Hangout with Seth, and missing children!

Rhys' mom soon knocked and entered the room, calling for her son. "You're already up, perfect! Can you wake your friends up too? I'll be in the dining room." She gave a small smile.

Rhys smiled back and gave a yes, before wondering where the dining room even was. "Where's the dining room, again? Sorry it feels like forever since I've been here." Rhys apologised.

She seemed slightly shocked but brushed it off, telling him on the first floor to the left, leaving the room.

"That didn't sound suspicious at all, host." Kane said rolling his eyes and floating out of the door, leaving Rhys to yell obscenities at him in his head.

Making his way to the rooms from yesterday, Rhys woke up Seth, and then Erin, and made his way to Xavier, the one he dreaded to wake up, since his parents were here now.

Opening the door to Xavier's room, Rhys entered as Erin and Seth followed behind, Seth apologising quietly.

After gently shaking Xavier, he felt cold lips press onto his own, and the warmth of the smaller boy engulfing him, as he wrapped himself in koala formation.

"Good morning." Xavier yawned, slurring his words a bit in his half asleep state. Seth apologised again while Erin finally understood what happens in the morning, and was glad he didn't have to wake Xavier.

Rhys led them all to the dining room, while gently rubbing Xavier's back, causing the smaller boy to snuggle into him more, feeling comfort.

When they finally entered, Rhys' parents didn't even bat an eye, and only laughed while telling them to take their seats.

After placing Xavier down, Cecelia started to tease. "Have you finally decided to come out of the closet?" She asked.

"Took you long enough to come out, the whole years." Gabriel joined in, although he looked stoic, his voice was a bit playful.

Hearing this Xavier's affection point rose by two, to thirty one total, a little bit of a mischievous smile on his face.

"What do you mean?! Wait did you just say ten years?" Rhys questioned, his face now exploded in a blush. It's one thing hearing it from Erin or a stranger, but from his own parents?

"Is the system doing this on purpose?" Rhys hissed in his head, as Kane quietly snickered and shook his head.

"Your actual parents in your past life probably thought you were gay too, though." Kane bursted out laughing,

"Oh are you two not dating? I thought you seemed close, but I guess not, huh." Cecelia said with a little pout, enjoying her son's reaction.

"It's better to just admit it. It's obvious, you don't even go near women." Gabriel said as well, making Rhys side glare at Kane.

"I thought so too, which man would be okay with waking up Xavier in the morning unless they were gay?" Erin added.

The conversation soon turned into talking about Rhys childhood, while Rhys looked a little bit embarrassed, trying to brush it off.

"More than half of these childhood stories are from my actual childhood!" He hissed at Kane, who was still laughing at him.

"The system tried to base them off your old life after all, there many be slight changes depending on the novel world, but it's almost always relatively the same." He had to try and stop himself.

By the time breakfast was over, an hour passed and Rhys had started to clean up himself, in order to stop the storytelling.

"So basically, Reece's has always been this cute?" Xavier said with a smile, now jumping onto Rhys.

"He really has, and you're cute too. It's such a shame he won't admit he's into men, though." Cecelia responded, the targets not even trying to hide back their laughter anymore, including Seth.

"I mean, I could be Reece's boyfriend if he wanted." Xavier said, causing Rhys to drop the plates he held onto the table and nearly choke, looking at him bright red.

He had gotten used to the proximity, at some point, but Xavier outright saying it like that while hugging him, not to mention in front of his parents, was a whole different thing.

He barely squeaked out a what, as Xavier stuck out his tongue and helped pick up the plates, handing them back to Rhys. Xavier's affection raising two more points, putting him at thirty three.

Seth's increased too, by three putting him at twenty five, while Erin's went down by four, putting him at sixteen.

"What the hell just happened?" Rhys cried in his head, totally confused over the issue that just occurred.

"Seth is probably just happy for Xavier, while Erin is likely upset that you haven't given him much affection compared to Xavier, just because you can't touch him yet due to his phobia doesn't mean he can't be jealous." Kane said.

