Chapter Text
「EPISODE: MEET-NOT SO-CUTE」
Seishirou is in outer space. He lies on the pixelated moon, and he presses his cheeks into the ground. He will float away with marks of the moon's porous body decorating his cheeks when he wakes eventually. But, that’s a problem for future him.
Not that it matters because it is a welcomed change with the laboratory having been so hot with Barou monopolising his furnace and his space. It pisses him off. He had laughed when he learnt that Barou’s workshop had been burnt down because of an accident, and it quickly came back to bite him in the ass. When he had opened the door after a barrage of knocks that threatened to tear his house down, and saw Barou standing outside with his metals, well. He shut the door in his face.
Only for Barou to barge right in. Seishirou had left a spare key under the carpet for himself, in case he ever forgot his keys at home. His spare key had also been Barou’s old key. Now, He’s down one spare key, and upped one housemate.
Seishirou does not know how much more of Barou he can take, and prays fervently for his house to be rebuilt quicker, even though the three months timer in front of the house isn’t exactly promising.
He considers annoying Barou into leaving again. He did it once, and it had been stupidly easy. He didn’t do anything. Barou came home one day, took his things and left. He also threw a pack of Seishirou’s favourite lemon tarts in his face before he walked through the door without a word. Nagi had sat in silence, underneath his warmest blanket and when the sun fell, he ate them silently in the dark.
Ah, Barou is terrorising his house and his dreams. Seishirou is not going to let him have both. So he wills the thought of Barou out of his head, and even his breathing. He thinks of sheep-like wool.
“Hello?”
Oh, the moon is talking to him. Seishirou thinks, and then corrects himself. Something is talking to him. It's definitely not the moon. It doesn't take a genius to figure that out, even if he is one—according to his character description.
If the moon had been talking to him, it would be rumbling beneath him—Seishirou wonders if earthquakes could occur on the moon—and its voice would reverberate in his head so loudly, he would have gone deaf. The voice had been loud, but it’s like an echo from somewhere far away from him.
Soothing , Seishirou adds on silently, the voice reminiscent of lulling waves, washing ashore and pulling him in. He thinks of his feet dredged beneath sand when the game is updating, and the waves are pulling him closer, and closer. His eyes droop more at the thought.
Perhaps, it was Cassiopeia speaking to him, for whatever reason. Although, it would make little sense. But, he is on the moon, and that makes zero sense in itself. All this thinking when he should be asleep is making his head hurt. What a ■■■■■■■ pain.
Eh? Were his thoughts going to be censored too?
“Are you dead, player-san?” Cassiopeia mumbles curiously, more so to itself than Seishirou. He considers assent, then snorts in his head at the irony of it all. If he pretends to play dead, maybe Cassiopeia would leave him alone.
…
Cassiopeia is poking his cheeks. Its star feels soft, like an unblemished and soft hand—well taken care of, unlike his own. Though, he has Choki to blame for that. The star is soft, but the action is still annoying. Seishirou could pray that his brain would tune out the constellation, and allow him to return to his cat-nap, but he is realistic enough to know that probably wouldn’t happen. He opens his eyes.
His vision is bleary, but he knows he is not on the moon. There’s wooden shelves enveloping his vision, with knick-knacks arranged neatly in rows. Cassiopeia is not the one speaking to him. It is a boy, with purple eyes, and purple hair, bangs asymmetrical. He gazes down at Seishirou, with worry in his eyes that is quickly replaced by amusement. Seishirou locks eyes with him, brain whirring at negative speed.
Ah, Seishirou had been napping by his cauldrons and his test tubes earlier that day, or in Barou’s words—slacking. But, how could you slack when you don’t even have work to do? If it were up to Seishirou, he would call it his rightful, and well-deserved rest time.
Besides, what could he do with zero ingredients? Boil water? He was not going to forage for them on his own, and commissioning players he can’t even talk to sounds like a hassle. He wasn’t the only Potion Master in the village, and certainly not one players can interact with. Seishirou is saving himself the trouble of making potions no one can use.
Being an NPC is practically a dream come true for him—an easy life. Bread pops up by his doorstep every morning without fail, and he has had a house since he could remember. He received a free, but mandatory education, has a job where he can do essentially nothing and get away with it. He cannot imagine a world where he would have to earn every necessity he needs for survival.
