23- Great Power Comes With A Need To Be A Gentleman

"Well, see you girls tomorrow. Hopefully with even better poems, eh?" Cal grabbed his bag, slung it on his shoulder and looked meaningfully into Natsuki and Yuri's eyes in turn with a small teasing smirk. Making the former avert her eyes and cross her arms with a little 'paniqued' humph and the latter blush in embarassement.

As for Monika, he met her gaze and simply exchanged goodbuys. They had some work to do on their own, but had agreed to meet later when the world was 'asleep'.

Exiting school ground with Sayori, he could see her making a deliberate efforts to appear as usual to cover up for her previous 'blunder'. Chattering about what the day and what happened at the club today, as well as questioning him on what they were gonna do on the sleepover. But trying very hard she might be, it just wasn't exactly the same.

There was a crack in her act. A crack that Sayori seemed to either ignore the existence off... Or was too tired to patch.

It made his heart clench in frustration and pain. To see her makes a martyr out of herself, to be so close to him, but feel so alone. Both as a person but even more so as her childhood friend.

He knew he had to take it easy if he wanted it to be natural, but he promised that this evening would be the beginning of the end for her darkness.

"Sorry, it's a bit of a mess." Sayori gave her signature chuckle as they entered her room. His excuse for coming with her to pack her stuff had been a very dumb yet very convincing 'it's faster with two people, duh' thus leading to him witnessing her supposedly messy room which, to him, looked no more messy than the average teenage boy's bedroom.

"Don't worry about it." He said as he purposedly ignored the pair of panty laying on her bed, he wasn't THAT degenerate. "Now do you have a large bag laying around here or?.."

"A large bag?.." She tilted her head before she realized. "Oh, eheheh... Of course I have one, it should be... Maybe around here?.."

Watching Sayori scratch her head as she fumbled through her bedroom and wardrobe in search of a pack up bag, he shook his head and snickered before beginning to clean up her room. She joined him cheepishly with a slight blush to her cheeks after a while, still having not found anything.

Only once they were done did they found it. Under her bed.

Under his questioning gaze, she scratched her cheek innocently. "No idea how it got there, maybe the monster living there did it?"

"There's no monster under your bed, Sayori. It's just a sleep paralysis demon, and those are entirely in your head." He explained candidly while stuffing one of her pijama in the bag.

"Eh, are you sure? I could swear... Well, that could be why it never moved despite how much movements I felt under there." Sayori hesitated before acknowledging his words as probably true, putting a finger under her chin.

"Ah? So..." Cal stopped in his track, confused and a bit disbelieving. But then turned and squinted at his childhood friend as he heard her let out a little laugh... Did he just get trolled, by Sayori? 

Inconceivable, and utterly unnaceptable. But in his boundless and divine magnamity, he would let it slide. Since he really was just happy to hear her laugh genuinely, something she hadn't done... In a while. 

Shaking his head, he helped her pack the rest of her stuff and they set out to his house.

After setting her down on a matress on his room, the rest of the evening all went out in a blur. Abusing his powers as god of the realm, he created plenty of snacks of all kinds and spawned all the consoles and games he could think off in his living room. He also fixed the TV cable with his memories of shows and programs alone.

Sayori had been amazed. And when she asked him where he fot the money for all the stuff, he brushed her off by saying he got some simple jobs on the side. Nothing that took too much time out of his studies.

At the start, she wasn't too much into the games. But he just had to bully her a bit to get her competitive spirit going. She'd been hanging out playing more around boys when they were younger, and she needed that much to survive as a girl among guys. It tappered off at the end of middle school, but she still had that spark of wanting to win.

He never let her focus on anything else other than him and what they were doing during their little party. And it worked, at the end of it all, when they sat on the couch to watch a movie, she was all smile and still laughing from their last game of mario kart, which he had absolutely threw by slipping a dozen times on a banana, half of them hers.

He did that totally on purpose, by the way. Yep. If not, it wouldn't have been fair, you see. After all, he was a virtual god who could process millions of things at once, losing against normal people at games became impossible at that point.

Cap? No, no, Rizz. It made her laughs and he loved making her laughs. So he fumbled. That simple.

That it happened half a dozen times through it all wasn't a coincidence at all.

Coming back to after they sat on the couch, he made her choose the movie and she didn't even try to refuse as she he made it clear plenty of time earlier during the evening that he wouldn't be taking that sort of answer. And Sayori... Took an action/comedy movie. Because of course, she didn't really understand romance and the genre made her sad, well that was probably her reasons on why she hadn't picked the classic of a romance movie on a date. He didn't truly know, he hadn asked. Oh, there was also the fact she probably didn't even know that what they were doing could be considered a date, a cheap, rather advanced one, but a date nonetheless.

