One more time - 11
Hearing that voice struck a slight fear within my heart.
I slowly rose from my throne and walked towards the door that led outside the house------but I only peeked on the small gap as I opened the door.
There she is... one of my worst fears.
"Ezzie!? Where are you!?"
It was a slightly chubby woman with all her hair tied to the back of her heard. She wore smart casual clothing and her toes were repeatedly moving up and down, tapping on the asphalt at the front of the gate.
She could've just entered but remained standing on the street instead.
If people didn't know her, they might actually say that she's also quite the beauty, with a height of more than a hundred and sixty centimeters, and with body that almost had a golden ratio, there were a lot of men that previously courted her, only to end in vain.
I know all of these facts because she's in fact, my own blood sister, Reika.
Even Merk's scared of her even when he's the eldest of us siblings, and he can't even compare to her when it comes to scolding me.
"Oh shit, she's coming!"
Did I clean the house? Did I wash the dishes? Finished my homework? Crap crap crap crap crap.....
"Oi. Why didn't you greet me outside?"
The door was already opened wide without my notice, and my back started to get cold with sweat.
"Um..."
She entered the door and took off her shoes, and pulled on my left sideburns...
"OW! WHAT DID I DO!?"
"You did something bad, didn't you!?"
I couldn't really say anything and could only look around the house instead, looking for things that she might notice.
The place didn't really look like it was messy, at least for me... But there would always be something that she would spot.
She seems to have noticed what I was doing that also made her look around the house. Her eyes even tried to look at what I was looking at so I looked at the ground instead.
"I didn't do anything! It's just you're always like this whenever!"
She put her arms on her hips before letting out a sigh and replied.
"Fine. Looks like you made the place clean, for now."
What do you mean, 'for now?' I always clean!
"Who's the girl? Merk told me you finally had a girlfriend."
"He what? When?"
"Can't remember. Around Wednesday or Thursday? I'm busy so I keep forgetting other things."
"I don't have one. Did you go here just to ask me about that?"
She was walking around the house and was still checking out every place, but she looked at me once more after I asked her and gave another stare that I didn't quite like.
"Are you really Ezzie?"
"What do you mean?"
"Aren't you Aiden?"
"What!? How can I BE Aiden?"
She put her hand on her chin while the other on the elbow and pondered to herself while still giving off that baleful glare. If this was an anime, then there would be a purple aura behind her back that would threaten most people with it.
"Looks like you really graduated, huh. That's strange."
"Graduated? I still have two more years to go, what are you talking about? You're the one that's strange."
"The Ezzie I know wouldn't talk like this, and would just pretend that I didn't come. You became almost like a shut-in for five years and then you tell me that I'm the one that's strange? It's even a miracle that you're not currently playing right now. Now tell me, that that's strange!"
With her last exclamation, I also somehow got stunned by her words.
The me from last week might have been just busy playing games, but she's right. I even interacted with Merk lately.
I'm not sure what exactly happened to me, but all I know is that I only went back in time for almost two weeks... and the fact that I still want to make contact, at least, with Esyllt within the week.
Sadly, there's no progress. We should've been travelling together last night and went to her favorite place in the game, but since her brother kept grinding for that legendary item, she highly likely can't even log in her own account.
I also wouldn't be confused if he even let her sister grind the item for him, I mean, since that's the type of person he is based from the time I've been with him.
I suddenly had a thought, a thought worse then ever, ever since I've seen that black star guy...
Don't tell me.....
"Oi. Pay attention. I said, that's good and all, but I know that you can't instantly just stop gaming that easily. You might return some time later and find it difficult to quit once more. I'm the same as you anyway, and I still play time to time but---are you listening?"
"Yes, sis. I just don't feel well."
"That's because you always play too much."
"It's not about the game, okay!? I even slept earlier, and woke up earlier than usual, bought bread from the small bakery and did almost nothing the whole day. I. Did. Not. Play!"
*pah*
A slap resounded throughout the room and my cheek stung.
"Not playing nor graduating from games doesn't mean you can shout at me. Fine, I get it. You didn't play and you got your thought across. Go have a rest or something."
I thought she would scold me more because I actually raised the tone of my voice, which I also realized only after she gave me a slap to the face. I lowered my head as I walked towards my room, but as soon as I passed her, she followed up with a few more words.
"Sorry for that. I'm just stressed out because I'm handling a lot of things right now."
I took a glance behind me and... did she just wipe of a tear or what? I didn't see what she did just now as she didn't turn back as she spoke, but saw her hand going away from her face after probably wiping away something.
"Sorry for shouting, too. I'll make you dinner, you could at least stay."
I immediately went to my room and fell face front on my pillow on the bed.
She was probably right about me somehow changing. If it was the old me, I would've just ignored her and let her come into my room, before silently staring at her as she scolded me.
Yet I actually talked back to her as if I was talking... to an actual person.
Did I really change? Is it for the better? Or for the worse?
What happened to me that even Reika even...
For now I should probably rest.
...
I woke up to my sister's voice and took my phone on the desk.
"Already 3 PM?"
My body still felt groggy from the small nap that I took, but I gathered strength and went to my throne and made my alternate account to go towards the open market.
"It's still there, huh?"
My merchant character was still there, which means that the items weren't still sold.
I tried to buy from my merchant and checked to see what were the items sold, and it instead turned out to be a pleasant surprise.
"YES! I'M RICH-----NO! Wait..."
It didn't occur to me the thought that another person might have bought the materials instead, so I also bought a few megaphones---an item that's able to make a temporary announcement to the whole server.
I bought about twenty so that I can monopolize the whole chat box about my question. Just using one will only flood my message and disappear within the others' megaphone instead.
I typed on a notepad the following sentence:
[WTB>Limitless Hydra Tear pm me]
The player that bought it might log off anytime so I tried to spam the message as much as I could for the whole server to see.
...
There were barely any messages that came for the past five minutes, and the megaphone chat log was starting to become flooded by a lot more messages that were unrelated, so after the window somehow elapsed, I spammed the window once more.
After another set of messages appeared, I'm finally ran out of megaphones, took my hands off the keyboard, and crouched on my throne once more.
I also forgot the fact that the item might have already been bought from earlier in the morning instead of just now.
Lately I've been letting things out of hand, and the things that I think about always seem to fail.
I'm not even sure why my planning ahead seems to be so short-sighted that I now fail to properly use my resources correctly. Sure, I've been lucky lately but I somehow get reminded that not everything that happens is guaranteed for my thoughts to occur.
Suddenly, a message appeared on my chat log that made me feel elated.