Maybe, it would make his life ever less dull, to have something to work towards, to have something he looks forward to doing. But, if he cannot find it in this vibrant, pixelated universe, he doubts he would be able to find it anywhere else.
Regardless, Seishirou had also been evicted from his own home by Barou, who had told him to do something useful with his life for once. Seishirou had contemplated beating the ■■■■ out of Barou, but Barou will thrash him and fighting is a hassle. Head empty, he sat listlessly at his doorstep with sweat beading on his neck and sun practically blinding him. He squinted, and wondered if chucking one of Barou’s swords at the sky would make the sun leave before he laid eyes on the small innocuous building, Merchant’s store, in front of his home.
That hadn’t been there before. It could simply be Seishirou’s lack of spacial awareness, but he knows his street relatively well. It must have been one of those travelling merchant shops.
That could work. He would buy the ingredients needed for a simple thirty second potion, and shove it in Barou’s face. That way, he could finally laze around in peace. It wasn’t as if Barou would be able to discern how long it took Seishirou to make it, and he certainly wouldn’t have any reason to evict Seishirou again.
The moment he entered the shop, he tripped. Unconcerned, he took it as a sign to give up, and he dreamt of the moon.
“You have a loose step,” Seishirou lies on his side, his arm cushioning his head and he glances past his feet. There’s one wooden baseboard, tilted up towards the left, presumably the one Seishirou tripped on. Cassiopeia, whose name Seishirou does not know, startles at the sound of his voice, but follows his gaze, and a frown flits up on his face.
He turns back to look at Seishirou, and studies him carefully. There’s apprehension and something akin to fear in his eyes. Seishirou isn’t the best at reading social cues, but he has a feeling his presence isn’t being taken very well. Not that it was anything new.
“You’re an NPC?” Cassiopeia asks and Seishirou nods slowly. His hair rubs against his hand, mussing up his hair, but Seishirou doesn’t care much about how he’s perceived by Cassiopeia. Cassiopeia’s frown deepens and his eyebrows are furrowed as he scrutinises him, “how did you get in?”
“Through the door,” Seishirou deadpans. How else, he wonders. Maybe, he should just leave. Cassiopeia clearly doesn’t want him here, and Seishirou doesn’t want to be here either. Not when he’s being interrogated like a criminal guilty of shanking Cassiopeia’s whole bloodline.
“The door,” Cassiopeia echos, “the door doesn’t work.”
What.
Their eyes meet, and Seishirou’s confusion must have been obvious because he walks towards the door, twists the door handle and tugs. Nothing happens. The door does not budge a single bit. Then, he pushes. Nothing. He looks back at Seishirou with a raised eyebrow as if to say See?
“It opened for me,” Seishirou shrugs. He doesn’t know what Cassiopeia wants him to say. He doubts he could give a satisfactory answer. To be honest, he doesn’t actually remember how he got in. He doesn’t voice this thought aloud, he doubts Cassiopeia would want to hear it. Speaking of him, Cassiopeia sighs deeply, probably realising that questioning him won’t get him anywhere.
“Fine. What are you doing here then? NPCs aren’t supposed to interact, you know?” Cassiopeia asks, he cards a hand through his hair. His wariness is dialled down a notch, but his stress only seemed to have increased.
“...No?”
“No.”
“Why not?” This is the first he has ever heard of it. He has seen plenty of NPCs interacting in the Town Square, and he lives with Barou. Is Cassiopeia messing with him? Cassiopeia seems to echo his thoughts because when Seishirou says as much, he looks at him like he’s an alien who invaded the village.
“That’s because they’re in your character story,” he walks to a looming bookshelf, and looks around for a while before he pulls out a thick, familiar book—Manual for NPCs. He has one too. Though, it’s not gilded at the edge like Cassiopeia’s and it’s buried somewhere in his closet. Seishirou pushes himself into a seated position, and Cassiopeia squats beside him easily. He flips open the book, and points at the very first line.
Oh, he’s right.
The very first line, written in bold, and underlined writes: Don’t speak to other NPCs.
Seishirou blinks at the book, face blank. This doesn’t answer his question at all. Cassiopeia looks at him from the corner of his eyes, and snorts, “you really didn’t know? Didn’t everyone get this book in school?”
