Chapter 15 - Another Shopping

After taking a taxi for about 10 minutes, I arrived at the city shopping center and walked towards my meeting place with the ladies. We promised to meet at the fountain in the middle of the shopping center, but when I got there, I couldn't find them, which meant they hadn't arrived yet.

I decided to buy a hotdog and a soft drink at one of the stalls around the fountain, and sat down on a bench while waiting for the ladies to arrive.

While eating my hotdog, I realized that many people were giving me curious looks. It was probably because I was still wearing my pilot suit, even though I had taken off the helmet and hung it around my waist, I guess it still looked rather conspicuous.

I hope it's okay to wear my pilot suit here, it'll be bad if I get stopped by the police while shopping later. I wanted to change my clothes, but I didn't bring a change of clothes, the only thing inside my pilot suit right now is underwear. and I didn't bring a suitcase for my pilot suit either, I should have told my mom on the phone earlier.

A few minutes later, as I was eating my hot dog. I noticed a few people passing by me staring at something behind me for a while before they left, but since I thought they were probably just seeing a show or something, I decided to ignore it.

However, moments after that, I felt a familiar sense of presence from behind me, so I turned around to look at it, but before I could do that, a hand covered my eyes from behind.

"Guess who I am~"

Without even hearing her voice, I already knew whose hand it was.

"Mom, I know it's you."

"Ping pong ping pong, that's right."

After she said that ridiculous sentence, she removed her hand from my eyes. Since my mom was here, that meant they were here as well. I then turned around.

As I looked at them, I now understood what those people were looking at before. Of course they would stop for a moment to see this sight.

My mom and Melissa were wearing black maxi dresses, Alicia and Aunt Julia were wearing blue A-line dresses, and Luna was wearing....I don't know, I think she was wearing something called a shirt dress. It was quite refreshing to see Melissa wearing something other than maid clothes and Luna who always wore casual clothes or lab coats even though she was not working anymore.

"That was a good fight, dear~ But you really didn't get hurt, did you?"

My mom said that with a worried face while looking me up and down. I immediately said something to reassure her.

"You can see for yourself mom, I'm not hurt at all."

"You're right, it looks like you're fine."

Although still looking a little worried, my mom still said that while giving me a relieved smile.

Luna then walked over to me and gave my chest a light punch before saying with a smirk.

"I told you, right? You will win for sure."

Hearing her arrogant words, I grinned as well.

"You'd better remember your promise, Luna."

"Hmph... you don't have to worry about that. I won't forget it."

"Come on, let's get going. It's almost 4pm, if we take too long, we'll get hungry before we can do the barbeque."

In the middle of our conversation, Melissa interrupted and urged us to leave immediately.

"Melissa is right, we don't have much time left. With this many of us, I doubt we can do it quickly. Especially with Hermia who gets distracted all the time."

"What do you mean, Julia?"

Melissa and Aunt Julia were right, especially Aunt Julia. What she said about my mother was true, my mother was the type of person who would go out to buy food, but when she came back she would bring a lot of things.

"Then let's go immediately."

Hearing me say that, my mom spoke excitedly and started walking.

"Alright, then, everyone. Let's start shopping!"

Seeing my mom like that, Aunt Julia just shook her head before starting to walk after her.

"Stop that, Hermia. Please remember your age."

"That's mean, Julia."

Seeing their interaction, the three girls and I looked at them with small smiles before following them.

"Good work."

As we started walking, I heard Alicia say that quietly from beside me. I then turned around and saw her smiling while looking at me, seeing that, I smiled back at her and said.

"Thanks."

After that, we returned our gaze to the front and walked together.

********

A few hours later, I realized that going shopping with women was a bad idea, I shouldn't have come.

It was almost 6pm, but my mom was still wandering around visiting the dress and outfit stores she saw with Melissa and Luna. We had finished shopping for the ingredients for tonight's barbeque and used the delivery service to bring them to our mansion.

But my mom asked to go shopping for a while longer and this is how it happened, Aunt Julia tried many times to stop her, but she finally gave up because my mom was getting backed up by Melissa and Luna. That's why I was now sitting alone with Alicia in front of one of the shops that my mom and the others went into.

I decided to wait for them outside with Alicia, more precisely Alicia accompanied me to wait, earlier I suggested waiting here alone, but Alicia volunteered to wait with me.

I wonder why she did that.

I then looked at Alicia who was beside me, she was looking around while drinking the juice she bought at the vending machine a while ago. Perhaps because her hair was blocking her vision, she brushed her hair behind her ear, as she did so, she noticed my gaze.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing."