Anyway, he took it slow as he didn't mention anything that could allude to her feelings or depression during it all. And didn't bring it up either before she fell asleep besides him and her head slid to come rest on his shoulder barely 30 minutes into the movie.

Looking at her cute sleeping face for a time and noticing that it was as peaceful as could be, he sighed fondly and carefully picked her up in a princess carry and brought her to his room, where he layed her on his bed and tucked her in. He wouldn't even be sleeping in it so it was fine.

Standing back up, he stretched his shoulders and necks and after throwing a last look at his childhood friend, upon which he spontaneously decided to create a dream-catcher that actively gave good dreams and put it above his bed, he went out of the house and into the quiet but not silent night.

Instead of freezing time or trying to teleport to Monika's house, something he probably could do even in physical form, he opted instead to walk to it. Gathering his thoughts and planning for what was to come. 

He still remember the unknown IA that tried to enlighten him forcefully during his first morning here, and he wondered why, exactly, it had done that. Was it running an experiement, part of an overarching goal, or just really the equivalent of eldritch mindfuckery for digital beings? If it was the later, it alluded that most would never know they were not real, or at least digital life, and not physical ones.

He paused, was there even something else out of his little world bubble? It had to, or else the script wouldn't have fleed and unknown, powerhouse IA would not exist.

He shook his head, speculations was good and all. But really, there was only one way to find out about all of these.

"Hey, I was waiting, you know?" Monika's smiling face is the first that greeted him after knocking on the door. "Had a pleasant evening, I assume?" Cal would have taken the inquiry as mundane if it wasn't for the slight teasing tone it was uttered with.

Rolling his eyes, he leaned against the doorframe as Monika joined him outside and closed the door behind her. "I don't even want to joke about that. As much as I may want to, it'd be skipping a lot, and I mean a lot of steps at once to comes to that. I just wouldn't do that to her."

...

"Was pretty fun though, Sayori's pretty good at smash." He grinned and said after voluntarily letting the awkward silence linger for a few seconds. "We should do it one of those time."

Monika sighed realizing he had made it awkward on purpose but then smiled with a slight blush at his words. "What, go on a date?"

"Hmm, I was talking about a classic boy sleepover. Playing games and snacking until we pass out. But dates are fine too. Though technically, a sleepover could count as a date." He tapped his chin in thought.

"Well, I wouldn't be against one of those. Sound fun, though I've never played games before so you'll have to show me."

"Ah don't worry about that, I'm a really good mentor. Just leave it to me and you'l be a pro in no time." He's so gonna destroy her. 

At the games, of course.

The two of them fell into a discussion about structural development afterward, how he was going to expend the world and even eventually create life. While Monika spoke of her ideas about the school and the club room, she wanted to transform it into comfy lounge room with a library at the side and some computer. While he wanted to add a secret passage that led to an underground lair where they'd make cool shits and speak about 'awakened' subjects.

Since Monika was a very reasonable club's president, and that one wasn't preluding the other, they agreed on having both. Even when she didn't entirely understand the boyish appeal of an underground lair, she found the idea of a place exclusive to them so.

After that, the talking puttered off and they settled on companiable silence as they gazed out at the night sky and its sparkling stars. An addition he made with his recent update to god of this world. Maybe one day he'll get to add the space update?

...

"I'm going out."

"...Where?"

"Out there. Outside our little stretch of simulation or whatever. I want to see what I can find. Are you coming with me?"

"I-." Monika looked at him perplexed for a moment, looking like she wanted to say something, but in the end hesitated and shook her head in acceptance. "Yes, I'd like to, Cal. I don't want to be left out here alone."

"But then, how will we go about it?"

Cal considered Monika with a small apologetic look at her answer, before closing his eyes and replying thoughtfully. "While I'm not sure where the script fleed to, if it thought itself sneaky leaving a little spying program behind on the outer edge of the virtual realm, it has a big surprise incoming."

"Oh, so we're going on a hunt is it?.." She sounded rather happy with the thought of pursuing the script. "I like that."

"I thought you'd do." Pushing off the door, he stretched turned toward Monika. Offering her an hand, he grinned cheekily. "Well, let us proceed, shall we?"

She took his hand with a roll of her eyes and a smile. The slight glint of eagerness for an adventure just between the two of them unable to be missed in her vivid green eyes.

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(A/N: Sorry for the uhm, rather big delay. I'm near the end of my term and all tthose exams and works are rolling in. Now here we are, concerning the poll of last chapter, Sayori and Monika are close with 6 for the former and 8 for the latter, as for the numver of chapter, it's a tie with 4 vote for 6 and 4 for 9 the mini arcs are going to be around 7-8 chapters. As for the world, it was a close thing too but I'm not gonna spoil it. If you check the poll yourself, you can guess which one it'll be.

Don't forget to drop me those juicy stones, I'll try to up my writing speed as for myself.

Ps: The Mfs who suggested fear and hunger in custom is crazy.g