Seishirou meets his eyes, and looks away. Sunlight reflects in Cassiopeia’s startling purple eyes, making it gleam. It’s all too bright, and Seishirou doesn’t want to be blinded.
“I didn’t know anyone read that,” Seishirou, personally, had seen its thickness and deemed it the perfect pillow. He napped with it throughout every lesson. Once, a teacher had seen him lugging it around school, and praised him. Seishirou could not be bothered to correct him, and he felt just a little bit bad.
“They, at least, read the first page,” Cassiopeia smiles when Seishirou shrugs. He’s calmer now, Seishirou notes and their shoulders are touching, “why are you here again?”
“Barou kicked me out for being useless,” Seishirou mumbles, and Cassiopeia waits silently for Seishirou to continue, to offer context. He seems to realise that Seishirou has nothing else to say, and his grin widens by a touch, taking Seishirou’s silence as a challenge and it’s up to him to piece the puzzle together.
So, he studies Seishirou carefully, eyes trained on his face, and Seishirou stares hard at the shelf beside Cassiopeia’s head. He is not embarrassed, less so shy. But, the weight of Cassiopeia’s stare was heavy, and he hasn’t exactly been taught to hold eye-contact.
“You’re a potion master,” he says. It is not a question, in fact, he sounds quite sure of himself. Well, it isn’t as if he’s wrong. “You’re looking for ingredients then?” He is correct again, so Seishirou merely nods in turn.
Cassiopeia grins like he’s been given the lottery number, not that NPCs could try it. It’s something the system implemented to mock players' poor luck.
“I’ll give them to you, on one condition,” Cassiopeia offers, his eyes seem to really be shining now. Seishirou doesn’t know him well enough to know if it’s a good or bad thing. He feels his eye twitch and he heaves out a sigh. Conditions means he has to offer something in return. Having to offer something means effort, and he hates effort.
“No thanks.”
“You don’t even know what it is yet!” Cassiopeia’s eyes widen ever so slightly, as if he hadn’t expected to be turned down. But, Seishirou has been known to be unpredictable and ironically, a pain in the ■■■.
“Sounds like a hassle,” Seishirou shakes his head at Cassiopeia’s indignant sputtering. He knows how these conversations usually go, they will insist, try and try and try until they give up on Seishirou. After all, it happened all the time in the academy. So much so that he gained a reputation for it.
Nagi-san, could you teach me how to make a potion? Nagi-kun, let’s work hard on this project! They all give up when they see his eyes flutter shut when they aren’t even half way through his sentence. He knows it’s rude, but he doesn’t care. Why should he entertain people who ask so much of him? If they’re merely going to use him, they shouldn’t expect him to suddenly change for them either.
They walk away in a huff after, their true colours bleeding out, whispering “how is this ■■■■■■■ the class’ number one?” But, it doesn’t change anything. Seishirou has nothing to lose, their words prickle but they don’t hurt. They’re just that. Words.
“Well, you can say no…” Cassiopeia taps his cheek solemnly with an exaggerated sigh, before he looks at Seishirou with a small smirk, “I doubt your roommate would let you back home if you do.”
Cassiopeia’s smirk widens when he sees the frown that etches itself on Seishirou’s face. The puzzle piece had fit itself into the puzzle, and Seishirou feels like he brought it upon himself. Cassiopeia has hit the mark. Unfortunately. If Barou caught sight of his empty hands as he enters the house, he would be picked up by the scruff of his neck, and thrown out of the house again.
Seishirou huffs. This conversation is beginning to sound a lot like a chess match. He has never played, but he is pretty sure he had lost the moment it started. He could risk going home, but that would mean he would have to waste time gathering materials on his own. Cassiopeia seems to think the same, seeing through him with astounding ease.
“...fine.” Cassiopeia's smile is so wide, and so bright, Seishirou feels his own cheeks hurting. He mentally prepares himself for long durations of stirring through a complicated potion, solemnly hoping he can fall asleep and rely on muscle memory to keep going.
“Let’s be friends!” Seishirou blinks. He rubs his eyes. He blinks again. Ah, the hand outstretched towards him is still there.
“Eh?” He startles, maybe he heard wrong. That doesn’t sound likely. The words are ringing in his head, enunciated and slowed. Every word resounding with clarity.
