Meeting Friends and Exam Week

As the weekend finishes, both Masashi and Mai are pretty much in sync with using each other's skills.

I can act so well now that besides Mai no one can spot any irregularities in my expressions.

Mai can just wreck anyone without any trouble anymore. She is familiar with using my techniques and has already started learning further. I can see that she is actually even more talented at learning combat than me but is just not that interested in that stuff.

Sunday evening Masashi decided to introduce Mai to his favorite little imouto Kaede.

"Do you want to meet the other of the two friends that I have? He lives just downstairs. I was thinking of having dinner with him tonight."

"Sure I don't mind. Let's go."

They both get ready and walk downstairs as Masashi rings the doorbell for Sakuta's house.

Sakuta opens the door with a, "Evening Masashi-senpai. I haven't seen you in a while now. Did you get a girlfriend?"

"What a dumbass, if you weren't sick for two weeks, you'd know that I do in fact have a girlfriend now."

"Nani!?" Sakuta finally notices Mai standing beside me. "S-Sakurajuma-Senpai?"

"Hello, nice to meet you."

"You gonna let us in or do we just have to keep standing here?" I say to Sakuta with a smile.

"Sorry, please come in." Sakuta gets his wits back together and invites us in.

"Kaede, it's me, your Masashi-nii-chan. Where are you?"

"Nii-chan, you haven't come to meet Kaede for two weeks. I don't like you anymore." I hear her say from her room.

"Who's Kaede?"

"She's Sakuta's little sister, Kaede." I say before turning back to Kaede's door. "I'm sorry, honey, for not visiting you for such a long time. I was a little busy dealing with some things. I'll make it up to you. I will make your favorite dinner for you today. What do you say?"

"Promise?"

"Pinky promise."

The door opens up with a click as Kaede comes up to Masashi to give him a hug.

Pulling back from the hug, she notices an unfamiliar presence beside Masashi and freezes for a little while before lightly hiding behind Masashi.

Noticing her actions, Masashi rubs her head a little and says, "Kaede, this is my girlfriend."

"I'm Sakurajima Mai. Nice to meet you."

"Nice to meet you too. I'm Azusagawa Kaede. And this is Nasuno" She says shyly while hiding behind Masashi a little and pointing to their cat.

"Thank you for telling me Kaede-chan."

Kaede gets a little flustered and goes back to her room.

"She's really shy around strangers. When she met me, it was much worse. She couldn't even speak to me clearly without getting flustered. At least she can greet you normally."

"She doesn't know who I am huh?"

"She mostly only watches Naruto, and that too with me."

Sakuta comes up to us and asks, "Would you like something to drink?"

"I'll just have water." "Me too."

As Sakuta hands us the water I breach the topic of his absence, "What's up with the two-week absence? Last I asked you were just going to take a holiday for a week."

"It's nothing big, I just wasn't able to get well sooner. I'm finally better now."

"Are you prepared for your midterms?"

"Yeah, I'm confident that I can at least pass."

"Bro, can you at least try to aim higher?"

"I can even teach you if you need."

"I'll think about it senpai," Sakuta says evasively.

…

Masashi made dinner for everyone with Sakuta's help while Mai sat together with Kaede slowly talking to her and getting her comfortable with her presence.

"Dinner's ready girls," Masashi says as he puts the plates on the dining table.

(A/N: I'm feeling a little lazy guys.)

…

After dinner, Kaede goes to sleep because she was tired and Sakuta, Masashi, and Mai sit on the couch to talk for a while.

"Where does Kaede go to middle school?" Mai asks.

"She doesn't go to school. Not since a few years ago." Sakuta answers.

"What do you mean, why not?"

"If you're not comfortable sharing it with her you don't have to. It's a sensitive issue we understand." Masashi says seeing Sakuta thinking.

"No, it's fine. Sakurajima-senpai and Masashi-senpai are together so I don't mind telling her.

"It happened about four years ago. She left a message on 'read' or something, she got on the bad side of the most popular girl in the class. After that, she got bashed on the community message, to the point of getting death threats.

"Then one day, when she came home, injuries started appearing on her spontaneously, right in front of me. She wasn't beaten up or anything, she got injured due to cyberbullying.

"I know that this must sound like a hoax to you but it's as real as it gets." Sakuta finishes.

"I don't believe that it's a hoax. I was in a similar situation not too long ago. I was lucky to be saved by someone." Mai says eying Masashi.

"Ah, Masashi-senpai, it seems like you found your Makinohara Shouko then, huh?"

Mai looks at Masashi inquisitively.

"She's the girl who helped him out during the time when he was down in the dumps due to the situation with Kaede.

"She's actually the entire reason that this guy joined Minegahara High. She was wearing the uniform of the school.

"When he got to high school, he came here looking for her. But he never did."

"Apparently there's no real person named Makinohara Shouko. I checked the entire student roster, but it's as if she never existed."

"Who knows? Maybe another case of Puberty Syndrome." Says Masashi.

"I see, I hope for you the best of luck in someday finding her," Mai says consoling him.

"Thank you," Sakuta says and continues, "Back to Kaede, after we rushed with her to the hospital and got her patched up, we found out that she had developed an intense phobia of things related to the internet. That's the reason I threw away my phone in the ocean."

"You could've just thrown it in a trash can."

"I told him the exact same thing."

"Getting back to the topic. After that, one day I woke up covered in blood for no reason at all. I had three deep cuts on my chest and was bleeding."

"Wait, is that the truth behind the hospitalization incident?"

"Yes, I was actually the one who was rushed to the hospital," Sakuta says with a chuckle.

"Why did you never try to clear things up?"

"People love going with the flow. Anyone who's different is ostracized."

"Masashi gave you the go-with-the-flow speech too, huh?"

"I guess he did."

…

Back in the apartment, Mai and Masashi finally go to sleep together without anything else. Masashi told Mai that he will enact the dare tomorrow, so Mai should get rested well enough. Even though she doesn't really need it with the Gamer's Body.

As Mai is cuddling Masashi to sleep, he decides to look at the other rewards that he got from the system.

He took it out from the system space and looked at it. It was a perfect chibi version of Mai. He squeezed it and heard Mai's voice, 'Darling~'.

After that, it disappeared for an instant before reappearing again. It was bound to Masashi's soul.

"Holy shit. This is amazing, I love it." Masashi says looking at its status.

[Mai Plushie: Never let go of your partner, no matter the distance. Allows The Gamer to instantly teleport to 'Mai Sakurajima' irrespective of the space or medium of separation.]

Before he had the chance the examine the last thing, he felt Mai stir, probably due to the noise made by the plushie.

'Guess I'll check it out later.' Masashi thought as he caressed Mai's hair and fell asleep.