"Then why are you looking at me like that?"

Alicia said that while frowning slightly.

"I was just enjoying the beautiful sight."

Hearing my words, Alicia took her mouth off the straw of her juice and frowned deeper.

"Don't say weird things like that."

"I'm not saying anything weird, I'm just saying my honest thoughts."

Alicia looked at me for a moment, before averting her gaze and going back to drinking her juice.

I could see her ears turning a little red, she was actually quite easily embarrassed. If I'm not mistaken, when I complimented her before we left for the Auction House she also reacted like this.

When I decided to tease her again, Alicia turned around and looked at me.

"Hiro."

"Yeah?"

"Can I go to a client party tomorrow night?"

"Who?"

"A regular client of my company, I don't really want to go, but their position makes it a little difficult for me to refuse."

"Is she a woman?"

"No, he's a man. But he has a wife, the party is actually celebrating his son's birthday."

"Did he just invite you to go alone?"

"Yeah."

"Then don't go."

I looked at Alicia seriously as I said that.

Even though he was married, I still wouldn't let my wife go to a stranger's party alone.

Hearing my words, Alicia nodded and then said,

"Then I won't go."

"Yep, that's good."

After that, Alicia returned her gaze to the front and continued drinking her juice.

Wait a minute, did Alicia just ask for my permission?

Looks like what I've been doing all this time finally paid off, but I didn't expect it to be this soon. The truth is, I always talk to Alicia first before doing anything because of this. I wanted her to talk to me if she wanted to do something, so that I could prevent her from meeting the protagonist.

Since Alicia seems to me to be a serious woman, I thought that if I always asked her permission before doing something important, she would think "Since Hiro did it, then I'll do the same." Given our husband and wife relationship, Alicia would definitely think that way. Only, I thought it would take longer than this.

Someone I knew from my past life once said. "Remember this, 0-2. Trust works in both ways, both, fucking, ways. If you can't trust your partner, they won't be able to trust you either. However, when you've struggled hard enough and she still doesn't trust you or even betrays you, Then leave her, she's not worth it, look for another woman, there are many women in this world, son. But the most important thing is, if you can get your partner to trust you completely, then she will always depend on you until death do you part. Remember that, son."

By the way, he said that while we were imprisoned in the enemy army's prison. And the old man had 4 wives and 9 children, that's why I didn't take what he said as nonsense.

And that's what I did with Alicia, I trusted her, so that she could trust me. Talking to her before I did something was one of the things I did to make her trust me, and now that she had also talked to me before doing something, I was sure that now she trusted me.

But the possibility that she loves me is still small, given her serious attitude, I think there's still some time until I can do that. Just like with Melissa, I just need to take it slowly. As for Luna.... Well, I'll look at the situation first before deciding.

This world may be based on a novel, but to me it's reality. The methods in novels won't work in this world, at least I think so.

I mean, really. If tomorrow there was a news story about a woman who was raped and she fell in love with the guy who raped her then I would probably shoot myself in the head.

"Hey!"

In the middle of thinking about all that, I heard Alicia calling out to me. Without realizing it, Alicia was already standing in front of me and looking at me with a bit of anger.

"Ah yeah, sorry. I was thinking a bit too much."

I said that while smiling wryly, Alicia rolled her eyes and said.

"Hurry up and stand up, they're done."

Alicia said that while directing her gaze at my mom and the others who had finished shopping. Seems like they were ready to go home this time.

"Okay, let's go."

Seeing me start to stand up, Alicia started to walk towards the others and I followed her and walked beside her.

********

When we got home, after I changed my clothes, we immediately set up the place for our barbeque party on the beach to the south of our private island.

"Luna, help me set up the equipment."

"I got it~"

Luna and I prepared the equipment, while Melissa and Alicia prepared the ingredients, actually only Melissa, Alicia was just watching. My mom and Aunt Julia went to the Mansion to get the drinks and mats they had prepared.

"Hiro, how did you make this thing stand up?"

Luna said that to me while trying to fix the legs of her barbeque grill.

" I will do that, you just take the cutlery out of the bag."

"Okay, this one, right?"

"Yeah."

In the middle of preparing the utensils, Luna suddenly spoke to me in a serious tone.

"Hey, Hiro."

"What?"

I spoke without looking at her and remained focused on setting up the barbeque grill

"Actually, what should I do?"

"About what?"

"As your Navigator."

Hmm....about that huh.

"Just do it like we did at the academy."

