Evening Game

“Good morning, Ethan.”

Chione greeted him with a grin as he entered his classroom. As usual, they were the only ones in class so far.

Also like usual, she was there before him, as if waiting for him.

“Umm, morning.”

He wasn’t expecting this. When his mind told him to be excited about tomorrow, he meant the hours after school, when he was inside the game going around with Chione. He didn’t expect her to treat him like this in school. Seeing him stand at the door, Chione tilted her head.

“Is something wrong?”

She’s so cute!

It was something Ethan didn’t expect he would ever find himself thinking about. Chione’s words made him freeze in front of the door. His brain told his limbs to move forward, to act any less weird, but his limbs refused, as if stunned by Chione’s mere existence.

Chione suddenly got up from her seat and approached him. She brought her face close to his. Ethan felt his face suddenly burning, as if trying to rival the sun itself.

“Are you sick?”

Ethan lost balance and pathetically fell to his back.

“Ah, you alright!?”

She kneeled down and brought her palm to his forehead.

“Your forehead, it’s hot!”

“I’m- I’m fine! Sorry, I couldn’t sleep well last night.”

That was a lie. Last night’s sleep was probably one of the best sleep he had in a while. He felt refreshed today, ready to face the day, but the one that made him feel dizzy was the girl kneeling in front of him.

His heart wasn’t ready for these feelings.

He slowly reached out for her hand and carefully removed it from her head. A sudden realization that he was holding her came into mind. It was about to spur panic when his brain weapon switch a hammer out of thin air and hammered down on the idea as fast as possible, allowing his nerves to stay in a calm state. Once her hand was far enough, he let go and got back up.

“I’m fine, don’t worry.”

He said, flashing her a smile.

“You can smile too…”

“Of course I can.”

He said as he made his way to the seat.

Throughout school, he couldn’t help but feel someone’s eyes on him the entire day. Once school ended, Chione confirmed his suspicions.

“I can deal with it, don’t-”

“Then explain that thirty-two you got.”

“Thirty-two…”

How did Chione know about his chemistry exam score? They now sat on the second floor of a fast-food restaurant not far from the school. Ethan had his reservations about meeting her so close to school, his eyes glancing around the floor, looking if any of their schoolmates were nearby.

He didn’t recognize anyone, nor did he see anyone in a school uniform around.

All those things aside, he still didn’t get what caused Chione to call him out here-

“Midterm exams are coming next week, so until next week, I’ll make sure you study with me!”

Now he knew why. She slammed the paper down, just strong enough to make her look terrifying, but not loud enough to catch anyone’s else question. She sat back down and sipped the lemon tea she ordered as casually as possible, as if asking ‘any complaints?’.

There were a lot of both questions and complaints. The first question would naturally be ‘why?’. Why was she willing to spend time with him? Was she pitying him for his bad grades? Or was she feeling like she should do this as a way to repay his help in the game? Maybe a combination of both? Either way, Ethan obviously didn’t mind. He got to spend time with the girl he likes, so of course he wouldn’t mind.

Although it did bring him to his second question, where? Where would they be doing this study session? The school was a big no-no. Being seen with her was the last thing he wanted, for now.

“If there are no complaints, meet me in the guild later tonight, the usual time. Don’t you dare take any requests.”

“Alright…”

Ethan muttered obediently.

They went their separate ways after that, and as agreed, Ethan arrived in the guild at the usual time, his clock showing seven in the evening. Ethan glanced at the girl leaning her back toward the guild’s walls, still wearing the same default clothing she got when she first came into this world. She pulled herself up and approached him.

“So, where?”

Ethan asked, his cloak pulled down.

“You know, you can do without that cloak.”

“No thanks.”

They went to the roadside. Ethan got his scooter out, but Chione jumped onto the front before him.

“I can steer, don’t worry.”

Ethan got on the back. The scooter wobbled slightly as he transferred his weight onto it. Chione looked behind.

“Not going to hold me?”

“Bu…”

“Is FireRock the type to feel weird for holding a girl, despite said girl also holding him?”

“Well…”

Ethan let out a sigh and held on. Chione brought the scooter onto the streets and headed to the outskirts.

“Quite a nice house.”

“And your home from now on.”

Ethan froze on the door, slowly turning his gaze toward her.

“What? You’ll be spending the next week catching up with me, and you’ve been living off that hotel, isn’t that a waste of money?”

It was true that the hotel cost him every night he slept there, and the house wasn’t half bad, although he wondered where Chione got the money from. What bothered him the most was the fact that it would mean living with a girl.

“You’re thinking of something dirty, aren’t you?”

“Ah, no! No!”

Ethan shook his head. Chione turned around and walked inside, Ethan following behind her.

“We really should hunt more players.”

Chione said as she sat down behind a coffee table, several layers of empty papers in front of her.

“It’s from Mason?”

He asked as he sat down.

“Yep, Mason forgot to do inventory management. We made a deal that whatever we got from the other, unless extremely important, won’t be returned.”

“So… that machine gun?”

“Yep.”

Ethan only got a momentary look at it when he was dodging, but it did make sense. Just from its destructive power, he could tell it was a high-end weapon, and since she said that Mason forgot to do inventory management, it implied that there was some other high-end equipment in there. Ethan himself didn’t check Mason’s crate, he only told Chione to go and take everything.

“Well, that and some other things.”

“That explains it.”

It still surprised him that she went and bought a house instead of an apartment, but that was her choice. She pulled a pen out of her inventory and started writing it down on the paper.

“... Aren’t we going to use textbooks or something?”

Ethan thought there were textbooks in this world, since they couldn’t bring their outside notes with them, but Chione shook her head.

“Nope.”

“Then…?”

Chione took a piece of paper and brought out another pen before pushing it toward Ethan’s side.

“You’re serious?”

“Yep.”

Ethan could already tell that this little study was entirely different from what he had expected.