Seishirou does not have friends. Well, he has one friend, and it’s a cactus. Back at the academy, no one had bothered to exchange more than ten words with him. They deem him a lost cause. A genius but also a loner. They’re right. He’s a loner, but that doesn’t mean he’s lonely.
The system does not require him to make friends. Not with NPCs, and definitely not with players. In fact, all he has to do when players try to interact with him is groan like the dead. He’s perfectly fine with it all, he would go as far to say that it’s preferred.
His world is a dull shade of grey, like his eyes. Everything he sees is monochrome, regardless of how vividly vibrant every pixel is, they’re still some shade of grey in Seishirou’s eyes. There’s purple swaying in front of his eyes right now. The colours are seeping back into his vision, bleeding into his irises. It’s bright, unfamiliar, and it’s swallowing him whole.
Seishirou has been alone his whole life, with a cactus for company, and Barou—he’s definitely not a friend, let alone an acquaintance—and he is fine with it, prepared himself for it, until the game shuts down.
He did not prepare himself for Cassiopeia, whose purple hair reflects the sunlight, whose shop he tripped into. He definitely didn’t prepare himself to be wanted. Seishirou’s brain says a flat no, but his heart beats, and beats, and beats. His heart is beating. He has never heard it before, has never heard it so loud, has never felt so alive.
Is that what it is? Is this how it feels?
“Why me?” Seishirou says, his voice rasp in his own ears. He doesn’t know why he’s asking, when his brain is torn between hope and indifference. He doesn’t know if he’ll be able to hear Cassiopeia when his heart is beating in his ears.
“Why not you,” Cassiopeia rolls his eyes, like he has been asked a silly question. His outstretched hand flexes and tenses, but he doesn’t withdraw it. He’s confident, and Seishirou hears it in his voice. His voice is louder, clearer than it had been earlier, even if he speaks at the same volume, “you’re more interesting than all the players I have met, and I've met plenty, so what do you say?”
Seishirou looks him in the eyes, it’s a whirlpool and he thinks he’s falling. It’s dramatic, and it makes him cringe but he wonders if he can see his own reflection from Cassiopeia’s eyes. He wonders if he looks as star-struck as he feels.
He can’t think of anything, not when Cassiopeia’s looking at him like he’s something special, something precious. It’s new. Seishirou has never seen it before. There’s a first time for everything. Every action, every emotion he feels. Seishirou doesn’t know how much of that he can handle. He moves largely on instinct, and his hand meets Cassiopeia’s half way.
“Nagi,” Seishirou mutters. When their palms touch, Cassiopeia’s hands close around his, cradling it tightly within his own. He’s warm, not unlike the furnace back home, Seishirou notes. It’s pleasant, if he were a cat, it’d be this heat he chases after. Moving with the sunlight to hold on to this warmth, this strange comfort.
“Just Nagi?” Cassiopeia teases, but he wears a pleased smile and it is his turn to roll his eyes.
“Seishirou.” Cassiopeia’s smile widens. He’s satiated, it seems. He tugs Seishirou up with practised ease, until he’s standing as well. Seishirou stumbles slightly, disoriented.
Oh, I’m taller, Seishirou thinks, it"s just by a little , but Cassiopeia looks up at him all the same, “Well Nagi, I'm Reo. Just Reo.”
Reo, Seishirou rolls the name around in his head, and lets it sit. He likes the sound of it. The sound of his first friend. Huh, he never expected himself to be able to say these words.
“Now that we’re friends, show me a magic trick!” Cassi—Reo exclaims excitedly, to which Seishirou groans. He’s considering flopping on the ground again, one minute into this friendship and he’s already exhausted. Something feels different, there’s the typical exasperation, but there isn’t dread.
“Potions aren’t magic, they’re a pain,” Seishirou says, but it seems to fall on deaf ears. Reo drags him to the counter, and drops Seishirou’s hand. He pulls out a stool, and pushes him down by his shoulder.
“Sit,” Reo says before he flits to a door, and tugs it open—at least there are still doors that work in this place. Seishirou briefly wonders how he’ll leave if the main door doesn’t even budge. Is he trapped here forever? Ah, if he is, he hopes his bread knows where he went.
There’s the sound of glass clinking, and a crash as something falls to the ground. A good, normal friend would check up on Reo, look him up-and-down for injuries. Seishirou looks at Reo’s back instead. He figures Reo knows what he got himself into, and so he leans against the countertop, and rests his head against the cool marble.
