Friend Hangout?~

This time I actually managed to return home, no more obstacles, such as weird otome game scenarios. I was greeted by Yuri, Michi's mom I just went in for the hug, actually wishing that I could actually stay with this woman as her daughter, she was so sweet.

"Mom, I am a pushover?" I must have weirded her out just a tiny bit.

"Did something happen?" she asked still holding me in her arms. I couldn't do anything but sigh, how could I explain to this woman that this system scammed me.

"There was this guy that wanted me to come over to his house, and I agreed." I looked up and saw the worry on her face. Most likely she couldn't trust a guy to keep his hands to himself.

"Don't worry, he just wants to write letters together, apparently he is friends with Kazutora, you know my second cousin...." she didn't seem to recognize the name.

"The one kid with divorced parents on your side of the family." it finally dawned on her, so she nodded.

"Nothing sus, just us two writing letters, and then he promised he will send them to Kazutora." She just nodded but didn't seem too sure about this.

"Thank you for telling me this, just make sure to stay safe, ok?" she kissed me on the forehead. I really wanted to give this woman the best mother award.

"Do you need help with cooking?" I asked, I really wanted to spend more time with her, and get to know her better.

"But dear, you usually don't like cooking, why the change of heart?" Well maybe Michi who was before me, didn't like to cook, but I thought sometimes messing around in the kitchen was fun.

"Well it was fun cooking with you during the morning, so..." there were never such fun activities with my family. And I would take family quality time, anytime, since I never participated in those.

"If you want to hang out together we can always go shopping for some clothes on the weekend." that sounded awesome.

"Really? You promise? Can we take dad too and eat dinner outside as well?" She looked kind of shocked.

"We can try to arrange that, but you know how busy your father can be. But since it's the weekend we are talking about, we can try asking him." I jumped around like a little kid on Christmas. This family was the best!

"Sing me up!" I yelled, confusing this sweet woman.

"So dinner, what are we making, I'm so pumped up!" She just laughed at my antics.

"Today's menu is curry," she said, I ran to the kitchen as we made curry based on her recipe. I just danced around in the kitchen while preparing the food, making her laugh a lot.

Once we were done, well Michi's father arrived, I witnessed kids on tv jumping on their fathers as some sort of greeting, since I have never done that before, now was the time to strike.

"Welcome back!" I yelled and zoomed thru the hallway and jumped onto the poor man, that frankly didn't lose his balance, which was quite remarkable.

"What's with the unusual happy greeting?" he asked placing a hand around me, pulling me into a warm and cozy hug.

"Eh, I just felt like it, how was work?" he shook his head, I guess he didn't have such a splendid day. Well me and you both. As soon father took off his suit jacket and shoes, we went to the table to eat. Mother made a conversation starter.

"Listen, dear, our daughter found a person she likes, she even made a bento for him." I guess this topic was top tier for any mom out there.

"Wait, when I think about it, you haven't told me how it went." I swallowed the food that I had in my mouth.

"Well he ate it, but I found out he doesn't return my feelings." not that I wanted him to, but there was no way I would mention how I made a bento because of a dare or something.

"Don't be too sad, you will find someone better with time." father patted my head gently after saying that, he most likely was right, any person would scale better than that guy that wouldn't be named at this dining table. I decided to take a quick look at dad's stats.

Name: Masato Hirabayashi, Occupation: Lawyer, Age: 35, Parental Love: 60/100. His intelligence was like 78 out of 100, the rest of the stats weren't as big, but it made me wonder why mine were so little. Maybe there was something to it I haven't figured out yet. I noted to myself to check it out later. But then I remembered how mothers' lucky points were the biggest. Did it mean I got to be their daughter in this world because of how I chose my stats? That's what I called a jackpot.

"I will also be visiting a friend tomorrow," I said to pick up the conversation.

"You made a friend?" he asked, I guess up until now I didn't have any, welp.

"Yes, he is friends with Kazutora, so he wanted to know me better as well." dad just nodded.

"Ah... Kazutora, poor boy, he's been thru a lot, I once visited him to see how well he was doing, but I think he lost some of his reasoning along the way." I just tilted my head, our families were close?

"We were once planning to take him under our wings since his parents divorced and you two got somehow along. But since he got into juvenile, that plan was put on hold." that was some new information.

"Well how about inviting him over once he is out? We could provide him a safe house while taking childcare money from his parents?" Was that possible I didn't know.

"Hmmm..." dad seemed to be deep in his thought.

"If the two of you get along just fine, and he will be willing to stay with us, I don't see any problem in that." Well, that was easier than I thought, maybe if Kazutora was offered some love, he would stop his revenge on Mikey? Or did that fiasco happen in the manga only because Kisaki manipulated him?

