Extra Chapter: I’ll See You Tomorrow

Extra Chapter:
I’ll See You Tomorrow

 

ONE WEEKEND, I had just finished eating lunch and was taking a walk around town to get some exercise. After about thirty minutes of aimless wandering, I heard a strange thumping sound coming from behind me. If I’d been in the dungeon, I would have panicked but, thankfully, I was in the middle of town. I turned around calmly to see a cute girl sprinting at full speed.

“There you are! I was looking for you, Noir!” It was Emma, looking adorable as ever. For some reason, I had the feeling that she was always looking for me.

“I see you’re as, uh, seismically active as ever, Emma.”

“Don’t say that while looking at my chest!”

They really did bounce every which way when she ran. It was kind of hard to ignore.

“Well, that aside, did you need me for something?” I asked.

“Am I not allowed to see you unless I need something?”

“Of course you’re allowed. It makes me happy when you just wanna see me.”

“R-really? Just how happy?” She looked at me with those gleaming eyes.

I had no words, so I just responded with a hug. I squeezed her extra tight and got some LP out of it. Making hugs into a sort of greeting was really handy for that.

“So, where are we going?” she asked.

“Okay, I do have somewhere I wanna go,” I said. “Luness Park. What do you say?”

“I haven’t been there in ages. Sounds good to me.”

Luness Park was on the northern edge of the residential quarter. Emma and I used to play there when we were young. I watched her ponytail sway as we walked to the park. It was a weekend afternoon, so it was full of people—from young men and women, to old married couples, and little kids playing in the sandbox.

“Emma, it looks like all the benches are full.”

“That’s fine, we can just walk around,” Emma said, grabbing my hand and leading me along.

The park was full of lush and verdant trees. Emma stopped in front of one of them and smiled at me. “Do you remember when you fell from this branch? You said you could fly.”

“Don’t remind me!”

“Ah ha ha ha, no! If you wanna stop me, you’ll have to catch me!” She swung her arms out girlishly and started running away.

At first, I just shook my head, but Emma provoked me by making a really weird face. I dashed after her.

“Waaaait!”

“Eeeek! He’s gonna do something weird to me if he catches me!”

I really wish you wouldn’t say that. One wrong move and people are going to think I’m some kind of degenerate!

I was actually starting to get into it, but for some reason Emma suddenly stopped in her tracks.

“Whoa, that was close. Emma, you almost made me crash right into you.”

“Oh, uh, yeah, but…look.”

Emma was looking at the sandbox. There were several kids playing in it—all around seven or eight years old. From the tone of their voices, it sounded like they were fighting about something.

“Just leave already. This is our sandbox.”

“No. Me and Lilly were here first!”

From what I could gather, the boy and girl were playing in the sandbox when a group of boys showed up and demanded that they leave. Bullies were usually bullies from a young age, after all. The larger boy, who was probably their leader, pushed the other boy over. The girl named Lilly came running over.

“Are you okay?!”

“I’m fine, Lilly. Stand back.”

“Ew, you two are so gross. Why are you letting a girl protect you?! What are you gonna do about this?!”

“What?!”

The bully kicked over the sandcastle the pair had built together, leaving nothing but a featureless pile of sand. Lilly’s friend tried to stop him, but he didn’t stand a chance against the bigger kids. He still didn’t give up until Lilly stopped him.

“It’s fine. We can always make another sandcastle. Let’s go play over there instead.”

“I’m not gonna forget this,” the boy growled.

As they left, the bullies opened their mouths and laughed. “You’re such a loser! That’s why your only friend is a giiirl!”

Sticking my nose into a fight between children may not have been the best idea, but before I even knew what I was doing, I’d clapped the boys on the shoulder. “You know, the only losers here are you guys.”

“Huh? Who are you?”

“I’m Noir, third son of the Stardia family.”

“Who cares?” He was the one who asked, but it wasn’t like names were important.

“Girls are people too,” I said. “What’s the big deal about playing with them?”

“Huh? Ugh, you’re so lame. What a loser. Go play house or something.”