When Reo turns back to face Seishirou, there’s an omnipresent grin on his face, like he’s satisfied to see Seishirou still there. In his hands, there’s a cauldron, a book, and a stirrer.
He places them on the counter in front of Seishirou, blocking his sight. He sighs and pushes himself up, until Reo’s visible again. Reo opens the book to its index page, and pushes it to him. Seishirou takes one look at it, and pushes it back to Reo.
Unperturbed, Reo pushes it right back. A reverse game of tug-and-war, and Reo’s winning. “Just pick something easy,” Reo insists, and Seishirou huffs. He skims the book, and points at a random line. He doesn’t actually know if it’s easy—though nothing is difficult either, the worst part of potion making is stirring—but reading seems harder.
Reo seems to be operating purely on curiosity, at least, Seishirou can’t pick out any ill-intent. He’s strange, Seishirou thinks and “you're weird, Reo,” he says.
But, Reo merely hums in assent, “maybe. Don’t want to hear that from you though,” Reo says as he flips the pages quickly, looking up at Seishirou, he sticks his tongue out. Like a teasing kid.
Then, he picks up the book and he runs around the shop, presumably getting the ingredients Seishirou needs for the potion. He takes two of everything, and Seishirou frowns. Does he have so little faith in him? Seishirou thinks, and thinks again, yeah. That’s fair.
He doesn’t understand Reo. Why he’s so eager to see Seishirou at work, why he’s so eager to help, why he wants to be his friend. He thinks figuring Reo out is going to be as easy as assembling a thousand-piece puzzle. He has got one piece laid out—Reo’s name—and everything else is piled up at the corner.
“Here,” Reo says breathlessly as he dumps one half of the ingredients into Seishirou’s hands, the other beside him. He nudges the cauldron closer to him, with anticipation dancing in his eyes as he stares expectantly, and Seishirou has to resist yawning at the sight of the cauldron. The last time he had actually used it had been months ago, when he was too tired to chew his bread. Seishirou made an anti-hunger potion that lasted him weeks. His bread had piled up too.
He peeks at the page of the book, it’s a healing potion, he notes, the cat’s eye suddenly makes sense. He pours the jar of water into the cauldron slowly. Then, he picks up all the ingredients, cradling it in his arms before he dumps it all into the cauldron.
Reo squeaks when he sees it, and gawks at Nagi like he had just committed larceny in front of him. Seishirou tilts his head, he stirs the mixture languidly. Reo is being weird again. He’s the one who wanted to see him work, so what’s with the surprise?
“Are…are you supposed to do that?” Reo points at the cauldron, and Seishirou looks at his stirring. He frowns. If he didn’t, then potion making may just be the easiest job in the game. Instead, he has to learn how to stir in more than fifty ways. He remembers stirring for hours on end for a laboratory lesson, so much so that he stirs in his sleep occasionally.
“Yeah.”
“Oh. Okay,” Reo says, stupefied.
Seconds pass, with Reo staring studiously and Seishirou stirring lazily. When the liquid glows ever so slightly, and blushing pink turns hideous lime green, Seishirou looks at Reo tiredly, “It’s done.”
“Eh, already?” He frowns at the book, then at Seishirou, who merely nods. Potion Making is not as interesting as it sounds. It’s easy, It’s repetitive, and Reo must be unimpressed. Well, Seishirou would be.
“I’ll get test tubes, hold on,” Reo says and Seishirou nods again. When Reo finally turns his back, he closes his eyes and he yawns so hard that tears prickle in the corner of his eyes. He swipes them away, as the sound of clattering in the background overtake his senses.
“Did you fall asleep again?” Reo taps Seishirou's head gently with the handle of a ladle, and he reluctantly peels his eyes open to stare at Reo unimpressed. Reo spins the ladle and scoops the potion into the test tube. He holds it up to his own face, shaking it slightly, examining it as if it holds all the answers. He smiles when he sees Seishirou looking at him through the translucent green, neither of them look away.
“Are we done now, Reo,” Seishirou drags out the syllabus of Reo’s name, it almost sounds like a whine. He never knew it was possible for someone to wear a smile like that so long, less so direct it at him. His heart pounds in his ribcage, and he doesn’t know what it means. It’s another new thing and equally pleasant. While albeit eerie, he figures it can’t be anything bad.
