Koumori

She didn't seem too happy that I approved of the so called "kiddie pen". She crossed her arms and shook her head at me as she said I didn't know what it was like. She acted like it was a prison. There's no way it was like that. If I had to guess it was probably run by a few older female players who wanted to keep the kids safe. Why would this girl despise that so much. I tried to be as diplomatic as possible with her as I continued. "I guess you might be right about that. But they at least don't have bad intentions." She dropped her eye brows when I asked her age. The young girl was clearly skeptical of my intentions. I watched in surprise as she drew her sword at me and threaten to fight me if I tried to take her back. Whew. I thought she thought I was going to try to do something much much worse. That was a relief. I calmly reached forward and gently moved her sword to the side while keeping my other hand in the air. "Hey hey, it's okay I'm not going to take you back. You don't wanna go back, that's the end of the story right? Now let's put the weapons away before someone gets hurt okay?" I leaned back against the tree in an attempt to look relaxed. "I'm 16, only a little older than you. Don't worry I'm on your team." I said with a smile. 

I was surprised when I saw the girl smile at my joke. She must've realized herself what she was doing and quickly removed it. Oh well, take what you can get. She wasn't done though, she tried some humor of her own in response to what I said. But just like with the smile, she corrected herself and got down to business. She was a level 2 and the other kid was 1 so I was above them by a fair margin but I didn't want to exactly say by how much. "I think I'm a pretty good level, I think I can be of some use to you haha." Red fumbled around and tried to give us a party request. I accepted it as he asked what we should do. "I'm just taking along, it's up to you two"

She was still trying to wake herself up when we got to the table. She rubbed her eyes and tried to remember how she got in my arms. Of course I'd just tell her what happened. "Well I fell out of a clock tower and into your hay cart and you asked to go for tea so I hoped out and I caught you when you jumped. I offered to put you down but you didn't say anything so I just went with it. At some point I guess you fell asleep while I was carrying you haha." We sat down and situated ourselves at the table. She didn't look at the menu and instead finished answering what I asked earlier. I was glad to hear that she did have friends to come with after all. "What? I love tea. Maybe that's just a Japanese thing. I think you need cooler friends." I said to her with a wink. "On second thought, drinking tea isn't that cool." The waitress who was waiting came over to take our orders. I didn't need to look over the menu either, I always had the same thing. "I'll just have some green tea." I gestured toward Elul so she could order as well. 

I layed in my wreckage thinking about my life as the guy I almost obliterated walked up me and offered his hand. Even thought I was still upside down I could tell he was holding in a laugh. I was about to right myself to take his hand when I heard a voice off to the side. I turned and saw Shizuka walking up to us, making a comment about my "show". "Hey, Shizuka. Yeah I think these cabbages liked it too. They're practically oozing with excitement." She also mentioned something about me and that guy having met. I figured she must've been on her way to meet the guy. I turned back to him to see if I was indeed correct and was amused by what I saw. The guy had completely forgotten about me and was practically drooling over Shizuka. A smile crept on my face as I saw his stumbling over himself trying to greet her. I rolled forward off the cart and onto my feet. I got close to the orange kid and whispered into his ear. "Don't make it too obvious, Romeo." I smiled devilishly at him as I backed up. He knew what I meant. I turned back to Shizuka and pointed at the guy next to me. "Are you here to meet this guy?"

I'd like to think so too. If not my life is a lie. But yeah if you have a super important specific question then you should ask the staff cause they know behind the scenes stuff. 

Ebony seemed to be thinking about what the woman said too. The fact that the game addressed me as a girl must've confused her. Screw you Kayaba you have a sick sense of humor. She said that she that she was okay with doing it so I turned to the NPC and pressed the accept button that appeared in front of me. "Oh thank you! Because you're so kind, if you manage to get it I'll treat you to the meal. Now you better hurry before it gets dark. Good luck!" A meal sounded great. If the ingredient was rare then it must taste pretty great. I turned to Ebony once again; "Let's get going." I followed the road back out the the exit of the town and went into the fields. After taking awhile to traverse them, we made it back to the forest. I didn't go back there that often so I wasn't as familiar with that area as I was with the rest of the floor. I walked a few feet in and stopped to look around. It was a lot denser than it looked on the outside. While I was looking around a thought crossed my mind and I cursed myself. "Great, she never told us what it looks like. Guess we better start looking now if we want to find it. Any ideas?" The stupid thing could be anywhere and I didn't even know what to look for. Plus I didn't know what kinds of creatures lurked in the woods. 