"When can I touch him, then?" Rhys asked, hoping it would be sometime soon, within the next fifteen affection points.

"I don't know, the author dropped the novel before getting that far." Kane deadpanned, reminding Rhys about the purpose of the system once more.

Deciding to not wait and get his affection points. He calmed and smiled to his parents. "I'm not interested in dating at the moment, including Xavier. I'd rather focus on my music career, and next off, I'm not into men."

Having said that, he heard Erin laugh, and his affection points raised by five, putting him at twenty one, one more point before he lost them.

Kane was seemingly surprised Rhys managed to get his affection back up with a few sentences. Then again, Rhys was always unpredictable. He could say something that gives him fifty affection points one moment, and lose seventy the next not knowing how.

"You're still going to deny you're into men after all that? And focusing on your music career? I've never once heard you play an instrument in the house." Erin laughed, thinking Rhys was trying too hard.

With an eye twitching, he smiled at Erin and confirmed what he said was true, and went off to wash the dishes, the whole table now laughing at him.

As Gabriel excused himself, Cecelia turned to the boys. "Would you mind helping me? Since you four are here I hope you don't mind helping me set up the garden for Riel's birthday celebration." She said.

Not wanting to be impolite, the boys agreed, while being told what they needed to do. When Rhys came back, he was given a list of things to pick up at the stores listed.

As he nodded, Cecelia sent him along with Seth, the other two helping her out the decor up.

"How long has it been since I've been completely alone with Seth again? Excluding the time I got hit in the face." Rhys thought, happy to raise his affection points while they were alone.

After twenty minutes for Seth to freshen up for the morning, to two of them set out to the stores listed. A bakery, and to buy some more glass cups if possible.

"I guess they underestimated the amount of people coming." Kane said as he read the list, as well.

"Sorry about dragging you into this, when I invited you all here to have fun." Rhys said to Seth with a smile, who only told him it was okay.

"Looks like I'm going to have to do most of the talking, huh?" Rhys thought, driving off the get the cups first.

"This morning I just had my entire childhood exposed, how about you tell me some of your's to make me feel better? That's only fair, right?" Rhys asked, knowing Seth would agreed.

Thinking to himself for a second, he then began. "I'm not really that interesting but when I was little I played basketball a lot, my dream was to play professionally."

"Was?" Rhys asked, wondering what he meant. Did his dream change into something else?

"Ah, I really admired professionals so I wanted to be one, but I soon realised that it'd be difficult with the actual amount of talented professionals out there, it's a tough field to be apart of, and if I injure myself I'd never be able to continue, so I just decided to be a lawyer." Although he had a gentle smile, his voice sounded soft, and saddened.

"But is that really what you want to do? Being a musician is difficult too, you know. There are hundreds upon hundreds of talents. Thousands of people dream of being a singer, an idol, or of being in some kind of band. Doesn't mean I gave up." Rhys responded, thinking of his past life.

His parents weren't even musicians back then, he had absolutely zero connections, and yet he made it big due to his desire to succeed and effort, so is that really anything different from what Seth was thinking?

"Life will throw a lot of difficulties at you, but you never know if you'll succeed if you choose to throw away the option to even try it out, right? You could still keep being a lawyer as a backup profession for now, and try to be an athlete first." Rhys explained, hoping Seth's affection points wouldn't lower.

"I'm pretty sure he'd succeed with a male lead aura like that, anyways." Rhys thought in his head.

"I wouldn't be surprised if the author made the female lead encourage Seth to do the same, and he becomes a professional for her sake and falls in love with her more." Kane chimed in, agreeing with Rhys.

"Ew, don't compare me to that. I'm giving him genuine life advice." Rhys cringed, making Kane roll his eyes.

"I'm not sure, it's different between you and me. You do have connections already, so it'd be much easier for you to say that, I'm sorry for saying this." Seth said, a sigh escaping his lips.

