"Um… Kai?" Vira hovered over the Oathless's shoulder as he lifted a pack of thirty eggs and laid it gently in his shopping cart. With the amount of eggs he consumed daily, buying a pack this big was necessary if he didn't want to return to the store three times a week. He pulled up the shopping list on his phone to see what was next and sighed, his mind busy with all the things he still had to do tomorrow: work, cook, walk Bella, and—
"Kai!" The tiny godmother pulled his ear.
"Ouch, what?"
"There's danger nearby, can't you feel it?" She pressed her fingers to her star pendant and closed her eyes, as if listening for something, then opened them in alarm and pointed to one of the aisles. "There's a damsel in distress on aisle three!"
"What the hell are you talking about?"
"Go! Quickly!" She zipped around him and pushed him forward. "Hurry up! Before it's too late!"
"Okay, okay, stop pushing me," he left his shopping cart behind and walked hastily toward the aisle. A damsel in distress? He wondered. He had done everything the fairy godmother had demanded of him so far, and she clearly didn't like the idea of him getting with Catherine, so… He reasoned it was just a matter of time before she had to present an alternative and lead him to a chance encounter with the woman of his dreams. Could this be it?
As he turned the corner, he saw a hooded girl, short and round, climbing the shelves and stretching to reach a lone cereal box at the top. She caught it and would have descended without trouble, had Vira's magic not made the shelf unusually slippery, causing her foot to slip.
She fell back, her hands flailing, flinging the cereal box into the air.
Kai rushed in and extended himself forward to catch her.
She landed safely in his arms.
And the cereal box landed cleanly in her shopping cart.
She yelped in a panic and wiggled out of his hold, pressing her back against the shelf.
"Hey, I was just trying to help," he held his hands placatingly. "Are you okay?"
"Erm… yes, I think I'm fine," she said, her voice soft and oddly familiar.
"You know you didn't have to climb up you could have asked one of the workers to help you…" He scanned her up and down, checking if he recognized her, but the black hoodie she wore masked her figure and shrouded her face. Could this really be his dream girl?
"Yes, of course," she bowed down. "I'm sorry, I Purrr-omise I'll be more careful next time."
"You don't have to apologize, I don't—" he paused mid-sentence, his jaw dropping, neurons lighting his brain on fire as the realization struck him. No way, he thought. It's her; it has to be!
Above, Vira crossed her arms and nodded to herself in satisfaction. It took months to orchestrate this meetup, to pull at the strands of fate and bring her to the city at this particular time, to this particular place. But it was all going to be worth it.
"Erm!" The girl noticed her slip-up and jerked up, knocking the hood off her head—revealing her face. Her long dark hair was rough and disheveled, her cheeks were full and round, and a pair of thick glasses sat on her beaked nose, making her eyes bulge.
"You're… Nekoko?" Kai frowned. She looks like an owl.
"Er…" she hesitated, "you know me?"
"I watch your streams a lot."
"R-really?" Her face lit up.
"Yeah, I've been following you since your debut. Been subscribed for at least thirty months."
"Seriously?" She smiled. "What's your username?"
"Ah… I doubt you'll remember…" He blushed and leaned down to whisper. "Mr. 69."
She giggled. "I do remember. You submitted a piece for the fan art event."
"You remember that?" A smile stretched across his face, and a warm feeling filled his chest. "That was years ago."
"I also remember that someone in chat made a joke about how your name is not a euphemism but actually the yin-yang symbol."
They both laughed.
"Everyone called you 'Mr. Yin-yang' for the rest of the stream."
His cheeks hurt from smiling. "Wow, I can't believe you remember that."
"I do whatever I can for my dear customers."
"Right, Purrr-tect and serve."
She laughed. "Purrr-cisely."
He looked over her shoulder at her shopping cart and noticed it was filled with cereal boxes of the same brand. "That's a lot of Stars N' Sparkles."
"Erm… yes, it's emergency food for the next few months. I swear it is not the only thing I eat. I just like to buy in bulk so I don't have to come in as often—I hate leaving the house."
"I can relate… What are you doing here anyway? I thought you lived in a different country."