The wind was blowing in the perfect direction, there weren't many people in the streets, everything was turning out well. I was standing on the roof of a three story building in the town of beginnings with a rope in my hands. That's right, a rope. I had tied the other end to the wood support beams of a building in front of me. The plan was to leap off and swing to the other side of the street and stick the landing on the building at the intersection. I tugged on the rope one last time to make sure it was secure and checked my footing. When I was confident, I took a deep breath and leaped. The rope held and I started my fast swing towards the street. It was exhilarating, the wind going through my hair made me feel like I was really flying. But then I saw something that could spell certain doom. A player in a orange jump suit had walked directly in front of my path. My eyes widened as the scenario of turning him to a bug on the pavement flashed through my mind. "Watch out!!" I screamed as loud as I could. I could hear why people were confused about me in that one. I panicked and shifted all my weight to the right and I was able to just barely scrape his shoulder as I flew past him. But the quick movement had caused me to lose my grip and the rope escaped from my hands. I continued to flee forward and my momentum caused me to flip through the air. I crashed into a cart in front of the building that was my intended destination. I layed there upside down in dissapointment. I could've handled that so much better.

(And I continue my streak of ridiculous entrances)

I get the feeling our thread might get pretty interesting then

She opened her eyes and I could see how hazy they were. I hadn't noticed it but she had fallen asleep. I didn't know that that was such a comfortable position. She slowly came to and carefully lowered herself to the ground as I bent down. When she was finally moving under her own power she opened the door and walked inside, silent. She must've still been pretty sleepy, she seemed pretty out of it. I decided I wouldn't say anything about carrying her. It seemed like she needed some rest after all. I followed her inside and saw that the place was almost empty. Aside from a small group in the back, there was no one. I decided to take a seat as far away from them as I could, Elul appeared like the nervous type so I wanted her to be comfortable. I sat down at the table and waited for her to do the same. "You must've been pretty tired. It's a good thing I found you then. So, do you come to places like this with your friends a lot?"

Welcome to the site. If you have anymore questions feel free to message me XD

I got Teayre's message and read it carefully. More or less it was time for the funvee to depart. I collected myself and headed out to the teleport gate. I stepped inside and spoke my destination: Uburus. I was enveloped in blue light as my body was transported to the second floor. I stepped out of the gate and began looking for the red headed girl. In the message she said that Lee, the guy with the shiny armor, would be coming and asked if it was okay for someone else to come. I didn't really care either way so I told her that was fine. I walked around the area by the teleport gate but could find Teayre anywhere, that was until I got near the exit of the town. I heard someone listening and stepped out to see who it was. Sure enough there sat the girl whistling to herself. I walked up to her and started to speak. "Sorry to keep you waiting."

I ended up carrying Elul all the way to the tea house. I was able to find one not too far away from where we started, bout a 5 to 10 minute walk. It was a good thing it had a giant tea cup sign hanging in front or I never would've seen the place. Elul had stayed calmly in my arms the whole time. She was probably happy with not having to walk. But she was so light I almost forgot she was there. I probably should've been embarrassed to be carrying a girl through town but for some reason I wasn't. Now if I was carrying Glory I probably would've tripped and given us both concussions at least 5 times. When I reached the store I stopped in front, obviously unable to open the door. I looked back down to Elul's face to talk to her. "I gotta put you down now. I can't really open the door otherwise." When I looked at her I wondered what she was thinking. I expected her to have asked to be let down but she hadn't. Maybe like before she was too scared to say anything. I figured I should probably ask. 

Elul acted strange when I asked to put her down. I swear I could almost see smoke coming out of her ears. She closed her eyes before she said anything. She didn't say anything about putting her down, just that I should go to the tea house. I thought she'd want to be let go so why didn't she say so? Her eyes were still closed so I couldn't read her that well but it didn't seem like she was angry. Well if she wanted to be carried there I didn't have a problem with it, but Glory would probably have my head if she saw. Ehh no that's an exaggeration, she's to nice to do anything like that. Why did I always end up doing things with so many girls? I needed some more guy friends. My last one dissapeared in the middle of a quest. Returning from my thoughts and back to reality, I continued walking. "Alright, if ya say so."