After dinner I went to my room and checked the stats, I was right, my stats functioned differently than others. To put it simply, the stats didn't matter that much, until I reached the 30 points mark. For now, they would function as stats for an average person. Whichever stats I possessed the most, they would have the greatest influence on my life.

"So Intelligence and Luck are still the top, I guess it means I'm both smart and lucky for the time being." I decided it was important of keeping those two stats on the top.

The next day after school I found Baji standing beside the gates to my school as he promised.

"Here! Here!" he was yelling to get my attention.

"I can see you perfectly well, thank you." he just kept his smile on.

"So I invited another friend of mine, don't worry I can tell you guys will get along just well." Oh god no, I was not alright with this, meeting two strangers at once. Yes, they may have been characters from a series that I knew and recognized, but it didn't stop my anxiety from rising.

"Is it a guy?" I asked while he nodded.

"His name is Chifuyu... right I never told you my name yesterday. I'm Baji Keisuke." Welp that also escaped my mind yesterday, was I really walking into a guy's house whose name I technically wasn't supposed to know? I felt kind of stupid when I realized that.

"My name is Michi Hirabayashi." He was furrowing his brows.

"Hirabayashi? Quite a lengthy surname, can I call you Hira instead?"I glared at him, there was no way I would let him do that, for some reason it just reminded me too much of Kira.

"Is it a no?" he actually looked a little like a kicked puppy.

"Call me Michi." he looked deep in his thoughts.

"Then call me Keisuke. Since you are Kazutora's family I will give you a pass on that." Well, I hardly cared what I would call him since both Japanese names and surnames sounded the same to me, it was just a matter of convincing yourself that someone's surname was their first name.

"Sure Keisuke." that felt weird but since I was already so used to calling him Baji in my head because that's what he was called most often by Chifuyu and Takemitchi.

"Oh you got the hang of it pretty fast, does it mean you already think of me as a great friend?" I just nodded instinctively and the friendship points just rolled in.

Who was this social butterfly and why did he want to be my friend so badly?

When we finally arrived I heard Keisuke say.

"Thankfully mother is not here." he didn't elaborate further so I just took my shoes off and walked in.

"Come my room is this way." I followed him, he opened the door for me and I walked in. This situation was bizarre, did this take place because my luck was higher than other of the stats, that's why I had to live thru this? Was my luck only good for unexplained romance scenarios? Now, where was I supposed to sit? I was hoping that the system would give me some etiquette lessons, on what you do when you visit someone. Well, that didn't occur.

"Sit here." Keisuke pointed at a tiny table where the papers and pens were already prepared.

"Do you want something to drink?" Was it appropriate to ask for soft drinks or tea?

"Do you perhaps have a nice cup of tea?" I said in English in a very fake posh accent, as a joke. Which flew over his head because most likely he didn't get a word of what I said.

"You have tea?" I repeated in Japanese but saw just this pained look on his face, which made it seem like he had never drunk any tea in his entire life.

"Water then." he gave me ok sign and ran out. Welp that was already a disaster.

"Can I unsubscribe from life?" I mumbled to myself, feeling like my socializing skills were failing me so far.

So I grabbed one of the papers and started to write, I mentioned something about being Kazutora's second cousin and how I wanted to get to know him better, thankfully the system helped me with writing the Kanji characters, but at times I had to guess which character it was because sometimes it presented me two options to choose from, thankfully Keisuke prepared a dictionary.

When Keisuke came back we were just sitting there writing silently, with him sometimes asking me for help. Some time went by and I already felt like I wrote enough.

"So when is your friend coming?" that was at least some conversation starter. Keisuke just shrugged his arms, stood up, and opened up the window, looking around the neighborhood.

"I have no idea, he's running late. Maybe he got into a fight?" I just scratched my head, is this seriously what you were going to tell a girl that you just met Baji Keisuke?

"This sounds like an often occurrence when you phrase it like this..." would he take a hint, probably not.

"Oh, that's because we are in a gang." I was about to comment, but suddenly cats stormed inside his room thru the window that Keisuke just opened.

"Guys, what are you all doing here?..." he turned his head towards me.

"Sorry the cats sometimes like to hang out in my room, but that's strange they usually come during the night." Looks like he was just as confused as I was. I stood up ready to pat some cute bellies, but unexpectedly the system window popped up.

'Would you rather kick one of the cats, or end up in Baji Keisuke's arms.' As a dedicated animal lover, no system would budge my morals. Of course, I would choose the latter, already preparing mentally for some punishment in case I didn't manage to complete it.

Suddenly I saw this orange cat jumping onto the shelves, then it looked right at me. I titled my head, but wait, was that cat winking at me? It freaking did, even multiple times. Suddenly it was reading its body to take a leap.

"No, no!" I yelled but it leaped into the air into my arms anyway, of course, my luck has it that I lost my balance and went flying backward.

I closed my eyes embracing the impact, but it never came? When I opened my eyes Keisuke was holding me in his arms.