theme for this one. Have fun reading as I had fun writing it. Stay awesome, people, and I'll see ya when I see ya.
Now then, back to RO2.
–– CHAPTER 9 ––
A Stolen Kiss
"Enemy to the right," Yozora warned, already notching an arrow.
"Wait," Sena interrupted, "it's heavily armored. You'll barely put a dent on that thing with iron arrows."
"Good call." I took out my battleaxe as I moved in front of Yozora like I was her bodyguard. Apart from Maria, she was the weakest out of the group. In terms of health anyway. "I'll lead him to those boulders. Ready your Ice Magic, Yukimura."
"Understood, Aniki." Behind his hood, the apprentice mage willed his hands to be engulfed in coldness that could challenge the blizzards Skyrim had had. "Ready."
"It's fast approaching," Yozora informed before she clicked her tongue. "And it brought friends. I count three more."
I clicked my own tongue. "Abort. Yukimura, step back. They're too many for you to handle."
Sena smiled as she assessed our current predicament. Her warhammer was hefted over her shoulder when she lowered it for her attack position. "How about a joint attack, Kodaka? Sharp and blunt forces."
"But that's still four against two," I replied before an idea came to mind. "Kobato, sneak close and distract the two soldiers at the back."
"Kukuku. I am a vampire lord that begets terror into the night."
Uh, I didn't think 'beget' was the right word she should've used.
"All shall fall before me. Every last one of these undead minions must perish!"
"What are you talking, poopy vampire? You haven't rolled the dices yet?"
"It's die, Maria," I informed, couldn't help myself, although a part of me wondered why I'd correct Maria and not Kobato. "The plural form of dice is die."
"Why die? That sounds stupid. Dices makes more sense."
"I guess." I said that but I didn't really mean it. "But it's officially die, so we can't do anything about it."
She pouted, but conceded my point.
"Kodaka! The enemy, the enemy!"
"Ah crap!"
It was too late. Sena attacked before I could join her and she was quickly incapacitated from receiving a backstab . . . from Kobato. It was not as if this was unexpected; the two blondes didn't bother investing points into their Luck attribute. Being the veteran that I was, I knew Luck also played a crucial part in the many functions of the game. I opted for a balance between Strength, Vitality, and Luck, as was my old playing style when my childhood friend and I played this game.
But still, how unlucky could both be for this to happen?
Sena giggled, despite the eight-inch blade sticking out of her back. "Kobato-chan stabbed me with her love." Delusional as always so I guess she was fine.
Kobato, however, was torn between glad and apologetic. This was a game, after all, so anything went but at least she still felt some level of remorse from what had occurred. I was thankful for that; the Neighbors Club didn't need another Yozora.
"Thou hast entered my path of pursuit. Thy am not at fault for this travesty." It seemed Kobato redirected that guilt to Sena herself, washing her hands off the matter, not that Sena would mind anyway. "Very well then. Tis time to resume the task given by my other half. Attack—"
"Stun skill, successful," Stella interjected. "Kobato-sama, Assassin of the Dark Brotherhood, misses one turn."
"Ah? B-But I'm currently invisible!"
"Sneak skill is still below 60 and you've backstabbed your ally. Penalty is complete detection for the enemy."
"Uuuh . . ." Still in doubt, Kobato grabbed the rulebook and perused its pages. When she found it, she read it, even rereading it twice, before slumping in defeat. "How humiliating."
"Nyahahahah! Serves you right, poopy vampire. Because I'm a priestess of a holy order, these poopy uglies cannot touch me."
"Actually," Stella said, "you are a priestess of a Daedric prince, not of a Divine."
"Still a priestess," the child retorted stubbornly. "A priestess of de—day—dead—uh, something prince. I'm completely free from harm!"
I shook my head at Stella and we both agreed that it was a lost cause. Still, I never thought the stoic steward would show mercy for the kid; it'd take just one critical attack to incapacitate her after all, because being a priestess of either Divine or Daedric, it mattered little for the undead. There is, of course, a heightened damage resistance for patrons of the Divines Mara and Alduin, but any priestess have no such absolute defense in this game. Maria misunderstood the damage resistance, Kobato hadn't read that part of the gamebook yet, and everybody else didn't bother correcting the nun's mistake.