"About that…" she pulled the hood back over her head. "I'd appreciate it if you kept our meeting to yourself… I'm going to make an announcement soon, and I don't want it to be spoiled."
"Ah," he thought for a moment, then smiled. "I'll keep your secret… for a price."
"Huh?"
"I want a year-long subscription for my silence."
"Don't be ridiculous, a year is way too much!"
"Six-months then."
"I only need you to keep quiet for a week, so I'll give you a month."
"Ah… and here I thought you didn't want your super-secret surprise to be ruined. I guess it isn't that important to you after all."
She groaned. "Ugh… okay, three months, but that's my final offer."
"Agreed," he put his hand forward, and they shook on it.
"Fine, I'll do it as soon as I get home."
"Don't you have your phone with you?" He drew his own phone out of his pocket and dangled it in front of her.
"You want me to do it now?"
"A lot can happen between here and the time you get home, and once you do get home, I won't be able to reach you."
"Ugh…" she groaned again.
"Remember—the customer is always right."
"Fine…" she conceded and took out her phone. "You are a real bully, Mr. 69."
"Shh…" He shrank, his eyes darting left and right. "Don't call me that."
She smirked. "You really screwed me over, Mr. 69!"
"Seriously, someone might hear you, and—"
"You've robbed me of my innocence—"
"Get the wrong idea—"
"I would never be able to trust another man, ever—"
He clasped his hand over her mouth and looked past her with a forced smile. She turned, following his gaze to a pregnant woman leering at them with judging eyes from the end of the aisle.
Nekoko snorted, containing her laughter.
"It's-it's not funny," he said, but he was barely restraining his own smile.
They both held their giggles until the pregnant woman left, then broke.
As they gathered themselves, Kai's phone dinged with a message, notifying him of the received three-month subscription.
"Pleasure doing business with you, Nekoko."
"Ehm," she cleared her throat. "If I find out that this secret you were paid to keep leaked out after all…" She pushed her glasses up her nose. "I'll ban you for life."
The Oathless gulped, and she turned away, pushing her shopping cart down the aisle.
"See you around, dear customer," she waved to him. "Bye-bye, nyan-nyan!"
He let out a soft, appreciative chuckle, then returned to his shopping.
***
"That didn't go quite like I imagined it," Vira said as they returned to the apartment. "I mean, it didn't go badly, exactly, but did you really have to be so rude? Would it have killed you to be a bit more chivalrous?"
"Chivalry doesn't work—women don't want simps, they want men who treat them like trash." Kai bent down to put food in the fridge.
"What? That's ridiculous. Where did you get that idea?"
"Ah… life experience?"
"What are you talking about?"
"There was this girl in high-school… Maria…" He sighed. "We were close… really close, but never as close as I'd have liked… This one time, her boyfriend cheated on her, and she came to cry on my shoulder. I comforted her, told her how amazing she was, how anyone would have been lucky to be with her. I spent the entire night drying her tears, and in the morning she hugged me, told me how thankful she was to have me as a friend…" He finished stacking the shelves and closed the fridge door, then went and sat at his desk. "Then she turned around and got right back together with that douchebag."
Vira smiled sadly. "Sounds like you were a lot kinder back then."
Kai scoffed. "I was an idiot."
She scowled. "Why do you say that?"
"Because it's the truth, I spent all this time being 'kind' to her, and what did it get me?"
"Kindness isn't about getting anything—it's about giving."
"So, I'm supposed to give, give, give, and get nothing in return? Why the hell would I agree to that?"
"... because you are a good person?"
Kai clicked his tongue. "Sounds like simping to me."
The fairy shook her head in frustration. "I don't get it. You spent a whole night helping someone you care about feel better about themselves, and somehow that's a bad thing?"
"She never did the same to me."
"Really?" She zipped in front of him, her hands on her hips. "Did she refuse to return the favor, or did she just refuse to date you?"
Kai pursed his lips.
"I take it back, you weren't kinder back then. In fact, I don't think you ever cared about this girl. You just wanted to sleep with her."
"So what if I did? What's so wrong with that?"
