Riku here again... I have no long any idea where Hikari is anymore when it comes to these postings. Either way the chapter was done at least.

Chapter 37

When morning came Yata slowly opened his eyes. As tempted as he was to stay in bed, he knew he had to get up and start the day. But even knowing that, the event from last night still weighed on his mind.

He rubbed his eyes while sitting up straight in his bed. "Can't believe… did the stupid monkey really ask me?"

It almost seemed far too surreal for Yata. Out of nowhere texts late at night coming for Saruhiko all leading up to a reveal he felt like he should have seen coming. Yata groaned before he reached for his phone. Right away he opened it and pulled up his messages with Saruhiko, and right there, clear as day was his answer.

"He… He actually did ask me out on a date…"

Sighing deeply, Yata ran a hand through his hair. "He asked me out… and I actually agreed…"

He wasn't upset by that fact though. Instead it was the complete opposite. He actually felt… happy. Despite the fact that he knew he would still be annoyed at the monkey, this was actually something he was looking forward to.

"I guess now I just gotta wait for him to reply about whether he can actually do this or not," Yata commented to himself before he finally got out of bed.

It was late into the evening when Yata received another text from Saruhiko. Right away Yata read the message over and over again, making sure he had seen it correctly.

Saruhiko: Zack's BF is willing to chaperone for Friday.

Saruhiko: So… where u want to go?

Yata: His BF? Well okay then… odd choice… but

Yata: um… I have no idea honestly…

Yata: You have any ideas?

Saruhiko: *shrugs*

After a bit of a pause a second message popped up.

Saruhiko: There's a VR experience that's open to the public.

Yata: You want to do that?

Yata: I mean I guess we could, it is fun.

Saruhiko: when do u want to meet up then?

Yata: Uh, whenever you are good?

Saruhiko: late afternoon/early evening?

Yata: Yeah sure… so like 4pm?

Saruhiko: Sure.

Yata: Alright. I guess I'll see you then.

Saruhiko: Until then, Mi~sa~ki~

Yata sighed before typing in his response.

Yata: Yeah, same to you…

Yata: Monkey

After that Yata closed his phone for the meantime. There was still time left in the day to get back to doing what he had before, and he honestly felt like he needed it. There were still so many conflicting thoughts in his mind over this. He still almost couldn't believe that he was agreeing to go on a date with the guy that ticked him off the most. No matter how he thought about it, he couldn't understand how he had even gotten to this point. What had led him to here and what was he going to do after?

He sighed heavily to himself once more. "I guess I am just going to have to see what happens…"

Saruhiko waited outside of the building that was the meeting point. Leaning against the wall he turned his head up to stare at the sky that was setting into evening colors.

He stared, watching as wisps of clouds floated by, heading off to the other side of the horizon. Eventually he sighed and pulled out his phone, mindless scrolling through various news feeds.

Within a few minutes he heard the faint sound of wheels on the pavement. Looking up he saw Yata coming in closer, riding on his skateboard.

"All right," Yata said before coming to a stop next to Saruhiko. "I made it."

"I can see that you've made it here… late, captain obvious."

"Hey! I got here as soon as I could!" Yata huffed. "I'm not that late!"

"You're late enough that we now have to wait for the other group that came a few minutes ago."

"Well isn't there other things we can do while we wait, right?"

"Not unless you want to pay to rent a regular VR setup while we wait for the full immersive experience. "

"Ah… um I guess not. So what will we do while waiting? Also! Didn't you say that um… your brother's boyfriend was supervising?"

"He's waiting inside on one of the couches."

"Can I just ask… why him? It's just really odd and I can't understand why."

"Wasn't going to bring Riku or Zack, and Zexion's busy."."

"Okay… but why?" Yata asked. If he was really going to spend more time with Saruhiko, he thought he might as well try to learn more about him.

"Why what?"

"Why don't you want some of your other brothers to be here with you?"

"Riku is all but gushing hearts and rainbows right now, and Zack's a walking, hyperactive embarrassment."

"Jeez, it sounds like your whole family's just really weird," Yata muttered.

"Zexion and usually Riku are the 'normal' ones" Saru commented, doing lazy air quotes with the word 'normal'.

"How do you even define normal? I haven't seen anything really from the two of you to call either of you as 'normal'".

"You've really only interacted with Riku while I'm here."

Yata let out a sigh, seeing that it was hard to try to get anywhere with the conversation. "Whatever. Guess I'll just find out another time. Should we head in?"

Saru just shrugged before turning to head inside the building.

Grumbling softly to himself, Yata followed him in.

The building itself was large and had a few different areas. One seemed to be an area for people to play with regular stationary VR while the other had rooms that were for the special VR. Though in front of all of that was a comfortable lounge type area and Cloud was quietly sitting on one of them scrolling through his phone.

