"Huh? What's the problem?" Raphtalia's father asked her.

"Why are you watching weird anime in front of our guest!?" Raphtalia asked. Why did so many weird anime exist in Japan? She wanted to take back all the nice things she had thought earlier about this country, Japan was definitely a weird place! This country was filled with lolicons!

Why was her father watching it- he wasn't even Japanese, her mother was. He should've stuck to watching football like everyone else did back in their home country!

"I don't think it's weird at all," Atla said. "Isn't it wonderful that your parents also agree that love knows no age limits? I think such stories are quite magnificent. "

"That is not at all the lesson that you should be taking away from this!" Raphtalia said.

"And it's not that kind of show either," Raphtalia's father said. "It's actually quite wholesome..."

"You honestly can't expect me to believe that with a title of 'If My Wife Became An Elementary School Student' that it's actually a very deep and touching story," Raphtalia said.

"But it is!" her father protested. "You just need to try watching it!"

"Now, now, stop arguing with your father," her mother said. "And let's eat breakfast together. Atla, did you sleep well?"

"I did," Atla said. She then paused. "I just hope that Big Sis Raphtalia also got a good night's sleep too..."

Eh? Since when was she calling Raphtalia 'Big Sis'- that was what Raphtalia was wondering. It made the two of them seem far closer than they already were...

"Oh? Why is that?"

"Because I know that Big Sis has trouble sleeping," Atla said. "One time, I heard screaming and moaning from her room, and it was so horrible, two men had to go in to help her with it!"

Raphtalia choked on what she was drinking. "What on earth are you saying?"

"And," Atla said. "I find it odd that she has so much trouble sleeping- given how much wrestling she does with other people, you'd think she'd be quite tired... although most of it is without clothes..."

Raphtalia instantly understood- Atla was trying to sabotage her!

"All of that is a lie!"

"Eh?" Atla said, tilting her head, appearing for all the world like the perfect picture of innocence. She looked young for her age so this was scarily convincing- even Raphtalia felt she might've been moved had she not know Atla's true nature. "Big Sis didn't seem to mind talking about this earlier... oh, and I wanted to return these, you forgot them while packing your bags!"

She held up a box of condoms. "I don't understand what they're for though..." Her confusion sounded completely genuine.

Raphtalia's face was as red as a tomato's- those were not hers! Wait, why did Atla have them in the first place- did she really think that things would advance so far between her and Naofumi?

Raphtalia didn't even fully know what those were for, only that it was definitely not something nice girls should have!

"You lying piece of trash!" Raphtalia said.

"Oh wait-" Atla said, as if she had remembered something. "Can I make a phone call?"

"Sure..." Raphtalia's father said.

"Right," Atla said. "I need to call our landlord... yes, can you please check up on my brother? He might have gotten himself into an unfortunate accident and tied himself up- it's quite silly how that happens to him sometimes, I think he's trying to do a magic trick where he escapes or something, but he keeps failing. Ah, gotcha."

She hung up the phone.

"Now where were we... right, Big Sis is clearly a giant harlot who can't keep her legs closed and you should keep a closer eye on her," Atla said.

"YOU'RE NOT EVEN TRYING TO BE SUBTLE THERE!"

It turns out Raphtalia's idea hadn't been a very smart one on hindsight.


With all of this done, it was time to finally say 'goodbye' to Shindo.

"Bye bro! Remember to call!" he said as he got in a taxi.

"And you remember to actually study."

"That's not what people go to university for."

"It's exactly what people go to university for."

"Not in Japan."

"Whatever. Stop watching weird anime."

"It wasn't weird at all- it was really wholesome, I told you."

Naofumi sighed and then waved Shindo off.

Man, despite how glad he had secretly been to have his brother around, he couldn't deny that he really was a handful.

He went back to his apartment and began cleaning up.

Once the clutter had been fixed, and boy had there been a lot of clutter, not only from Shindo, but also from the party they had had earlier; still the room felt so... empty.

That was also likely because of the loss of one of its occupants. "Hmm...?"

His phone was ringing. Raphtalia?

"Hey," he said.

"Mr. Naofumi, I'm sorry," Raphtalia said. "But I can't do it anymore!"

"Do what?"

"Deal with Atla!" Raphtalia said. "She's like a tornado- destroying everything in her path!"

"Uh..."

"She almost convinced my parents I was a... a..." Rapthalia began, but whatever it was, she didn't finish the sentence. "Anyway, she got bored and then ran away. I wasn't able to convince her, I'm sorry."

"Wait- does that mean?" I glanced out my window, expecting to see her walking on the other side of the street, or hiding in the bushes. I really needed to get a restraining order...

"Yeah, she left," Raphtalia said.

"Ah, don't be too sad," I told her. "You did your best."

"...um..." she said.

"And I'm sure she'll come around eventually."

"Okay." Raphtalia said.

We chatted for a while longer- it was unfortunate that Atla had had to come between us like this, otherwise I felt that we could've made a lot of progress here.

Ultimately though, there was not much either of us could do about the Atla problem- and so we went on to discuss things like our next stream and whatnot.

Once that was done, I decided that I actually needed to work on that project Melty and I were supposed to be doing.

I had told Shindo to study hard, I couldn't very well slack off then, now then could I?

I worked up till late in the night, one of the few times when I was all alone to focus on what I wanted to do.

But, I knew that I wasn't alone.

At least, I might have been alone in the moment- but I was not lonely.

And I was not alone in spirit.