“Kyoko?” I asked.
“Never mind,” she said. “She’s just someone from my past.”
“Was she important?”
“Well, important in the sense that I began to see things differently, I guess.”
“Were you two close?”
“I don’t think so, no.”
I don’t know why, but a sense of relief came over me. And yet, I could see a certain pain in her. Or well, I don’t know if I actually could see it, it was more of a feeling I had.
Though I guess you could say that part of that pain was mine. Even though she didn’t answer me, deep down I felt that I already knew her answer. But at least now I made it clear to her what my feelings were. I just hoped that this wouldn’t change anything about us.
“Did you hear that?” Em said.
I too could hear it. I knew exactly what that sound was.
“It means that one of our queued items is ready to be placed,” I said.
“It has that feature as well?” Em said.
“Yeah, I mean, you could disable it for yourself, or change the notification sound.”
We both looked at the queue, and noticed that the vegetable garden was ready to be placed. We gave this one a priority to diversify the food we could eat. Fruits were nice, and they did help us quench any thirst we had, but eating the same thing over and over would become stale.
There was one thing we did notice, though. Despite us not having eaten a lot, we didn’t really feel that hungry, or thirsty for that matter. It didn’t really bother us, though, this seemed to be a world of magic, maybe that’s what kept us alive, or maybe our bodies were altered so that we didn’t need that much food to begin with. However, we still decided to keep eating things, as we didn’t know what effects not eating would have, but also, there was an additional effect we noticed.
Every time we ate, the amount of points collected per second would increase for a few hours. We weren’t really sure why, maybe it was a status buff or something. It wasn’t until much later that we realized what the reason was.
“Let’s go find a good place for this,” Em said. “I want it to be close by.”
“I think that’s a good idea as well,” I replied. “Did you also decide on what to grow?”
“I was thinking about potatoes, tomatoes and zucchinis, though what do you think about rice?”
“Rice will be hard, we’d need a dedicated rice field for that, and a lot of water.”
“Then I guess what we’ve picked is enough.”
For the rest of the day I didn’t really question her about anything. She seemed to have forgotten what I had said, or at least ignored it. Not that it mattered much, I guess going back to the way we were was a good thing.
And yet I felt more anxious than normal. Why the hell did I even say that? Why did I do something so stupid?
“Hey,” Em said. “Something wrong?”
“Oh, no,” I said. “Nothing wrong. I’m just spacing out.”
“If you say so.”
“So,” I said, hoping to avoid any of the potential awkwardness of that question, “I’ve been thinking about adding some aesthetics.”
“What do you mean, like, flowers?”
“Yeah, flowers, plants, just some trees that functionally don’t do anything.”
“I mean, sure, if you want to.”
“It would add some variety to our environment, and they’re pretty cheap to produce.”
“How about some chamomile? It would add some color, and we could draw tea from it.”
“Sounds like a good idea. Should we make a field of it, or are pots sufficient enough?”
“I think it’d be nice to hang them somewhere inside the temple. Oh, but I don’t think we should hang them everywhere, just a few pots are fine.”
By the end of the day, we’ve decorated the place with flowers. While the temple itself already was impressive, the flowers made it look much better.
“So I was thinking,” Em said, “maybe we should add a wheat farm or something.”
“I mean, we could add it,” I said. “What’re you going to use it for?”
“Well, I do want to eat more than just fruits and vegetables, so I thought, maybe we could bake bread eventually.”
“Well, we do need to get water to work, so we might need to look into something that could generate water.”
Em had already opened the panel, and was looking for the things she wanted to queue, when she called me over.
“Hey,” she said, “take a look at that.”
She pointed at the amount of points per second. It wasn’t much, but it seemed to be a bit higher than usual.
“That’s interesting,” I said. “How did that happen?”
“I don’t know,” Em said. “All we did was place some flowers.”
“So wait, if placing flowers can do something like this, why wouldn’t the trees or the gardens outside? Is it related to where everything is placed?”
“For now, let’s just take it easy, we can look into it tomorrow. Anyway, I’m going to find a good spot for the wheat farm.”
As she left, I couldn’t help but stare at her. I could feel my heart longing for her, yearning for an answer. This was torture for me, even more so when I still kept it inside. But I knew that there was nothing I could do about it.
No, I couldn’t take it anymore. II knew neither of us could hold off on addressing this. I rushed over to her.
“Em,” I said.
She turned around. There was this familiar look in her eyes, one I haven’t seen in her in this form, but I was sure it had to be her. There was something mischievous, yet at the same time a sad expression, something I wasn’t really able to understand until now. These were the eyes of someone who gave up on something, yet tried to hide the pain.
“Em,” I repeated. “I just… I don’t think I was really honest to you.”
“About what?” Em said.
“About Kyoko. I knew somebody who was called Kyoko.”
“Oh really?”
“She’s you, right?”
Em’s expression immediately changed.
“Then…” Em said, though it didn’t seem she was able to finish her sentence.
I walked towards her, almost reaching for her hands, but hesitating. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to tell her, but her eyes said enough.
“I’m sorry,” Em said, tears welling in her eyes.
“No, Em, don’t be,” I said, as I hugged her.
I held her in my arms. This was enough for me, this was all I needed right now, and yet, I didn’t expect Em to kiss me. For a moment, we were lost in each other, and it felt like I’ve been waiting for this moment for a very long time.
As we broke off our kiss, still holding her in my arms, there was one question that creeped into my mind.
“What did Kyoko want to tell Toujiro before she died?” I said.