When the two came closer, Cloud looked up and went over to stand near them. He looked at Yata, not giving much expression in his stare. "So you're Yata?"

"Yeah? What of it?"

Cloud shrugged. "Only asking. Zack's the one who's more curious about this than me."

"Okay then…"

"But since I am basically filling in for Zack, I'll be keeping an eye on you," Cloud replied, still with a quiet tone.

"As long as you don't go hyperactive puppy on us…"

Cloud chuckled softly. "You don't have to worry. That's only for Zack to see."

"I don't need to know what you two do in the bedroom," Saru deadpanned.

Yata snorted to himself, the thought to say something came to mind but he actually chose to refrain.

Cloud on the other hand only shook his head. "You just don't start up anything, okay? As Zack would say 'play nice', got it?"

"Got it."

After that the three moved to sit on the couch, waiting for time to pass. Eventually Saruhiko and Yata got into discussing their favorite game once more, from the mechanics to the story to anything else they could think of. When enough time had passed a worker came over and told them to follow.

"You two have fun," Cloud replied. "I'll be watching the screens. Probably take pictures too, so have fun."

Saru sighed before getting up and following the employee. Yata followed right after, side by side to Saruhiko. "So… he seems rather quiet."

"He's only really social with people he's close to."

"Oh… okay. Whatever, let's just get to the game."

The two of them were led into a room that had an array of electronic gear that they would end up using in their game. From there they were explained the rules and given the gear that would set up and work with their VR experience.

"I'm totally going to beat you," Yata declared while they were waiting for the system to start up their game.

"Actions speak louder than words, Misaki," Saru quipped as the virtual world loaded into view.

"It's a zombie survival game. I've played plenty of those before. This should be easy."

"VR survival is different." They were now free to roam the virtual arena, a setup timer counting down in the corner of their vision.

"Well I guess we just gotta see about that then," Yata said before adjusting how he was holding the gun, ready for any zombie that would come his way.

Saru didn't retort back, instead choosing to learn the virtual surroundings and 'shoot' at 'target boxes'. By aiming at them, boards began to appear over the broken 'windows', which both awarded a small amount of points and hindered any zombies that would use the access point.

Meanwhile Yata walked around the area, patrolling the area for any zombies that came to close. He didn't pay too much attention to repairing anything around the area, only doing what he could to get as many shots as he could towards all of the zombies once they were close in range.

The first few waves were cleared with little difficulty; Saru 'patching up' the boarded up entrances in the brief downtime. About halfway through their game, things started going terribly. Saru had gotten himself stuck with a bit of a hoard on him; He was walking backwards in a small loop, kitting them around so he could eliminate as many as he could with the shotgun setting.

Yata was on the opposite end of the map, unable to get closer to Saruhiko. With all of the zombies coming in at a faster pace than before, he didn't have a lot of time to turn around to see how the other was doing.

It wasn't long before Yata heard Saru speak over their comm. "Tsk. I'm down. Respawning in ten."

"Wait, you died already?"

"You try dealing with a hoard of riot zombies led by a large one," Saru quipped, moving aside to a clear area so he didn't 'respawn' in the middle of the remaining hoard. The remaining zombies were now all after Yata as he was the only human target currently available.

"Watch your six, they're all after you now."

"Well you could help out!" Yata shouted as he turned around quickly to fire at the zombies that were closing in.

"I have to wait out the respawn before I can do anything, idiot." Saru retorted, watching the zombies and reading up as the countdown was almost over.

"Gah!" Yata grumbled as he did his best to fend off the zombies, but slowly they were pushing him back into a corner.

When Saru spawned back in, he was now behind the hoard and began unloading into the zombies with the shotgun. Even with that, there were still too many zombies over by Yata, and with more sneaking up from behind by the window he was backed up to. With not much that he could do, he ended up dying in the next few seconds.

Yata grumbled softly as he cursed under his breath. "Well… there goes that…"

After all of that, Saru and Yata stuck closer together to cover each others' backs as best as they could. They lasted without dying again until the 'endgame' of the session.

In order to 'survive' the two of them had to 'evacuate' by standing within a designated rectangle. The catch was that Saru and Yata had to remain within the zone for a period of time before the ending sequence would begin. But with that, the zombies were now continuously spawning in faster the two of them could kill the current undead enemies off.

"Crap. How much more of this is there?"

"Were you not paying attention, we just need to escape, stupid Misaki." Saru answered, trying to survive within the escape zone.

"Yeah, but just how much longer is what I was asking!" Yata replied while he headshot several zombies closing in.

"If you would get your virgin arse in the marked evac zone, we could end the game." Saru snarked back, trying not to get overwhelmed by the growing hoard..