Rhys was now slightly annoyed that in this life, his dad was a famous musician. "Connections mean nothing in the long run. No one is going to listen to me if I play terribly, right? Even if I got every program on tv to play me playing the piano, it wouldn't matter if I were bad at it." Rhys huffed.

"That's true, but it's different for athletes. There's only so many who can actually play. There is plenty demand for lawyers, though." Seth sighed, still unsure.

"There's still plenty of time to try both, though. You never know if you don't try. It's better to not be regretting it, like you are right now." Rhys responded.

The two went back and forth, and eventually Seth felt a little better and agreed to at least give his dream a try, and if he fails try-outs, he can always be a lawyer.

His affection points rose by three, putting him at twenty eight, in total. "I should really be a life advice coach." Rhys thought to himself.

"You are far from qualified, you're just pushing your mindset onto him. You're lucky he's easily swayed." Kane deadpanned.

Parking in front of the store, the two made their way into the store, to find the cups. "She specifically wrote down glass cups, and without a set amount, let's just buy thirty of them." Rhys said.

When he was washing the dishes, he saw a decent amount of cups, and considering it was a larger scale party, it seemed about right. Better to have more cups than less, anyways.

"That's a lot, I'll carry them for you to the car." Seth responded, Rhys was about to protest but in terms of physical strength, Seth was clearly superior to him.

"Maybe I'll spend my next attribute points on strength." Rhys thought, there were just so many options with this system, and so little he's achieved so far.

"This is why you should thank me for making you complete missions! So you get all the attribute points." Kane boasted, and by the luck of the devil, a system mission popped up.

"OPTIONAL SYSTEM MISSION"

"A man has lost sight of his three little children in the store. Find all of them and return them to him. You will be rewarded upon completion, no punishment."

Rhys regretted saying he wanted the attribute points, as Kane pressured him into accepting and completing the mission.

"What does this have to do with the target?" Rhys asked as he heard a child screaming in the aisle behind him, guessing he's found the first of three.

"Because Seth is gentle obviously! If he sees how kids like you and your gentle side, his affection will definitely go up host." Kane sighed at Rhys' ignorance.

Feigning concern, Rhys looked up to Seth with a worried expression on his face, telling him he's going to check on what's happening.

As they turned, they see a child climbing to reach the top shelf, about to fall off, both of them ran to catch the child, succeeding but colliding.

When they bumped heads, Rhys felt like someone had slammed him into a wall. Just how thick was Seth's head, rather, why does his face always suffer with Seth?

"I'm so sorry!" Seth profusely apologised holding the child, while Rhys said it was fine, assuring him as he took the child's hand.

Turning to the child, he put on his best smile, unsure how to deal with children. "Hey boy are you okay? Where's your guardian?" Rhys asked, sort of awkwardly.

"I dunno, he started talking to some woman so I left." He responded, trying to climb the shelf again, causing Rhys to try and frantically hold him.

"Why don't we find your dad then, I'm sure he's worried. Did you come with just him?" Seth laughed a little at how Rhys acted, but offered to help find the boy's dad as well.

"I have my siblings. We left together and I haven't seen them for awhile." The boy said, Rhys forced a smile on. This boy looked around eight, yet he still acted crazy.

"I think most eight year olds are like that, though? You were just a weird child." Kane said reading Rhys' mind.

"Oh shut up." He retorted in his head as the child clung to Rhys, leading him to where he last saw his siblings.

As the three searched, it took twenty minutes before Seth finally heard soft sobbing, and ran towards the direction with Rhys and the boy.

As they turned to an aisle in the far back, there were two little feet poking at the very end, and there they found a little girl no older than four crying.

Consoling her, Rhys asks her if she's okay while telling her they found her brother, unfortunately, both children had no clue who the other was.

"Wait just whose missing child are they?" Rhys whispered to Seth, taking the little girl's hand.

"I don't know, but let's find her parents too." Seth whispered back, as they calmed her down.

With one more child to take care of, Rhys cried in his head. He's never going to ask the system for more attribute points again, ever.