COMPLETE

Koumori +200 Col +1 SP

Elul +200 Col +1 SP

Ebony didn't seem super excited about the prospect of not getting rewards but she agreed nonetheless. "Great! Then let's get looking." I motioned for her to follow me as I started walking down the path. I knew it would take a little while to find one, they weren't that common and they didn exactly pop out at you. We walked down most of the main streets, to no avail, before heading into the smaller side streets. We lucked out right away. I noticed an NPC behind a food stall that had the tell take signs of a quest. I pointed to her to show Ebony. "There we go. Come on." I walked over to the NPC and greeted her. She looked us over and smiled before speaking. "Oh what luck! Two fine young ladies here to help me out in my time of need. I've been trying all day to cook my newest recipe but I just realized I don't have the most important ingredient. It's called the Poya and it's very rare, you can only find it in the woods beyond the fields. What do you say, would you be dearies and get it for me?" She clasped her hands together and smiled as she finished. On the other hand, I stood there with my hand to my face. Seriously? NPCs thought I was a girl too? How was that even possible? The system knew my gender. Wait.....no that's just cruel. I shook it off and turned to Ebony and attempted to smile. "Should we take it?"

When I caught Elul she was covering her face with her arms. When she realized she didn't splat on the ground she opened her eyes and lowered her arms, but her face was quickly over taken by red. She looked up at me and quickly shook her head as if trying to get something off her mind. She barely was able to say she wanted to go to a tea house before she clammed back up again. I looked at her red face to try and guess what was wrong. "Tea house it is then." I said as I started walking. That's when I realized what I had been oblivious to earlier: I was carrying her across my arms like a princess. That explained her embarrassment, she must've felt weird being held in that position. The thought made me blush a little too. I shouldn't be going around doing stuff like that, I had someone else to think about. How would she feel? Still, I didn't mean anything by it and as I recalled I did innocent stuff like that often. I really had no bad intentions. I smiled awkwardly at her while, "Oh I'm sorry. I guess I should put you down now."

The girl didn't have time to answer before the player I saw approaching from behind her spoke. He introduced himself as Red in the most nervous manner I had heard since Glory. By the looks of him he was brand new, probably his first time out of the town. The gear aside, he looked very obviously uncomfortable. He shakily asked us if we wanted to party with him and I stood there quietly. It was odd for a new player to walk up to people and just ask that. They were usually shy or nervous in the way that they didn't talk to people. The girl in front of my quickly turned to him and accepted his request, almost forgetting that I was even standing there. I took a step forward and stood next to her and looked at Red. "No I think he meant go to a party. Sorry bud I don't think they really do those here. I hear that they have some killer book clubs though!" I smiled at him before continuing. "You're new to all this right? I'll take along too if you want some help, I know a thing or two." Judging by the girls reaction earlier I assumed she wouldn't be too amused by my humor. It was possible she was annoyed by people who weren't serious. If only she knew how serious I was about most things. 

I couldn't see into the cart so I didn't know what Elul would do but I figured it out when she appeared over the ledge. She quickly leaped off and spread her arms and legs like a bird. It was funny to watch, like she was trying to fly. Of course she couldn't so she fell fast towards me. She fell right to my chest and I caught her in my arms. She might've been jarred by the impact but she was pretty light so it didn't hurt me. I looked down at her and she still seemed a little nervous. "So, what does a girl like you normally do?" I asked her as I stood there with her still in my arms. It hadn't yet occurred to me that I was holding her in the classic princess position. 

Elul nodded at my statement and seemed to think about something. Before long she let herself fall backwards into the hay. We both lay there in silence for a few seconds before she turned to me and asked if she could hang out with me for the day. I sat up and nodded. "Not at all. Sounds good to me. But first..." I sat up and then stood up before I looked around. There were hardly any people in sight and the road was clear. I went to the edge of the cart and jumped out on to the ground while it continued to move. I stood behind it and called out to Elul, "Jump! I'll catch you!"

She seemed only mad at me. Her deliberate sigh told me that she was in the very least not happy. I watched as she examined me and made a comment about me being there. What was up her butt? "Hey no need to be mad. I'm really just here to relax. I come down to the lower floors a lot. If you ask me they're more interesting." She seemed to lighten up a bit when she started reflecting on the craftsmanship of Aincrad. It was an insanely detailed and realistic place. I stepped over the bushes to remove the barrier between us and stood closer to the girl. "They are pretty nice aren't they?" I said as I looked around. 