The game continued, now with Rika taking the helm and dashing forth into the fray alone, but that was just a distraction. Rika invested almost all her skill points to Agility, thus increasing her base speed and dodge chances. She was just the distraction for Yozora to take a flanking position above the boulders unnoticed. It was good tactics for these two archers—one was the diversion, the other the shooter—but Yozora merely had iron arrows, the lowest quality projectiles in the game, in her quiver. She'd need two quivers worth to take every last one of the zombies, and they couldn't possibly rely on Rika's high Agility to protect her from all attacks. The roll of the die still decided their chances. Rolling and bouncing, where would it land is anyone's guess.
I underestimated their ingenuity.
Yozora readied her bow, aiming carefully at the zombie with the greatsword, and with the die giving her the okay, she released her arrow. And it exploded on impact.
Rika, swift and agile Rika, got away from the blast radius as told by the die. Just one arrow had been enough to incur impressive damage against the zombie, and the explosion's area of effect ensured that its buddies were partially affected as well.
But how? How? I looked at Yozora, and she looked back at me, adorning a smug smile. I didn't know how or when, but she had somehow gotten ahold of Explosion Arrows, one of the rarest arrows to be found in Dovahkiin Labyrinth. It could not be bought, just found, and though I could conclude her possession of one to a lucky random loot, she was still looking smug and pulled out another Explosion Arrow. Actually, every arrow in her quiver was an Explosion Arrow.
"Unbelievable . . ." She was undoubtedly lucky. The only other person who was able to collect a quiver full was my childhood friend from ten years ago.
The second arrow was nocked and released, travelling in ungodly speed and power that it wouldn't be a stretch to compare it to a mini-sized nuclear warhead. It exploded right in the middle of the zombies zone and when the dust settled, only one was left, staggering and low on health.
Stella, the Labyrinth Master, observed the decimation of her forces without changing the expression on her face. It was the most formidable poker face. Even if you were to strip her naked, whip her back, and shave her head, she'd still have the power and will to go through it all like an emotionless mannequin. Some, if not most, would think of that as a scary trait to have, and I happened to be one of them. Just one of the many reasons why she was in the list of my People I Can't Put Up With.
By that point, after Yozora's decisive win, we were to venture further into the labyrinth and stumbled upon the ancient tomb of one of the Dragon Priests. Behind its sarcophogus was the ebony stone monolith littered with meaningful scratches and cracks. They were not done by either age or damage. They were done by dragons, their own written language etched into stone.
It was the mission given to us and why we were exploring this dangerous place in our first adventure in Skyrim. Dragon Priests were a new addition after Dovahkiin Labyrinth underwent a bit of an overhaul, and so none of us were prepared with what we were facing.
"FUS RO DAH!"
Its angry shout, guttural and dead and soul-shattering, pushed us all away, isolating each one of us for the next horde of undead that had awoken from their coffins. Even with Yozora's Explosion Arrows, which she couldn't use at close range unless she wanted to take damage from her own attack too, were inadequate to fully stop this force. Maria was the first to go, then Kobato. Yukimura, having used most of his points for Destruction magic, did not have enough proper preparations to enact self-healing, which was a Restoration discipline, and thus was the next to fall.
It was just Rika, Yozora, and I but even then, we were overwhelmed. I at least went out on a reckless blaze of glory: I tried attacking the Dragon Priest.
Stella's voice had cut in when I voiced my attack and succeeded in the dice roll: "Damage resisted. Counterattack: Yor Toor Shul."
A definite blaze of glory, because I died from the flames summoned out of the undead priest's mouth as if he were a dragon given human form. Maybe he was.
Game Over.
"That was so cool!" Maria shouted as the rest of us grumbled in our utter defeat. "You totally barbecued Onii-chan, Stella-onee-san."
"I thank you for your praise, Miss Maria."
Ugh. A DL veteran like me . . . beaten in the first explored dungeon . . . how, how—
"How humiliating," Yozora said, cradling her head, looking at the table where the Dovahkiin Labyrinth game and its many accessories were sprawled out. "An utter defeat."
"Tell me about it," I agreed and gazed idly at the general map of Skyrim. It had been ten years, but the general layout remained the same. Yet it had turned so different from what I was used to. Some weak weapons were buffed, some strong weapons were nerfed, and new effects and skills were introduced. The whole game had gotten more complicated and I had charged into it thinking it'd still be the same game. It was, but it also wasn't. I felt like a driver who had grown used to automatic and was now forced to drive a manual. "A lot has really changed."
