IN-GAME
Gui:

"Don't tell me she's not logging in tonight!" I exclaimed.

"Ex-nay on the e-shay!" Lolidragon growled at me quietly. "And I didn't say that. Just that Prince isn't on yet. He'll be here or he knows I'll skin him alive. This is mandatory training." Everyone else in the Odd Squad had already met up outside the area we were going to train in, The Black Forest. The only one missing was Prince. A few people were around, attacking mobs and collecting items dropped by them, but they weren't paying us much attention at the moment.

"Does anyone have any idea where sh— Prince is?" I asked, correcting myself before another slip-up. I looked around the group, an everyone seemed clueless. Except Ugly Wolf. He looked almost guilty.

"Wolf…" I started.

Ugly Wolf's eyes were pointed at the ground, but in the instant that he looked up and met my gaze he knew he couldn't hide anything. "He might not be coming, okay? Prince paid me a visit today in real life sobbing over you, Gui. I really don't blame him if he decides to take a few days off."

Everyone gaped at Ugly Wolf, mouths hanging open. YuLian was the first to recover; she clapped her hands loudly to get out attention and announced we would be going in without Prince.

Everyone turned to leave, but I couldn't follow.

"I'm logging off," I announced.

"What?" Lolidragon asked, looking back at me.

"I need to talk to Prince."

YuLian huffed in annoyance. "We don't have a warrior to train with, and now our bard is leaving?"

Ugly Wolf put a paw on his wife's shoulder and gave me a nod. "Let him go, YuLian."

"Yes, Gui-gege needs to find Prince-gege and fix everything," Doll added.

Determined, I nodded back at them and signed off Second Life.

REAL LIFE

I pulled off my mask and sat up in bed. I had planned on talking to Xiao Lan in-game, but she had complicated things. I knew what the issue was and I knew what to do in our situation. I wasn't happy about the course of action I had to take to make everything right, but it really was the only solution.

I pulled on some clothes and left my apartment. It didn't take long to get to Xiao Lan's house by taxi, but the female driver kept trying to strike up a conversation with me. Most of the topics were obviously flirtatious and I did my best to ignore her.

I reached Xiao Lan's house and paid the taxi driver, sending her on her way. I paused outside the house, all the lights were out. Maybe she was asleep already. It was quite dark out, but I crouched down and scoured the ground for some small rocks, picking up a handful. Isn't this what they did in all those cheesy romance movies? Throw rocks at the window to grab the girl's attention or wake her up?

Feng Lan:

Pak… Pak… Pak…

I opened one eye and looked around. What the heck was making that noise? I sat up and rubbed my tired eyes. The tapping sound seemed to be coming from the window. Maybe it was just a tree branch, hitting the glass in the wind. This seemed plausible, except for the fact that there wasn't a tree close to my window.

Pak… Pak… Pak… CRASH!

Something flew in through the window and landed on my floor. I turned on my bedside lamp and looked down to see that there was a rock the size of my fist in the center or my carpet, along with bits of broken glass.

"Oh crap! That wasn't supposed to happen," a voice said from outside.

Grabbing my slippers from under my bed, I stuffed them on my feet and went to my window. I lifted the (now broken) bottom pane and looked out to see who had broken my window. The light of my lamp reached out into the street just enough to make out Gui's figure. Seeing him made my heart clench up in my chest so much that I hurt. Averting my eyes, I spoke to him in a cold, even voice. "I don't want to see you, Gui."

"We need to talk, Xiao Lan. Can I come in?" It was too dim to see his face but I could imagine him giving me the same puppy-dog look he always gave me when I ignored him.

"No. Go away." I turned my back to the window.

"I'm not going anywhere until we talk."

I sighed. While I didn't want to see him, I couldn't run from him forever. I knew what he was going to say, but I didn't want to hear it. Not one bit.

Gui:

The light in Xiao Lan's room went off. I hung my head and sat down on the walk outside her house. She was so stubborn, but I was keeping my word. I was going to stay right there until she talked to me.

Click

I looked up at the noise and saw that Xiao Lan had opened the front door and was standing inside, the light from the room behind her casting a shadow on her face.

