I was sitting in my room once more, my hand on my head.
Albert was fairly shaken up by everything and we all decided to go back.
As of right now, no one but I and he felt what we felt.
What did we feel?
Titania was already asleep.
Albert must have been fairly shocked, his entire world view was shattered. But I had long since accepted this as a world of its own before an 'Eroge.' In all honesty, this revelation changed little for me.
Except for a lot of our future actions.
The mystery surrounding this world and our arrival in here had deepened greatly. With the moonlight coming in through the window along with the auroras that the tower formed, my mind went back to the world from before.
Earth.
A place bustling with high rises, floating cars, and gates...
Gates that opened the doors for monsters from other worlds to come in.
Well, the other world's bit was just speculation. Now that I think about it, it could just as well be realms like this one's own.
But what was particularly curious was the dragon.
Was it related somehow?
That dragon that stabbed me through my chest. I wondered how that was related to anything. Maybe it had caused some of the changes?
Then that wouldn't just be something from a different realm. How could it affect things a world away?
There was little common about my and Albert's transmigration into this other world, and the only matching point was the fact that we were both killed by the dragon.
There was little else that counted in the death. Many people died simultaneously every second all over the world, we would have already had others here if that was a factor.
And I didn't think that the school would go scotch-free when MY body was exploded on the dragon. Low chance. That could barely be a factor either.
It was strange…
What I had to do now didn't change much, it was just going to be a lot tougher than I had thought and nothing else.
If anything, I was excited.
It was when I was considering draping the curtains down, the window behind my bed was knocked on. Two windows could be a small pain at times, like now when they had a completely different set of curtains.
I slowly pulled it away and saw Noa sitting on the other side.
Sliding the windows open, I leaned on the sill.
"Morning."
"Hah. Morning."
She rested on the sill too, the two of us just staring at each other.
Every now and then, a cloud or two would come over and shade away the light of the moon and the auroras hiding her face behind them, only for the clouds to go away after some time.
Even though I couldn't see her, it still felt strangely nice to have her face in the bright.
"Uh…" Noa spoke, maybe unable to bear the silence anymore. "You ok?"
"Hm? Of course. Why?"
"You just… I don't know… seemed strange?"
"I was having fun."
Noa tilted her head.
"Fun."
"Mhm, looking at you is fun."
"You can't even see my face."
"I can still tell its you though."
The ledge between us was not far at all. I could just stretch my hands and grab hers, but I didn't do that. I slowly pointed at my nose.
"From the way you breathe,"
Then my hair.
"To the way your hair shuffles in the wind."
Then my other hand.
"To how you shiver from the cold breeze at times."
Noa lowered her gaze.
"I can even tell you're blushing like crazy now."
"Tsk. Rat. You're just being sly, right?"
"Of course not."
We sat in silence again. I let my head fall on the sill and looked at the sky.
Change.
Thinking back about Earth reminded me of how much I had changed.
"I don't think Luka or I understand this well… but this whole game thing… it must have hit you hard."
My ears perked at those words.
I turned toward her and smiled.
"Can I come over?"
Noa blushed once more, but then stretched both her hands out and beckoned me over with her fingers, like a child asking for a hug.
I quickly hopped over the ledge, and jumped to embrace her at once. We both fell on her bed as I wrapped my hands around her back and wrapped hers around mine.
"Cutie," she said.
"No, you."
"No, you are a cutie, jumping me like this."
"It's because you are the cutie that I had to jump in."
Noa laughed and tightened her embrace. My eyes closed on their own as I buried my head in her neck, taking in whiffs of her hair and resting my cheeks on her shoulders.
Her warmth, her scent, all of it flowed into my head.
Noa, at the same time, ran her hand on my back.
"You seem alright."
"I am. I am happy even."
"You are?" She asked, burying her head in my shoulders. I tightened my grip around her. My fingers pressed into her waist while her heat spread over to me.
Warm.
Very warm.
"It all feels, more real now."
"Does it? Why did it not feel so before?"
Maybe Luka was supposed to be with her. Maybe Eugene Hall could have been killed earlier. Maybe this or that is how the game went.
That thought didn't enter my mind, no.
But it was something that existed nonetheless.
The maybe didn't hit me, I was not stupid enough to think of it. But it instead existed as something I was going against.
The thought that I was taking the world off course remained when, in fact, there was no course at all. No way to guide things.
"Hey," Noa said.
"Yes?"
"Sleep here."
I tightened my grip on her further, my nose completely buried in her hair.
"I didn't plan on letting go of you anyway."
Noa grinned and nuzzled her cheeks on my neck.
"Me either."
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