"At least you got to there," Sena remarked, crossing her arms—and which I took great pains to not automatically center my gaze on her chest. "I was out of commission halfway."
"Couldn't you just say you were killed?"
"I was not killed!" she said before eyeing my little sister without alerting her. "It's not even a proper kill, right?"
"Well, yeah, it wasn't a proper kill, but you still died. I told you the Luck aspect is important."
She blushed prettily, looked away, played with a lock of her hair. And with a voice brimming with restrained shame, she said, "Yeah, I guess."
"Don't worry. This always happens for first timers."
"Oh?" Her eyes were directed at me, and I made sure to not squirm under that level of scrutiny. "So then the same happened to you when you first played?"
It was an obvious question to ask, but I had to admit I did not see it coming, especially from her; it sounded more out of Yozora's alley.
I nodded at her question. What was there to hide? "My old friend and I tried the 1-on-1 battle feature first before doing any quests and adventures." I smiled at the memory. "Things didn't go as planned, that's for sure."
"You were utterly decimated," Yozora said, her lips adorning a smile that was like mine. It wasn't the familiarity of the smile that widened my eyes, but the comment she made.
"How did you know I was decimated?" Not only that, those were the same words my childhood friend had said when his avatar had given the critical attack that ended our battle.
"You got decimated! Hah!"
Those were his words, at a time when even online gamers had not yet coined phrases such as "You just got pwned!"
"Eh?" Yozora's voice turned squeaky, and I would've found it funny if not for a more urgent thing that needed my attention.
Surely it was impossible for Yozora to know what happened in my childhood ten years ago. It was just coincidence that she used the word decimated or that she knew of my defeat rather than asking of it or that she smiled fondly of a memory she shouldn't have. What other explanation was there?
"It was an educated guess," she said. "You made it too obvious."
"Have I?" I tried reviewing what I said about my first DL play, but nothing clicked about my supposedly obvious defeat. I let it go this time. Yozora looked like she wanted nothing more to do with this topic.
"Well, are you guys game for another round?" I asked and was rewarded with a positive response from everyone.
I never thought Dovahkiin Labyrinth would get this much response from the rest of the club. With the advancement of video games and a few mimicking the mechanics surrounding DL, I had thought the demand for it would decline. I was glad I was wrong. It was either that or we were a special case, a band of unsocial people who thought a little differently from the riajuu, even though we were trying our best to become them and make friends. A sad and scary thought, yes, but there must be a sliver of truth in it, no matter how small.
I kept this thought in mind as we ventured again into another adventure, this time testing ourselves with a dragon attacking the village of Whiterun. It finally slipped my mind once we achieved victory, distributed the loot and skill points, and decided to take on another adventure before turning in for today.
There was just too much joy in these events to retain gloomy thoughts. What was so bad about that?
The next day was another bubbling morning of activity as the Neighbors Club continued with the fun under the sun. Rika and Yozora forewent swimming in the beach again, content in lying back in the summerhouse, nestled in their reading materials. I didn't bother persuading them because I could see that they were not about to budge from their happy place. Rika might've been easy to convince, but the conditions she'd request to have her join us was too predictable to sacrifice more than three seconds of pondering: She would undoubtedly ask for something sexual in nature from me.
After having my fun in the water, I showered and dressed up for a little outing. Last night's dinner had been a sort of splurge for our food, and now we didn't have enough ingredients to compensate more than a simple meal. I wasn't content with mundane dishes for this summer trip, so I asked Stella for directions to the nearest market and she happily obliged, though she didn't really look happy but stoic.
I pedaled my way to the market, not minding the slightly uneasy terrain of the dirt road. This bicycle had seen better days, already accumulating a level of rust in its chains but not like a dab of oil wouldn't help. The chains still squeak like choking chipmunks occasionally, but at least they didn't hinder my pedaling any longer.
The market was a nice change of pace for me. In the summerhouse, we were a close-knit bunch of misfits, calling each other with first names yet still retaining a well hidden veil of hesitation and gloom. The atmosphere of the vendors and buyers was more happy-go-lucky. Trades were in effect, haggles were a dime a dozen, shouts and praises of wares were loud and aplenty. The very mood was engaging, if a little chaotic, but that was what I liked about it. It breathed life, the cacophony of voices swallowing my hearing as if they were being spoken right next to my ear.
