"So soft..."
Sora instinctively tensed his body, his mind completely filled by the two words: so soft.
Yukatas are generally thin and breathable, so Sora could clearly feel the current state of the girl on his back.
Not wearing a bra, huh?
To dare let someone carry you on their back without even wearing a bra, you should really be more careful!
"How about you get down and walk yourself?"
Sora quickly coughed lightly twice, breaking the silence.
"No..." After hesitating for two seconds, the girl's shy voice finally sounded softly. Anna quietly wrapped her arms tighter around Sora's neck, still using her eyes as an excuse. "My eye is so uncomfortable, I'll definitely fall if I walk. It's better if Sora carries me back."
Earlier at the hot spring inn, everyone else got to hold hands, and I was the only one sitting on the sidelines like a losing heroine. So I definitely have to make Sora carry me back!
"Then we're heading back."
Sora exhaled a helpless sigh and began walking toward the hot spring inn.
The air quietly fell silent.
The faint, fresh fragrance from the girl quietly drifted into his nose. Her warm, sweet breath gently puffed against his ear, combined with the soft and plump sensation pressing against his back—all of this caused Sora's heartbeat to quietly accelerate.
There was no helping it. He was, after all, a hot-blooded, vigorous young man; it was impossible to remain completely indifferent.
Just as he was trying to find a topic to break the silence, Anna spoke up first, her voice gentle:
"Sora, do you remember when we were little and went on a spring outing? You carried me home on your back then too."
"I remember it very clearly." Sora said expressionlessly. "You took a bag of bear biscuits and said you'd split them with me if I carried you back. In the end, you secretly ate almost all of them on the way, leaving only one biscuit, and you still had the nerve to say we'd split it evenly."
"Cough, cough, cough..." Anna immediately started coughing. "Hurry up and forget those details!"
"I can't forget. I'll remember it for the rest of my life."
"I'll compensate Sora with a whole box of bear biscuits tomorrow." Anna hurriedly changed the subject. "It feels like Sora's shoulders have gotten much broader, even broader than my dad's."
"People grow up." Sora's steps were steady and his demeanor composed. With his current physical fitness, carrying Anna was even easier than he imagined. "Just like Anna, you're much heavier than when you were little."
Thump~
Anna tilted her small head and gently bumped it against Sora's head. The force wasn't strong; it was more like a kitten acting spoiled:
"I'm already sixteen, it's completely normal to be heavier than when I was little, right?"
"..."
Chatting along the way, the inn unknowingly appeared before them.
"You can get down now." Sora reminded her.
"We're back at the inn already?" Anna widened her beautiful eyes in surprise. "It felt like it took a long time to walk to the convenience store, but coming back felt like an instant... As expected, happy times are always fleeting."
The long street was desolate.
Under the cold streetlights, their shadows quietly stretched out on the ground, mirroring the girl's winding thoughts.
Quietly lifting her eyes to look at Sora's clean, handsome profile, Anna suddenly had an epiphany in her daze... She would never forget the image and memory of this moment.
Human memory is like an ocean. There are always some shells that sparkle brilliantly on the shores of memory, never fading even after many years.
The season of late spring and early summer.
The deserted streets in the early hours of the morning.
And the scent and warmth of the boy she liked.
All of these would remain sparkling in her memory. Even when she grew old and frail, she would still never forget.
So...
She could no longer hold it in...
"Phew—"
Anna took a deep breath, her hands quietly clenching into fists.
These past few days, the Losing Heroine Diary updated with a new entry every day. The content was largely the same—her experiences of having her base stolen by thieving cats and ultimately ending up as a losing heroine.
Aside from complaining every day, Anna also earnestly analyzed her experiences, trying to find the reason why she became a losing heroine. Finally, she made a discovery... In the diary, it seemed she had never actively confessed her feelings.
Wanting to wait until I become a popular beautiful girl author before confessing...
Wanting to wait until Sora finishes making his game and isn't working so hard before confessing...
Wanting to stay by his side silently and let Sora be the one to confess...
However, with the appearance of Mahiru and the others, a strong sense of crisis quietly surged in Anna's heart.
If this continued, she would become a losing heroine before even graduating from university, wouldn't she?
Therefore, she had to be braver, more proactive!
"Sora..."
Anna's hands quietly wrapped tighter around the boy's neck, her courage slowly accumulating in her chest until it reached its peak.
"What is it?"
Sora casually turned his head.
The next second.
A touch of softness and warmth was quietly imprinted on his cheek.
Unfortunately, after merely one second, the softness and warmth quietly vanished, as if everything just now had been a hallucination. Immediately following, the girl's soft, sweet voice, like cotton candy, rang in his ear:
"The moon is beautiful, isn't it?"
"..."
Sora subconsciously looked up at the sky.
The sky was overcast. Only a scattering of stars could be seen; there was completely no moon in sight.
"Heave-ho~"
Anna quickly jumped off his back and flusteredly ran toward the hot spring inn:
"I'm going back to sleep. Goodnight, Sora."
"..."
Sora raised his right hand, his fingertips touching his cheek. A slight dampness from the girl's lips seemed to still linger there. With a subtle mood, he returned to his room.
After a quick shower, Sora lay down to rest. Unfortunately, he couldn't fall asleep at all. His mind kept tossing and turning, filled entirely with images of Anna.
From elementary school to middle school, and then from middle school to high school, because they had always been together, it often made Sora forget that 'Inmate Eight' was actually a quite cute and popular girl.
But precisely because they were too familiar, Sora lacked that heart-pounding feeling.
For example, Sora remembered very clearly that in the winter of their second year of elementary school, Anna caught a cold and was sick. She had a runny nose for quite a while, a standard snot-nosed kid. She often didn't use a tissue to wipe it, but directly snorted the snot back up.
There was also the time Anna believed her delinquent dad's nonsense and curiously ate...
I can't think about it anymore.
If I keep thinking about it, 'Inmate Eight' will completely lose her cuteness!
"Phew..."
Sora exhaled softly, filing today's events deep in his heart under a folder named [Anna's Folder].
Love is not a game.
Relationships require continuous maintenance and effort; a moment of impulse cannot last.
His current goal was very clear: first, create the game, earn money to pay off his aunt's debts, and then earnestly respond to Anna's feelings.
"Sleep, sleep."
Sora closed his eyes, preparing to rest.
Unfortunately, after tossing and turning for quite a while, he still didn't feel any sleepiness.
In a fit of frustration, Sora rolled over, sat up, got out of bed, and started doing push-ups.
"I gained quite a few versatile experience points from helping purify magic power today. I'll just use them to level up my character..." While doing push-ups, Sora checked the game panel in his mind.
"I'm only a few experience points away. Keep exercising."
To do a good job, one must first sharpen one's tools.
After his character leveled up, Sora found that his memory and cognitive abilities had significantly improved. In the same amount of time, grinding skills yielded more experience points, so leveling up his character was definitely not a loss.