“Hmm? Oh no,” Seishirou eyes Reo warily, there’s a glint in Reo’s eyes. He hasn’t known Reo for very long, he couldn’t guess Reo’s favourite colour—though it’s probably purple—but he knows that look in Reo’s eyes couldn’t mean anything good. “I’m going to try.”
Seishirou is fast, but he’s not fast enough to stop Reo who copies his exact motion with fervour in his eyes. He recoils with widened eyes as the potion explodes with a boom. His vision is enshrouded in black, and he can’t even make out Reo’s shadow. He hears coughing that resembles wheezing, and Seishirou instinctively reaches out into the black smoke to grab on to what seems to be Reo's hand, and pulls.
Reo trips in his direction, and his face is visible again—though, he covers his mouth with his hands—dusted black at his cheeks and his nose. Reo turns away from him to cough, and Seishirou feels a phantom twitch at the corner of his mouth.
“What the ■■■■,” Reo coughs into the hand over his mouth, and points to the counter. Seishirou stares dumbly for a second, before he peeks behind the counter and sees a small purple handkerchief.Reo mutters a small thanks as he wipes his face carefully, but he still misses the mark.
Seishirou snorts and turns away, he covers his face with his palms so Reo doesn’t think he’s making fun of him. Although, it was rather funny. “Why would you try, Reo?”
“You said that’s what you’re supposed to do!” Reo huffs, and Seishirou shakes his head.
“I’m a potion maker. I studied this,” Seishirou says. It’s not completely untrue. He has a talent for potion making. A gift. He could do this with his eyes closed, he doesn’t need to study potions to make them.
“I studied it too! Well, kind of,” Reo mutters, trailing off. He wipes his face harder when Seishirou points at his own cheeks for guidance.
“Really?” Seishirou wonders, “I didn’t see you at the academy,” and Reo huffs.
“I was homeschooled. My parents wanted me to learn the basics of everything,” Reo says, and Seishirou nods. That makes sense. There isn’t exactly an academy for those aspiring to be merchants. He figured the businesses simply spawn in villages.
“Didn’t they tell you that you aren’t supposed to put everything in at once,” Seishirou questions and Reo glares at him. He hears the unspoken, are you serious?
“That’s what you did!” Reo exclaims, “are you really an NPC, Nagi?”
“Yeah.”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously,” Seishirou says, dragging out his words, and ends it with a yawn. But, Reo looks at him with disbelief in his eyes. Is it really that hard to believe?
Reo inches closer, and closer. Seishirou blinks slowly, Oh he knows what Reo wants to do. If he were a lesser man, he would shuffle behind, putting some distance between the two of them, but he doesn’t care. So, he nods his head towards Reo. Reo startles, he must not have expected to be read so easily. Then, Reo presses his forehead gently, Seishirou lets his head tilt back with the action.
「Ding!」
Name: Seishirou Nagi
Age: 20
Alias: Potion Master, Lazy Genius
Status: Non-playable Character
Attribute: Rank First in Alchemy Academy Year XXXX
Personal skill: Time Reduction LV.10 [MAXED] , Potion Potency LV.8…List of skills have been abridged.
Stats: [Stamina LV.1], [Strength LV. 9], [Mana LV. 40. MAXED ], [Agility, LV. 15]
General Evaluation: Lazy and Unmotivated with an aptitude for Potion Making. Unlock Interaction at Level 99 and Reputation Level: Revered in Blue Lock Village. [Click for More…]
There’s silence as the two of them read it carefully. Seishirou has never seen his own character profile before. NPCs cannot trigger it on their own, and he hasn’t been out of the house enough to actually encounter players.
“This explains so much,” Reo sighs, and taps Seishirou’s forehead again. The screen fades away, and Seishirou turns to look at Reo. He’s smiling, and his eyes crinkle along with it, “I’ve picked up a real treasure, didn’t I, Nagi?”
“I found you, ” Seishirou says pointedly, and Reo laughs. It’s a touch too loud, and it’s pitched up. Seishirou doesn’t think he said anything particularly funny, he’s just being honest, but Reo’s happy and he thinks the fluttering in his stomach means he is happy too.
“Doesn’t matter, in the end, you still ended up being mine” Reo says, with a confidence he should not have, and a confidence Seishirou should not be granting him. He does, when he doesn’t say a word in retaliation.