Escaping the noise was a fruitless effort, so I did nothing to that. I was used to it, actually. This place reminded me of the wet market back in the Kyushu region. The seafood here was much fresher than in the supermarket in Tohya. Cheaper too, and much cheaper if you knew how to haggle.
I made sure to wear a straw hat to keep my hair slightly covered. The blond tresses mixing with the black and brown could still be seen, but only if you were really looking. As it was now, I looked like any other generic person in the herd of people searching for bargains and good buys.
Despite already having a set mental list, I took the time to look around the market. Fish, a wide variety of them, were on sale and though I should be surprised at their prices, I really wasn't. This market was situated close to the sea where I knew fishermen go to capture the latest hauls, so this place was more akin to a marina than a market. Granted, there were still vendors selling fruits, vegetables, but their stalls stood separate from the seafood and meat. Most of the place sold fish anyway.
I went from stall to stall, talking to the vendors and assessing my chances of haggling. The prices were low as it was, and though I'd feel a little bad wiping off a few hundred yen from the final price, it was the principle of the matter here. It was . . . tradition, I guess. My father, whenever he used his vacation days and took us on summer family trips, would take me to the market and show me the ropes of haggling, although maybe he brought me for some father-son bonding after this errand rather than to teach me his ways of obtaining bargains. It was just something that rubbed off on me along the way, and though I never inherited Dad's ways of making friends, I got the taste of his haggling right from the start. I blame this on genetics. I really do.
An hour later, I got what I came for and was ready to head back. The hands on my watch gestured that it was a quarter past eleven in the morning. I had to double back if I wanted to prepare lunch in time. I got on the bike and made one final check on the front basket. An accident on the way back was not on my agenda.
I was at the end of the market, just needing a sharp right turn to start my return journey through the long, lone dirt road, when a gust of wind whipped in front of me, grabbing my hat and tumbling it down to my nape. If not for the long jaw strap now wrapped around my neck, I might've lost the hat completely.
But my hair was bare for all to see. I didn't think of getting any shouted surprise from the vendors, because delinquent-looking or not, a customer is a customer. And I was already leaving, so there was no real need to fret, if at all. I knew that, I understood that, which was why I didn't replace the hat onto my head.
I regretted it soon after.
"Kodaka?"
A voice from the crowd, piercing and distinct, despite the cacophony running alongside it. I knew that voice, could never forget it, not after the last time I had heard it.
A normal response would've been to stop, turn around, and address the one who said my name. I did stop, but only for a moment. When realization finally set in, I pushed my feet on the pedal, never looking back.
"Wait! Kodaka, wait!"
Her voice was getting closer, but I soon picked up speed and turned right. A horrible thought entered me then—that this was some cruel joke created by fate and there was no escaping it. My bike would slide and I would tumble to the ground, giving the person a chance to get to me before I could stand up and resume my getaway.
I took the sharp right, almost stumbled when the swift turn shook the basket full of fish and produce, and pedaled as fast as my legs could go. Not once ever looking back. But that person's voice kept shouting, shouting for me to stop, to wait, to not go.
I ignored it all. It was cowardly, I knew, but I didn't care even if I was deemed as such. I just wanted to get as far away from there as possible.
And in truth, I already admitted to myself that I was a coward.
"What the hell was that for?" I murmured to no one in particular. After pedaling for quite a while, I believed I was safe for the time being. 'Safe' felt more like a stagnation of bad impressions and with how much I displayed my displeasure of even talking with that person just then . . . well, I wanted to beat myself up for it. Things would've gone much better if not for my immediate flight response, but I actually couldn't help that. After what I did, keeping my distance seemed the best solution. Not for me, but for her. Yet I couldn't help sardonically telling to myself that history does repeat itself. How comforting.
"You didn't have to make a scene, though. Why did you panic?"
I asked a question I already knew the answer to, but that alone made me hate myself more. Would this happen every time we meet by coincidence?
