Chapter 13: Son, do your best!
After dinner, Kaede rested for a while, took a shower, and returned to his room, preparing to play games.
As soon as he entered, he saw his phone flashing.
Picking it up and lighting the screen, he saw it was a LINE message from Eriri.
After joining the Art Club, at the suggestion of the president, everyone in the Art Club exchanged contact information, so Kaede naturally had Eriri's LINE ID.
Opening the message, Kaede understood what Eriri wanted to say.
[You must have finished your homework, right? Get online, let's play!]
Having finally found a like-minded person who was also from the same school and the same club, and who wouldn't expose her identity, Eriri was still excited from the time they parted until she got home. After resting for a while after dinner, she immediately messaged Kaede.
However, after waiting for more than ten minutes, the message was still unread, which made Eriri a bit depressed.
Seeing Eriri's message, Kaede didn't object and happily replied.
[Sorry, I was just showering and just saw the message. Wait a moment, I'll be online soon.]
Since he was going to play games, and with someone else at that, he needed to prepare his supplies first.
Holding his phone and asking Eriri what she planned to play, Kaede went downstairs.
After getting a bottle of cola and two bags of potato chips from the kitchen refrigerator, Kaede walked upstairs under the watchful eyes of his parents, still tapping away on his phone.
After watching her son go up, Asakura Reiko came to her husband and whispered: "Honey, the way our son has been since he came home this afternoon seems a little strange."
"There is something, but I think he's fine."
Nodding, Asakura Kiichi wasn't too worried. "Kaede is a very mature child, and if something serious happened, he wouldn't hide it from us, right?"
"That's true, but I'm still curious." Asakura Reiko said, "And remember, Kaede said he was busy at the Bunko until two in the afternoon, but he didn't come home until after five. Do you think he was alone outside during the rest of that time?"
"I don't know. Are you suggesting..."
Asakura Reiko looked curious: "Exactly, there must be something suspicious going on. I'm going to investigate the situation now."
Similar things had happened many times over the past few years, but they were never about their son dating.
Asakura Kiichi didn't try to stop his wife, smiling as he said: "Well, be careful not to get caught."
After giving her husband an OK gesture, Asakura Reiko walked upstairs with light steps.
In his bedroom, after bringing his things in, Kaede opened the cola and took a sip, plugged in his earphones, and answered the voice call from Eriri.
"You play more varied games than I thought. You even play Monster Hunter?"
He then turned on the TV and PS4 Pro in his bedroom and sat down on his beanbag chair.
On the other side, Eriri, who was at her own home, was in a similar state to Kaede. Wearing a nightgown and sitting "duck style" in front of her bedroom TV, she happily added Kaede as a PSN friend.
"Hmph hmph hmph, I play a lot of games. The only ones I'm probably not good at are those MOBA competitive games."
"DOTA?"
"Exactly. Whether it's DOTA or LOL, I'm not very good at them. After messing up a few matches for people, I deleted the games." Recalling the times she tried MOBA games, Eriri felt quite helpless. "I really have no talent for them. On the computer, I ended up only being able to play GAL games or simulation management games."
"Mmm, that's understandable. After all, these games are quite selective. They're easy to start, but playing them well requires a lot of practice, and there are many hero characters. Even if you only play one position, you still need to practice more than one hero."
While discussing, Kaede also joined the gathering hall that Eriri had opened.
Eriri spotted Kaede's character and asked before he entered the gathering area, "Warrior of Light? Why did you pick that name?"
"Oh, you'll know when you see it in a moment. Ah, we've arrived."
As soon as she entered, Eriri froze when she saw the character suddenly appear before her, carrying a greatsword on his back, and then she couldn't help but burst out laughing.
"Hahaha, what is that? Wh—Why is your head glowing!!!"
In Eriri's view, the rest of the game character looked normal, and the gear was top-notch, but when the helmet wasn't displayed, it revealed a large, white, glowing head emitting a gentle light, like an incandescent bulb.
And not only that, but the character also had a mohawk haircut.
Comparing him to Eriri's own cute female character, it instantly felt like they were characters from two different worlds.
"Pfft... Hahahaha, I c—I can't stop... Warrior... Warrior of Light, is that the reason? Hahahahaha~~~~~~"
Listening to Eriri's clear but non-stop laughter, Kaede couldn't help but smile. He had created the character like this specifically for this effect, and it seemed to have worked quite well.
After Eriri had laughed for a good while, he finally said, "Are you done laughing? It's time to start playing."
"Mhm... I need a drink of water..."
After picking up the cup beside her and taking a sip, Eriri looked at Kaede's character and nearly burst out laughing again.
"Can... can you display your helmet? I can't play properly like this!"
"I didn't realize Sawamura-san's sense of humor was so weak."
"It's not weak!"
Eriri was quite insistent about her sense of humor and immediately retorted, "I was just caught off guard! Plus, your head really is hilarious, and I couldn't recover immediately! So hurry up and put the helmet on!"
"Alright, alright, I'll change it now."
Having no choice, Kaede went into the settings and displayed the helmet.
As soon as the helmet was put on, the look instantly changed. The glowing head was covered, but light still shone through the eye slits of the helmet, making him look incredibly cool.
"Huh! You can do that? That's so cool!"
Controlling her character to approach Kaede, Eriri looked left and right in surprise. "Should I try to make one too? How did you do that?"
"When you change your hairstyle in the room, you just maximize the face paint setting, cover the entire head, and then max out the brightness. You can do more than just white light like mine; gold light, green light, whatever."
While explaining, Kaede looked at Eriri's character and said, "But the character you created is already very cute, so don't ruin her. Alright, accept the quest, and let's start quickly."
Kaede was happily playing the game, while outside the bedroom, his mother, Asakura Reiko, was pressed against the door, straining to listen.
Unfortunately, the room was well soundproofed, and she could only faintly make out a few words like "sense of humor" and "cute."
Although she didn't catch everything, Asakura Reiko still guessed that her son was chatting with a girl.
Clenching her fists, she silently cheered in her heart, "Even though I don't know what kind of girl she is, son, you can do it!"