“Your turn,” Seishirou says, lifting his hand up to Reo’s head. He tenses slightly, and Seishirou quickly withdraws his hand. Had he overstepped?
Reo must notice, because he’s quick to reassure Seishirou, “No! I mean, I've never seen my profile before, not that you can’t see it.” As if to prove a point, he pulls Seishirou’s hand towards his own forehead and presses.
「Ding!」
Name: Reo ■■■■■■
Age: 20
Alias: ■■■■■ ■■■■■, Merchant
Status: Non-playable Character
Attribute: Fully-stocked Shop
Personal skill: Negotiation LV. 8, Foraging LV. 8, …List of skills have been abridged.
Stats: [Stamina LV. 25], [Strength LV. 20], [Mana LV. 25], [Agility, LV. 23]
General Evaluation: ■■■■■ ■■■■■ ■■ ■■■■ ■■■■, ■■■■ ■■ ■■■ ■■■■■■ ■■■■. ■■■ ■■■■ ■■■■■. Unlock Interaction at Level 5, Players can get anything for the right price.■■■■■■ ■■■■ ■■■■■■■■■■■ ■■ ■■■■■ ■■■, Qu■■■ ■■■■■■■■■■■: ■■■■ ■■■ ■■■■■ ■■■■■. [Click for More…]
“It’s not loading,” Seishirou says, pointing out the obvious, “you sure you’re an NPC, Reo?” Seishirou parrots Reo’s earlier question with a frown.
Reo exhales, and he looks pointedly at the screen, blinking his eyes slowly, “maybe it’s a system error, like the door.”
That’s possible. Weird, but definitely possible. Somedays, there’s a pop-up in the sky with an announcement of a bug fix. In that time, things will glitch out of place. They are in a game after all.
It’s possible, but he doesn’t think that's it. Not when Reo had been so apprehensive, and now so relieved. He’s probably hiding something. Seishirou is curious, but he won’t prod. They’re friends now, aren’t they? He can take his time to get to know Reo, and if there’s one thing he’s good at, it’s waiting.
“What do you get paid in? Bread?” Seishirou asks instead, tugging at Reo’s hand such that they are facing each other, and Reo’s looking at him, instead of himself laid bare on a screen, although there isn’t much to see. Seishirou pokes Reo’s forehead and that seems to snap him out of his stupor
“Stories, I get bread every morning,” Reo beams, and Seishirou tilts his head in confusion. Is that legal, he can’t help but wonder, Reo is so strange, maybe even more than himself.
“Why?”
“It’s boring all on my own,” Reo says it like it’s obvious, but Seishirou disagrees. He likes an easy, boring life, on his own and Choki for company. He’s going against it right now, but being with Reo doesn’t seem too hard. Maybe, Reo is lonely. A voice in his head that sounds like Barou says he is too.
“So, I give players what they want, if they tell me a story about their adventures. The more interesting the stories, the more available things get. They’re all quite lame, though. But…” Reo trails off, looking at Seishirou with a sharp grin, “since you’re here, I guess I could be more charitable.”
“Why,” Seishirou is starting to sound like a broken record, but Reo is still smiling at him, with a delicate sincerity that Seishirou has seen before.
“Because, I haven’t been bored a second since we started talking,” and Seishirou thinks , me neither.
Oh, that’s new too.
“What if you do get bored, Reo,” Seishirou asks, and Reo turns contemplative, shaking his head dramatically.
“I won’t. I know I won't,” he says, so surely, with so much confidence that Seishirou—ever the realist—is inclined to believe him, to have faith in a blooming friendship and an uncertain future with one another. Who knows if they’ll ever talk again after this? So much talk only for them to go their separate ways. Seishirou thinks he’ll be fine, but his heart aches, and he’s not so sure anymore.
“Okay Boss. I won’t either,” Seishirou mumbles instead of voicing his uncertainty. It’s fine to have hope, right? It’s fine to believe that someone actually wants him as he is. His ears feel hot, he wonders if they have been set aflame.
He finds himself thinking the same thing a lot today, the same I don’t mind ringing in his head. It’s strange, he minds a lot. He thinks if Barou saw him like this, he may be thrown into the hospital. Then, he wonders if Reo would visit him.