I lay on the soft grass, uncaring of the tiny pinpricks on my back, the dirt that would cling to my sweat-covered shirt (today was hot and I'd been pedaling as if my life depended on it), and the time slowly passing me by. The latter was of a lesser priority, especially after my speedy cycling through the countryside. I did more than double back; in that light, I had plenty of time to—
What? Plenty of time to do what exactly? Here I was, sulking and brooding over the past, which felt like a cancer growing in secret through all these years. It was way past the time to try and let go, but these words were like coming from a megaphone compared to my actions which were like whispers. Letting go was hard, forgetting it was even harder.
Forgetting her was—
"Kodaka."
That voice! I sat up quickly, panic beginning to set into my nerves, and looked over my shoulder. The elevated dirt road, formed somehow to resemble a continuous hill passing through miles of potential farm fields, was where I had parked my bike. Standing next to it, supporting a second bike, was someone I had been trying to flee from since she called my name the first time.
It was my old middle school classmate, Jun.
She smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes, and I wanted nothing more than to make her stop forcing a happy front for my sake. She was kind—always had been, always would be, I guess—but her kindness was undesirable to me. Not at the way things had spiraled down for us and all the pain brought from them. Things I had inadvertently started, like kick-starting a devastating avalanche.
"I almost thought it wasn't you," she said, parking her bike and descending the slope to my level. She didn't sit next to me, didn't come closer than three feet from me. It was just as well; I myself would've scooted away otherwise.
"It's been a while, huh?" she asked, and I could only nod. My throat felt dry, and not because of the heat. "How . . ." Her breath hitched. "How are you?"
". . . Well." I tried to think of something, anything, to excuse myself away, but I doubt she would believe it. Jun always seemed to know when I was lying. "Just well."
"I see."
We went into silence after that. For the longest time that I have known her, Jun and I never kept silence between ourselves for as long as this. At least not silence this awkward. It alone reinforced how much our relationship had strained since we last spoke. There was no heated voice choking and pausing in between sobs and croaks, tears cascading their beautiful face. In the years after that, I guess Jun must've tried her best to move on while I stayed where I was, stagnant and afraid. But was it really the case? How did I know Jun moved on from the greatest blunder I had ever done?
Jun chuckled softly, probably never intending to let me hear that. When she noticed I did, she said, "I never thought it would be this awkward."
"Yeah. Awkward." Regret. Self-loathing. It was not just awkward. I wanted to apologize with all my heart, but the words wouldn't come, didn't wish to experience the sweet release my mind yearned for. "Did you need something?"
"I thought," she said, pausing as she took a deep breath, readying herself for something that required every bit of her courage and determination. I knew what it was she wished to talk about; I hardened my heart. "I thought we should talk more openly about what happened back then."
"What's there to talk about?" I questioned, making sure not to sound harsh or condescending. If anything, my self-loathing began its goal of bursting through the roof.
"I confessed." She took pause again, another deep breath. "And you didn't give me an answer."
The relationship Jun and I had was complicated. I know that that line had been used hundreds of times by others with their own branch of romance and drama in their lives, but in truth that was pretty much the gist of what we were. She and I went to the same middle school together for two years before I had to move away again. While she was charismatic, I had been the wallflower-slash-pariah of the class and no matter how many times she tried to get me to socialize with people, it always ended in disaster.
But that all paled in comparison to what had been our final conversation. A simple talk on our way home: She confessed . . . and I ran away. I never spoke to Jun again afterwards.
It was the most cowardly thing I had ever done, more so because she was the one who had been by my side since my entering middle school. You could say we were joined at the hip, although our relationship started off rocky before it smoothed to the kind of platonic friendship between opposite sexes you would only dream about, never once thinking of Jun and romance going hand-in-hand.
And that was all it was, a dream. A stupid, idealistic dream. Because Jun actually sought more than friendship from me; I had seen the signs but I chose to ignore them in light of my selfish wish to realize that dream, maybe going so far as to delude myself, play ignorant of every sign, gesture, and murmurs she would often and innocently drop during our middle school life.
That was what led to where we were now. Jun, hurt from the experience. Me, still running away, still wishing that this conversation never occurred.
"I still haven't gotten an answer, by the way," Jun said out of the blue, releasing me from my self-loathing to look at her incredulously.