"What's wrong? You portray yourself as some sort of martyr, view yourself as a victim of some great injustice, when the truth is you just failed to manipulate her."
"How is it not an injustice? I was nice to her, while he cheated on her, and she went back to him."
"Maybe he was better at manipulation than you."
"Maybe…" He scowled. "That's why I have to become a better manipulator."
"No, Kai…" she sighed. "That's not how you find true love."
"What if I don't believe in true love?" He lowered his head. "What if I think it's all a power-play of beauty and wealth?"
"Beauty and wealth do matter—that's why I wanted you to get in shape and find a job—but they are not the only things that matter. You have to see that."
He clenched his jaw, going silent, not wanting to commit to a response.
"Women do like kind men, but for kindness to be genuine, it must stand on its own, without the threat of spite or the expectation of reward. If you really care about someone, then helping them and making them happy should be enough to make you satisfied."
"And if they don't care about me the same way?"
She frowned. "Unrequited love… it hurts, I know that, believe me, and I can't say there is one correct answer to it… but there is a wrong one—you cannot allow yourself to become resentful, and you cannot give up on love."
He went silent again, thinking it over, trying to find an excuse or retort that would absolve him of guilt. He had cared about his high-school friend, despite what he told the fairy godmother, but he had also wanted more from their relationship and thought that if he were kind to her, she would feel the same about him. When that didn't work, he had become resentful, not just toward her, but toward all women… and where did that resentment get him? Nowhere, but at least it was better than kindness. At least this way, he didn't get hurt.
"There is a delicate balance between kindness and confidence." Aqwyn appeared on Kai's monitor. "Be too kind, and you might come across as a spineless weakling, but be too confident, and you risk being perceived as a self-centered douche. While confidence might get you more attention, without kindness, you are likely to lose that attention as quickly as you gain it."
Kai narrowed his eyes. "Are you always spying on us?"
"Only when I have free time."
He leaned back in his chair. What Aqwyn said made sense to him, fit within his preconceived worldview: simps were too kind and never got girls because of that, while douchebags could get girls but never kept them for too long.
He grimaced. Douchebags definitely got the better end of that deal.
"I hope you appreciate how difficult it was to set up the meeting between the two of you," the fairy godmother said. "I'm glad you didn't screw it up. It means I get a chance to prepare you for your next fateful meeting."
"Don't bother," he said grimly, his eyes falling on the body pillow printed with the image of Nekoko's VTuber model. Before he had met her, he didn't know what she really looked like, and it was easy for him to associate her personality with the virtual image. She could have been hot or ugly, and until he had seen her, she was both and neither at the same time… a Schrödinger's Cat-girl. But now that he saw what she really looked like, that virtual image felt like a lie. "There'd be no point."
"What?" Vira frowned, her wings folding. "Why?"
"I'm just not attracted to her," he shrugged. In the end, he thought. She really was fat and ugly… Well, not that fat, but definitely ugly.
"Not attracted to her? You curl up with her pillow every night, and you watch all of her streams. I thought you loved her."
"I mean… I like her, yeah," he conceded. "But—"
"She isn't pretty enough for you?" Aqwyn said with distaste.
"I can't control who I am and am not attracted to."
Vira narrowed her eyes at him. "I can't believe you. After all this, you won't even give her a chance?"
"A chance? To do what? Get a nose-job?"
"Beauty fades," Aqwyn said. "And ugliness is something you can get used to over time, but I'm starting to think that your rotten personality will never change!"
Kai clicked his tongue and turned off the monitor.
Vira crossed her arms, her brows furrowing and her lips pursed.
"I'm going to bed, gotta walk Bella early tomorrow morning before work." He went to brush his teeth and apply his lotions, then crawled into his bed. The godmother was still there, her red light flaring with anger.
He felt her gaze on him. "I did everything you told me to," he pulled the blanket over his head, and his hand reached instinctively for the body pillow, but he stopped. "But who I date has to be my choice." He pushed the pillow off the mattress and turned the other way.
Vira's anger was washed away with a sigh. She knew he was right about this, if nothing else… She would have to find someone else for him to love.