She seemed relieved that I wasn't offended and smiled. "It's really alright. I know I look like a girl so it's cool." I said with a smile on return. I had come to terms with it. I looked like a girl and sometimes I acted like one too. There was nothing I could do about it. It might even prove to be an advantage in the future. It could definitely be fun. Still, it was nice when people actually recognized me as a boy. Elul relaxed and sat back before looking back at the tower, asking how I got up there. "Ahh I just climbed up the side. I've got crazy acrobatics so it was easy. I did slip once though, that coulda ended badly." The acrobatics skill was awesome. I always wanted to do all the cool parkour that I saw and video games and I finally could. I made use of it often too. I looked back at her and saw that she still seemed concerned. She was probably wondering why I would risk my life like that. I decided to reassure her that I wasn't suicidal. "Before I jumped I made sure I had enough HP that I wouldn't die. I'd be really close, but I'd be good haha. It would be embarrassing to be done in by the pavement." We had traveled far enough in the cart that the church was out of view. It was strange that neither of us had made a move to get out yet. Maybe Elul thought it was comfy or maybe she was bored or something. I layed back in the hay to make myself more comfortable before I thought of something to say. "I like to just relax. Sometimes you just don't want to fight."

The girl didn't look too amused at my explanation. She stared at me with narrowed eyes and crossed arms. She asked what my real reason was or being there and based on her reaction she must've been thinking something suspicious. I let go of the rabbit and it scurried back into the fields. I stood up and smile again. "Hey you act like I was spying on you or something. I was just trying to look for a place to nap and heard some rustling. I swear." I tried to make myself look as non threatening as possible and made no awkward moves. She couldn't kill me, at least not easily, but I didn't want to worry her. "Sorry if I scared you." I did my classic scratch the back of head routine. 

She got even more uneasy when I asked her again. Her blush didn't subside and she began shaking. She stuttered again and finally said what the problem was: she thought I was a girl. That explained it. I felt like an idiot for not realizing that's what was going on. She must've been really embarrassed about confusing me and didn't want to make me feel bad. A little while ago I would've been upset but not anymore. I was used to being mistaken for a girl, it wasn't her fault. I sat down in front of her and smiled. "Yep I'm a guy. It's okay you don't have to worry about hurting my feelings. I've been called pretty before so it's okay." I started laughing a bit at the situation. "Really, this happens all the time. Weird right?"

Elul looked at me with panic in her eyes as I got closed. She stuttered out an awful lie before turning away. I saw that her face was bright, bright red and she didn't want me to see it. I put on a blank expression and shifted myself to be in front of her. "You're a terrible liar. Come on what's wrong? Did I say something bad?" I didn't know what her problem was. Maybe the shock of me appearing out of nowhere and intruding was setting in. 

She responded flatly to my comment about suicide, more flatly than I wouldn't expected. I got the feeling that she had experienced it. Well obviously not doing it herself but seeing someone else do it. You know. Anyway, she started talking about being lonely in response to what I said earlier and I listened intently. She acted okay but I sensed some sadness in her voice. I smiled a bit when she reflected on her bed and cat. "Oh trust me I'd give anything to sleep in my house again. But I was alone a lot too so I know what it's like." She moved on to explain the "kiddie pens" she told me about. According to her they rounded up all the kids without guardians to keep an eye on them. Sounded like a good idea to me. Like she said, who wanted to see kids die. "I didn't even know there were many kids in here. It's not a bad thing though. I'm sure they're just trying to keep everyone safe." I leaned back and looked up at the tree. I really left a trail of destruction. "Hey by the way, how old are you?"

I noticed the perplexed eyebrow raise of the girl when I started laughing to myself. She must've thought the seemingly random outburst was strange. She sighed in defeat and dipped her head when I pointed out to her how horribly lost she was. I actually didn't know myself how she had gone so far out of the way. It wasn't hard to get out of the town. She thanked me and said I didn't need to help when she started acting even stranger. She looking at me and leaned back a little bit. Then she started blushing. Before I could say anything she started repeating "I" over and over again. What was wrong with her? Did I say something to freak her out? Was there something on my face? Did I remind her of an evil historical figure? I titled my head as she continued to blush and mumble in confusion. I leaned forward and spoke softly to her. "Hey everything okay? Looks like you've seen a ghost."