3 I Think They're Called 'Flags'

"—Hiroki!"

Yelling out my name, the silver haired boy, Alex, ran towards us followed by a brown-haired boy, Haruko, then started to slow down and stopped a few feet away from us.

"What a coincidence to see you here, huh, Hiroki."

Coincidence, my ass. You already know that I often come here during weekends.

"Hah, hah. Hello there, Hiroki and Akemi. Sorry to disturb you. I tried to stop Alex but…"

Behind Alex was Haruko, who was apologizing while panting.

Don't be… And you didn't disturb us or anything. We were just eating.

"No problem. Though I apologize in advanced because Hiroki already finished our sandwiches."

"Hey."

Akemi showed them the empty basket and Alex smiled in response.

"No problem. We have brought our own lunch and blanket."

Alex puts the large box he was holding and revealed its contents. A big lunch box, good for at least four people, and a blanket on top.

He grabs a picnic blanket and spreads it on the ground beside ours then he puts his large lunch box in the middle.

You're going to eat your lunch beside us? You? Is this a new way of tormenting people?

"…" 2x

As the two fixes their blanket while talking or muttering something, Akemi and I stood up. She carried the basket then she wore her boots and I put on my slippers, folded our blanket then she puts it in her basket.

"Alright. Now we can–?"

"Well then. Excuse us. We'll be leaving first."

Turning our backs on the stunned Alex, he shouted at us.

"Hey! Why are you two leaving already?!"

"Eh? What do you mean?"

"Why? Well. We wouldn't want someone to eat lunch beside us just as we finished ours."

"Wha–!"

Akemi and I replied in a teasing manner.

This guy believes others' words easily which makes him easy to fool. Seeing Alex's dumbfounded face, we were already laughing inside as we tried hard not to crack up.

I guess both of us really are similar when we make fun of other people.

Maybe noticing us making fun of him, Haruko spoke.

"Now, you two. Please stop teasing him. You're going to make him cry."

"Who will?!"

Well, there's also another reason for this. Alex may not look it but he's from a rich family and his food is always cooked by proper chefs. I can't stand by and just watch him eat delicious food right beside us.

"Just ask them to join us, Alex."

"...But this isn't what I had planned at all… Fine then... We'll share our lunch with you–"

"Okay." 2x

We obediently sat down on their blanket just as he said that.

There isn't any reason to deny him, right? After all, inviting people is a much harder job which even I can't handle very well.

"Are you guys mocking me?!"

"What do you mean? You said you'd share your food with us. Right, Akemi?"

"That's right, Alex. It can't be helped after all since you want us to stay. Right, Hiro?"

I guess I wasn't the only one who wants to eat his lunch.

Alex who was about to yell at us sighed and has stopped making arguments and Haruko who was calming him down also sighed in relief.

"…Whatever. I don't care anymore. Let's just eat. G-Good thing I happened to bring extra spoons with me."

"As expected of Alex. Always ready for things like these."

Pfft. You're not fooling anyone.

It was clear to us that Alex brought these with him because he recently knew that I often come here during weekends.

As the two of us lowered our heads and held back our laughter, he noticed our shoulders shaking. He glared at us and was about to say something but didn't continue and separated the stacked lunch box.

"T-This is it…"

"How beautiful."

There were a lot of varieties of food in there as we stared painted with an obvious astonishment in our faces.

"... By the way what were the two of you doing here?"

Alex started a conversation while handing us spoons and plates.

"Ah. Hear this. You see, I just came here to relax then I saw Hiro doing–"

"Aaah!! I-I-I-I came here to practice my magic! Nothing else!"

I interrupted Akemi who was about to expose something embarrassing.

After filling my plate with fried rice, I carefully picked what to put in my plate.

"Seriously? You should have called me if you were practicing– Hey! Only picking meat. Leave some for us as well! Where are your manners!"

"Hey, Hiro. He told you to cut it out so cut it out. You should get some vegetables too. Aren't you concerned about how scrawny your body is?"

"No, no. Why should my friend, Alex, say something like that? Obviously, he was directing that to you. How about you get yourself some vegetables too since all I see in your plate is meat otherwise, you'll get fat easily since you're just a girl. And I'm a healthy boy with a healthy body, I'm not scrawny!"

"No, no, no. I'm saying that to both of you so you should both stop or else – Ah, hey! If that's how you want to play it then I'll–"

"Umm. At least leave some rice for me. I would appreciate it if you did."

Ignoring Alex and Haruko, we scooped a large piece of meat on our plates and ate it without hesitation.

!!!

"Delicious!" 2x

"Hey. Manners."

"Hahaha. Just leave them alone, Alex. We might as well start eating before everything's finished."

Haruko laughed and Alex gave up then started eating.

"By the way, I saw some adventurers earlier at Haruko's house."

Munch munch.

"Really? What were they doing there?"

"I think they said something about watching over this town."

"Really? Maybe they're just stopping over for a quest. Haruko, your house is a pub where adventurers mostly visit, right?"

"Right. Also, I heard them say that this town needs to be watched over because of some monster sightings inside the town."

Monster sightings inside the town? Now that's weird.

We may not have walls or fences to keep monsters out of town, but I haven't seen any monsters enter the village before. And if there were any, those would be the ones brought back here alive for the restaurants.

There are the hunters that hunt monsters in the plains, sometimes in the forest, and bring it back here for the meat. As for vegetables, the market never runs out of stock because most of the villagers are farmers who seems to enjoy farming for some reason. It sounds a bit weird but that's how things go here in Nordic.

"If the adventurers are here to take care of it then we wouldn't have any problems, right?"

"I guess that's true."

Haruko agreed with Alex's remark.

We have seen monster being brought back to town by some of our people so it might not be a problem for adventurers who puts their lives on the line.

I thought that and agreed to them as well.

"Heh. Well, it's no use bothering ourselves with it. If we were to encounter one, we'd be able to at least defend ourselves, right?"

…

Eh? Did I say something weird?

"W-What's wrong?"

"…Hey, Hiroki... I think those kinds of statements are bad luck. Right, Haruko?"

"…I think so as well. I read it in a book. I think they are called 'flags' or something..."

Flags?

Just when I thought of that, a shadow appeared in the middle of our blanket.

Then Akemi, who was silent ever since we started eating, seemed to notice it as well.

"Hmm? Hey, what is that–!!"

Seeing her reaction, we followed her gaze which was upward and made the same reaction when we saw something big falling right to us.

"!!!" 3x

Is that a monster?!!

"What the heck is that!!"

"Move away!!"

Hearing me scream, all of them jumped out of the blanket then a big monster fell right into where we were a second ago along with a loud crashing sound.…