“What’s wrong with playing house? You’ll have families in the future, so you might as well get some practice in. Plus, your moms are all girls. The only people who don’t understand that are loser babies. Oh wait, you are still babies.”

I couldn’t stop myself. The boy tried to kick me in the shin, but I deftly dodged him.

“Oh, you wanna dance, little boy?” I asked.

“Don’t underestimate us just because you’re a little bigger than we are. We’ve got numbers on our side.”

“Cool. I guess I can roast you as a group then.”

I turned my palm up toward the sky and produced a Holy Flame. I could feel the heat tickle my skin. The kids could clearly feel it too. Their eyes went wide as I pointed right at them.

“The thing about attacking someone is: it significantly increases the chances that you’ll be attacked too. So, who wants to try kicking me in the shin again?”

“R-r-run away!”

Once they realized they couldn’t beat me, they turned tail and ran. A clever decision on their part. If they’d been up against a monster, they wouldn’t even have had that opportunity.

“I guess that was kinda childish, huh?” I asked Emma, dropping the spell.

She flashed a toothy smile. “Well, we’re still basically kids ourselves, so I don’t see the problem in being a little childish!”

I guess she had a point. We were only sixteen. We didn’t really have the life experience to act like proper adults yet.

She nodded at her own explanation. “Since we’re here, why don’t we play a little?”

“Huh? I think playing in a sandbox might be a little too childish, even for us.”

“Oh, come on! Hurry up and join me!”

I wasn’t going to convince her otherwise, so I joined Emma in the sandbox. At some point, we settled on making a reproduction of my house and started construction of the first floor.

“Hey,” she said. “Did those two kids who were playing in here first, like…remind you of anybody?”

“Remind me of anybody? Like who?”

“Like us when we were little, silly.”

Now that she mentioned it, similar things had happened to us a bunch of times when we were younger. I spent the most time playing with Emma, and other boys would pick fights with me over it. They’d harass Emma too. You know how kids are: they have a tendency to pick on people they like. Emma was always cute, so she got her fair share of misdirected attention.

“You’d always protect me like that too,” she said. “No matter how weak you were.”

“And boy was I weak…” I groaned when I flashed back to getting kicked in the nuts. Again and again, over and over…

Emma wrapped her hands around mine. “But that made me really happy. There are probably plenty of strong people in the world who protect others, but you’re the only person I know who keeps fighting even when you know you’re going to lose.”

The look on Emma’s face was so cute that I couldn’t look her in the eye. I fiddled with the sand, trying to figure out how I should react. Then Emma suddenly smashed her hand into the sand Stardia house, destroying it.

“What?! I was still building that!”

“Ah ha ha ha, I thought of something even better. Let’s play house!”

I wanted to run, but Emma got me in a hold. Any hope I had of escaping was dashed.

 

***

 

The sun was already setting by the time we got back to my house. I won’t admit just how engrossed we’d been in playing house, despite how old we were.

“You really got into it after a while, Noir.”

“……”

“I think you had a lot of fun playing an old drunk,” she said. “Demanding that I bring you more booze.”

“I thought you promised not to talk about that.”

“He he he, now I have more dirt on you.”

“You really have me wrapped around your finger,” I told her.

We exchanged glances and then burst into laughter, just like always. That was when I noticed that Emma’s hair clip had some sand caught on it and reached over to brush it off.

“You always wear this, don’t you? I mean, I’m glad you like my present of course.” It had a pretty stone that matched her eyes. I’d given it to her for her birthday.

“I treasure it as much as our memories together. Thank you, Noir.”

“I’ll get you something even nicer for your next birthday.”

“Yay! I hope you’re looking forward to your birthday too!”

“I will.”

“Well, I’ll see you tomorrow!”

Emma ran off. Apparently, she was going out to dinner with her family that evening. She kept turning around to wave to me as I watched her go, and I responded in kind.

I felt like I’d gone back in time, to when I was a little kid without a care in the world. I just stood there for a while, even after she was long out of sight. I couldn’t wait for tomorrow.

“See you tomorrow,” I mumbled to myself, finally going inside.