"Huh?" Yata whipped around to face where Saruhiko was standing. He huffed out angrily until he saw exactly what the guy was talking about. "O-Oh… okay. Sure whatever." Quickly he moved over to be in the zone that was needed to get towards the end of the game.

Once Yata had stepped inside the evac zone, a countdown timer briefly appeared in the corner of their vision. Although it vanished almost right after, followed by a 'tsk' from Saru.

Letting the physical 'gun' controller hang from the shoulder straps, Saru shook out his arms to help with the fatigue from the real pump action reload while waiting to respawn back in.

"Wait…" Yata said as he turned to look towards Saruhiko. "Did you really just die again?"

"If you actually paid attention to what we were supposed to do, I wouldn't be dead again, and we'd probably be done." Saru snarked, readying up ro spawn back in.

"Hey! I'm trying my best to figure this out okay?"

"We were given simple instructions at the start, idiot misaki." When Saru spawned back inside the marked evac area, the timer returned. It felt like an endless hoard as the two of them tried to stay alive until it counted down to zero.

When the timer was up, a guard rail appeared out of the floor, preventing any more zombies from reaching them, but still let the two shoot at the hoard as they were 'helicoptered away.'

Now that it was over, the attendant came by to help them take off their gear. Yata took off the headset at first and blinked quickly as his eyes adjusted to the difference in lighting. After that he handed everything over for the worker to take and then he waited on Saruhiko.

"Hey look. It's whatever, right?" Yata said after a moment. "It was still fun… wasn't it?"

"Yeah…" Saru answered quietly, quickly taking off the remainder of the gear.

"Let's go see how we scored at least," Yata replied before heading out of the VR room and to the front. With Saru closely behind, the two came to stop at the display monitor just outside the prep area. On it were their overall team score, individual scores, respective rankings, and score breakdowns.

There it showed a list of different stats including scores and their ranks.

Saruhiko

Score: 186, 216

Overall Rank: #3074

Zombie kills: 136

Riot Zombie Kills: 19

Big Zombie Kills: 2

Headshots: 79

Deaths: 2

Yata

Score: 141,115

Overall Rank: #7409

Zombie kills: 136

Riot Zombie Kills: 10

Big Zombie Kills: 3

Headshots: 127

Deaths: 1

"Wait a minute!" Yata exclaimed. "How the heck did you get a higher score than me!?"

Saru just shrugs. "Riot Zombies and the repair boxes I assume."

"But I totally got more headshots than you! And! We had the exact number of kills! Just how does that even make sense?"

"Do the number of zombie kills include the riot and big zombies? Or just the regular zombies?"

"Do you need your eyes checked?" Yata grumbled as he pointed to the numbers. "Add up all the kills. It gives you 136."

"136 is the number of zombie kills, not necessarily the total number of kills. If they're regular zombies only, my total would be 157 and your's 149."

"Wait what?" Yata stared at the numbers once more. He counted several times in his head before blinked a bit confused. "What… I swear that they all added up to 136…"

"I think you should be the one to get your eyes checked, Misaki." Saru leaned closer to whisper the next bit to Yata. "And who knows, you might actually look cute with a pair of glasses."

Yata's body tensed up without him even wanting it to. There was heat burning into his cheeks with Saruhiko being that close to his own face. Quickly he stepped away and shook his head. "Whatever. We'll just have to play again sometime and I'll do better then."

Saru just chuckled in response. "Maybe, Misaki."

"Maybe? Didn't you have fun?"

"I meant maybe you'll do better next time."

"Ah! You don't quit do you? I don't get it. You asked me out yet you're just going to scoff and insult me every other moment?"

"Misaki takes everything too seriously," Saruhiko said before walking back to the lounge area where Cloud would be waiting for them.

Yata followed after quickly and once they were out there, Cloud was already standing up waiting for them. "Looks like you two had fun."

Saru gave a barely noticeable nod. "I'm half surprised you and Zack haven't played it yet."

Cloud shrugged. "We never really looked into this stuff before. I'll let him know though, I'm sure he would be excited to try."

A moment later Yata walked up to the two guys. "So… uh what are we going to do now? Did you have anything else in mind?"

Saru just shrugged.

Yata sighed. "Nothing else you want to do?"

"Didn't have anything planned afterwards."

Cloud, who was just casually listening in, faced the both of them. "How about you two take a walk through the park if you can't think of anything else?"

Yata raised an eyebrow. "Isn't that like… a bit cliche?"

Cloud shrugged slightly. "It's just a thing people can do on a date."

"Okay," Yata said before facing Saruhiko. "So… did you want to do that then?"

"Sure."

We mentioned this on our other story (Another Time, Another Life) but cause of school and life and stuff we have moved to only posting 1 chapter of 1 story every other week. We try to alternate but some times we may post multiple chapters in a row. We don't know what is next but we will see you next time!