"Are you sure? You know I'm still a beginner, right? I didn't even graduate from the academy."

"Then we're the same."

What happened to this girl? Why did she suddenly sounds sentimental? Where did her arrogant and confident personality go?

"But you know-"

Before she could finish her question, I turned to face her and interrupted her.

"What's wrong with you? You're not usually this sentimental."

Luna didn't look at me and kept taking out the food utensils from our bags. She then said in a tone that sounded a little annoyed.

"I was just wondering why you agreed to my offer."

"So you wanted to know about it. Why do you suddenly care about that?"

"Just answer me!"

She said that in a pushy tone. Seems like she really wanted an answer.

"Well, if you really want to know about the reason, there's only one reason, and that's because I trust you. I'm sure I can find Navigators who are better and more experienced than you, but I'm not sure I can trust them. And I'm sure, over time, by the time you get the same amount of experience as them, you will be far better than them."

To me, the only thing Luna lacks now is experience, after all, in the novel, Luna is a prodigy who even works at a Mecha manufacturing company on an elven planet one day.

I just need to be patient a little more before her talent can bloom, and if I help her before that happens, her trust in me will also increase. So, someday, I can have a great Engineer as well as a good Navigator, and I can also have her trust. 2 birds with one stone.

That was one of the reasons I agreed to Luna's offer of wanting to work with me, and well, the other reason was, I trusted her because I had known her at the academy, and she was cute.

"Hmm.... I see."

Hearing my answer, Luna still didn't look at me, and continued what she was doing. I don't know if I managed to convince her or not, but after that, Luna and I didn't speak anymore, and we managed to get the equipment ready before my mom and aunt Julia returned.

Soon, after my mom and aunt Julia returned with the mats, we started the barbeque party.

"Hiro~ Hurry up and bring the barbeque!"

" Just hold on, mom."

While only Melissa and I were grilling the barbeque, my mom and the others were sitting on the mats and drinking alcohol while talking.

"Melissa, are the ribs done?"

"Yes, you can have them."

I picked up the barbecue and brought it to the ladies.

"Here you go ladies."

"Good job, dear~"

"It's finally here."

"Thank you, Hiro."

".....(nod)"

After bringing the barbeque to them, I returned to Melissa and said.

"Melissa, just leave the rest to me. You can join them."

"Really? Is that okay?"

"Yeah, go."

"Okay, thanks. By the way, that one is almost done."

"I know."

Melissa smiled and waved her hand at me before joining the others.

They all seem to be talking about something very happily, even Alicia, who rarely smiles, is laughing. Seeing them having fun like that was somehow very refreshing. This is what it's like to have a family, huh. Now I understood what the old man was talking about.

I decided to finish the barbeque I was grilling early so that I could join them, however, in the middle of doing so, I got an incoming call notification from my smartwatch.

I wondered who was calling at this hour, when I saw the caller's name, I was a little surprised, so I immediately picked up the call.

"What's up, Miss Adelina? I didn't expect your first call to me would be at this time of night."

"I'm sorry if I disturbed you, Sir Denzelnas. I just wanted to tell you about this afternoon."

This afternoon, does she mean about the general who wanted to see me?

"What is it?"

"Actually.... I don't think we'll be able to see you tomorrow, Sir Denzelnas. That's fine, isn't it?"

"Oh yeah, no need to worry about that. Did something happen?"

"I think so, Sir Denzelnas. The General and I are heading to Karos planet right now, there's something going on there and the General has been ordered to handle it."

"I see...."

Karos planet? Ooh, the first planet to be destroyed by the parasyte invasion, huh.

"In that case, I hope you can solve it smoothly."

"Thank you, Sir Denzelnas. I'll hang up then, I have to go."

"Yeah, take care, Miss Adelina. See you later."

"Yes, see you later, Sir Denzelnas."

Miss Adelina hung up the phone.

Looks like I won't be able to meet the general, huh? What a shame, I really wanted to meet him. Anyway, they have to take care of things at Karos Planet. That means, I won't be able to see Miss Adelina for a long time, at least until she returns from Karos Planet.

Damn, that means I can't rely on Miss Adelina anymore. I hope nothing happens to them, it would be very difficult to find an insider working in the government again.

"Hiro~ What are you doing there alone! Hurry up and come here!"

"That's right! You'll run out of alcohol, you know?"

In the middle of thinking that, I could hear my mom and Luna shout.

"Okay, okay, I'll be right there."

I quickly grabbed all the barbeque I had grilled and walked over to the ladies and joined them.