"Is anyone else here?" I asked quietly as I entered her house, though if her brother was there it would take a lot to wake someone up when they were in Second Life.

"Parents are on a honeymoon. Again. They're gone so much I practically own the house. Brother's in Second Life." Xiao Lan shut the door behind her and started walking towards her living room. The atmosphere was horribly tense, making me wish again that I'd had a chance to talk to her right away, before our situation got out of hand.

"I guess I—" I started, but was cut off right away by Xiao Lan.

"If you're going to break up with me, just say it," she said bitterly as she sank into a sofa. "Though I think you're stupid for giving up as soon as things got hard. You spent so much time chasing after me even though you thought I was a guy and now—" It was my turn to cut her off.

"I'm not breaking up with you, Xiao Lan."

Feng Lan:

"What?" That was pretty much all my brain could manage right then.

"I said, I'm not going to break up with you. I'd rather suicide myself to level one in Second Life." Gui's face was totally serious. He wasn't the type to joke when it came to his feelings, but I was still very confused.

"But… But you said… I mean, back at the…" Oh yeah, intelligence through my words being demonstrated perfectly right there.

"I said I would take care of it, didn't I?" A small smile played across Gui's handsome face and he sat down on the sofa next to me. "I've already handed in my resignation."

Again: "What?"

"If the dean is so worked up about a teacher being extremely in love with a student, then he just won't have a teacher anymore." Gui's smile grew larger and he leaned in to kiss me. Besides the fact that I was relieved that he wasn't in fact breaking up with me, something was bugging me.

"But, your job," I said, our lips a centimeter from each other.

"Do you have any idea just how many schools and universities are vying to get your genius boyfriend?" he asked with a chuckle and finished closing the distance between us.

Though I was reluctant to pull away, I managed to tear my lips from his long enough to look at him sternly and say "You know you're paying for my window, right?"

Gui grimaced. "Yeah, yeah. Your window can wait. Kiss me. Now."

I happily obliged.

Gui:

Explaining why I was sleeping on their couch to Yang Ming the next morning was a bit awkward, especially since he kept looking between Xiao Lan and myself and snickering and wiggling his eyebrows.

I shook my head, trying to push personal thoughts out of my mind as I got ready for class. It wouldn't be easy to break the news to the students that I was leaving.

"You look tired, Professor. Up late last night?" I looked up to see Yang Ming entering the class room with Xiao Lan following and looking at me apologetically as her brother gave me a suggestive wink. Xiao Lan scowled at him and whacked him over the head with her text book, making me laugh.

Soon enough it was time to begin class. All the students had taken their seats and were looking at me expectantly, the girls more than the boys.

"Before we start the lecture for today, I have some news to share with you all," I told the room.

"Is it good news or bad news?" one of the students called to me from the back. "Like, no more essays for the rest of the year?"

"Well, whether the news is good or bad is for you to decide." I leaned on my desk and took a deep breath. I took a moment to think about how to phrase what I was going to say before continuing. All eyes were focused on me, curiosity the main emotion of the room. "I just thought I should give you all fair notice. I have decided to resign from this university and take a job at one in the next city."

The room broke into exclamations and excited murmurs. A few students shouted to me, asking me why. One of the girls started crying. Xiao Lan and I met each other's gaze and she gave me a small nod, as if urging me to go on.

"I'm leaving for personal reasons. There are just certain… benefits that only that school can provide." Xiao Lan and I shared a smile. Being fifteen minutes by car away from each other wasn't exactly a perk since as her professor I saw her every weekday, but being able to openly be in a relationship was definitely a benefit if I ever saw one. "Anyway, we still have two weeks together before the semester ends and I change universities. I hope we can enjoy the remainder of our time as students and professor."

Feng Lan:

The death glare. Everywhere I looked, that's all I was getting. Many of the other girls in the class had been crushing on Gui and just about all of them knew about my relationship with him. Apparently, none of them had cared while he was still teaching at XX University, but now that he was leaving it was entirely my fault. Which it kind of was.