"Are you serious?" I asked, but did not wait for an affirmation. "I just up and left without saying a word to you!" My emotions rose—its origin and construct unknown, but it was poisonous and hot—and with it my voice, and inevitably Jun flinched, looked away. But I was too high-strung to care; I ventured forward like a berserker lusting for blood. "Never even told you that on the day tomorrow, I'd be on the road halfway across the country! How can you just sit there and still wait for my answer"—here I regained my self-control and finished the rest of my words with a voice doused with quiet resignation—"after what I did? How?"
Jun just looked at me, no smile, no frown, but a statue-like stare that would make you squirm if you looked at it for too long. She scooted closer to me and I had this urge to once more widen the gap between us, but I somehow knew that an action like that would merely delay the inevitable. If she wanted to sit closer to me, she would sit closer to me. That was how stubborn Jun could be at times.
I guess that same stubbornness carried over to her waiting for my answer.
An answer, I realized, I didn't think I have. I hadn't thought of Jun for quite a while, much less the confession and the what-ifs that often entered my dreams weeks after I moved away from Jun's hometown. Without realizing it, I was keeping my gaze away from Jun, prompting her to get closer and reroute my attention back to her. Delicate fingers were touching my jaw, applying a gentle amount of force for the rerouting, and once again the two of us were eye-to-eye but in such close proximity that the gap between our faces were less than five inches. I could feel her breath exhaling from her mouth while finding myself captivated and yielding to the actions she took just then.
Seeing her this close now, I could clearly tell that she had grown much more beautiful. She wasn't wearing any makeup, since her being in the market was more of an errand than an outing, but that only accentuated more of her natural beauty. Compared to what I saw every day in the clubroom—with Yozora's cool, hard-to-approach aura and Sena's stunning, aristocratic presence—Jun paled in comparison, but that just made her more desirable in my honest opinion. Yozora and Sena were like they were standing on high pedestals, unreachable to most unless you're willing to dare climb up the smooth, slippery slope. Here was Jun sporting her own kind of beauty, yet more down-to-earth than those two girls could ever hope to achieve.
Or maybe that was just the riajuu in her radiating and affecting my senses. As I said before, Jun was a very social and generally well-liked person back when I was attending the same school as her. Even with me being a wallflower and avoided due to things beyond my control, she had been determined to get me out of the corner and into the circle of friends she had created as if it were no big deal. It never worked the same way she and I had hoped, but I was thankful for her efforts all the same.
"Kodaka," Jun said, and my chin was rekindled with the same blast of warm air coming out of her mouth. "I . . ." she paused, looking tongue-tied. "I know that I can't expect an answer from you immediately, but I also know that can't let this thing hang without proper closure. So please, Kodaka, if you can give me answer sometime soon."
"But, Jun, I—"
"And," she interjected, "to show you how serious I am."
She stopped there, no longer letting words be the sole mode of communication she'd use to get her point across. Before I realized what she intended, Jun—in a move that brought forth mixed feelings of shock, confusion, and most of all, desire—put her lips on mine.
I had wanted to say a lot of things to Jun, but I was held back by hesitation and my own guilt. Right then and there, I had wanted to accept Jun's confession, but what gave me hesitation was something I couldn't fathom, something I couldn't put my finger on. It made the kiss feel awkward, even amongst the sensory overload my lips were feeling from the lips of a beautiful woman.
I truly wanted to say a lot more things to Jun.
However, right now, the two of us alone, with our lips sealed and together, guilt was pushed to the backseat as I wallowed in the conundrums my mind and heart were fighting over.
I wanted to respond. I wanted to push her away.
I wanted to tell her that I love her. I wanted to say that my love for her was only between friends.
I wanted to put the past behind us and start anew with these feelings in our hearts. I wanted to tell her that there was no hope of us becoming a couple.
My wants were contradictory; I couldn't help that.
But none addressed my needs, and with my mind preoccupied with wanting both right and wrong choices, it disregarded any decision made by logic and let my bodily instincts instead do the answering.
I ended up kissing her back.
And I hated myself for that.
Chapter Afterword:
Sena just got NTR'd!
Um, NO.
It's just the usual romance drama complicating the plot. I never thought I'd implement something like that, but what good is a romance story without conflict to push the fates of the two protagonists together? Expect more to come.
Meanwhile, in Asgard, a Level 22 Swordsman/Alchemist within the world of Einherjar awaits the end of Lagnarok so that the journey through this beautiful world continues…
If you play in the OBT of Ragnarok Online II, then you should know what I mean by Lagnarok.