I stayed back after class after everyone left. I waved off my friends and brother as they exited, but after Gui noticed that I was the only one left he gave me an apologetic look and explained that he had stuff to do. "You can go on. I'll catch up with you later. Say, the coffee shop in twenty minutes?"

I pouted and averted my eyes. "Fine, I'll be waiting."

Gui laughed at me from across the room. "Don't give me that duck face. Get going." He shooed me off and I walked out into the hallway.

The congested hallways were just starting to clear up and students headed to their next classes and lectures or were going home for the day. As I started to leave the building, twisting through hallways and passing fellow students, I felt like someone was following me. I'd felt this before as Prince when girls would stalk me, but this felt different somehow. It almost felt malicious.

The hallways were nearly dead by now and I was less than fifty years away from the door when Cho, another girl from Gui's class, stepped in front of me to block my way.

"Where do you think you're going?" Cho asked dangerously.

"Really?" I responded, exasperated. "You're really trying to bully me? And alone? Honestly, that was pretty poorly thought out."

Cho crossed her arms over her chest and glared at me. "I'm not alone." And, just like that, three more girls from my class appeared from behind me.

"It's all your fault that Gui is leaving!" One of them exclaimed, catching the attention of the dozen or so people still around in the hallway.

"He made that decision by himself," I responded. I tried to keep my cool as the four girls surrounded me. I looked around at the people watching, surprised that the crowd had grown to almost twenty. None of them were going to help me?

"We know all about you two. You seduced him. I thought when we told the dean about your relationship you would have been smart enough to cut it off," Cho said, taking an intimidating step closer.

"Now you're going to pay for taking our Gui from us!" the third girl shouted, lunging at me. I dodged the attack with ease, but was still appalled that these girls were actually going to fight me over Gui.

"Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight!" The crowd, now more than thirty-five people, started chanting. The girls kept coming at me with useless attacks and kept stepping out of their way. These girls probably did nothing but mooch of their husbands in Second Life and I doubted they'd even actually made a successful attack in their lives. Not getting hit without fighting back was easy for a seasoned warrior like me.

Suddenly, the chants stopped. The girls and I looked up to see what had caused the sudden lack of enthusiasm from our audience.

Gui was standing right behind me.

"Hello girls," he said with a dangerous smile. "I know we're all upset that I'm transferring universities, but I would truly appreciate it if you wouldn't take it out on my princess like this."

The girls all backed away a few steps, surprised by his sudden appearance.

"Now, Princess Xiao Lan, shall we go get that coffee?" he asked me with a wink before leaning over and picking me up newlywed-style, making my belly turn and twist around. I blushed like a tomato as he carried me out of the university building, leaving a stunned group of students behind him.

Gui only lasted about thirty yards before having to set me down. I wasn't super heavy, but carrying a person long distances wasn't easy and he was kind of weak to begin with.

"I thought you had stuff to do," I said after he out me down.

"I do, but I heard the commotion. Students kept passing my room talking about a fight and I thought it best to see what was going on and break it up. I had no idea you were involved. Anyway, I'm not going back now." After he had stopped carrying me, we had just opted to hold hands and he gave mine a little squeeze. "Maybe I shouldn't leave. I don't want more fights because of me."

"It's not a big deal. They were more like irritating flies than attackers. They had no idea what they were doing. I'll live." I shrugged, catching sight of Gui's car up ahead.

"Either way, it's a nuisance. And I don't like being so far away from you." We reached the car and both got in.

I rolled my eyes at him. "Don't act like you won't be at my house every minute of the day we aren't in classes."

Gui smiled sheepishly. "I'll be there until you kick me out and bar the doors. I'd rather be starving to death slowly than not be around you. I love you, Xiao Lan."

Gui and I locked eyes. "I love you too." I meant it, with my entire being.

THE END

WOOHOO! It's over! I've finally completed a story! That never happens! :D
I'm very proud of myself. Haha.
Anyway, thank you very much to everyone who has been reading. You're honestly the only thing that kept me on track. :P
If you don't like my ending, feel free to yell at me because I suck at endings.
NINJA OUT!

~ Ninja