It had been three weeks since Mikomi and Serah started dating. Since that initial moment, Mikomi had changed just a little. He had become a bit paranoid about changing anything more than he already had. When Serah told him that her parents had already died, he could only recall Sebastian’s words about how the lives of people could be altered drastically by one simple change. It was apparent that taking a different approach to dating Serah caused her life to change drastically.

In addition, Ryan opted not to jeopardize his friendship with Mikomi. He could only wonder what happened with Ryan and if his life and all the lives associated with him had changed. Fearing a lecture from Sebastian, Mikomi opted not to call out to him to seek answers. Besides, Mikomi knew that Sebastian was constantly watching him from a distance. He probably already knew exactly how he felt and what he was going through. After all, he did tell Sebastian that he would have to protect the world he created but to say that he was having some regrets about changing the world was a gross understatement.

One of Mikomi’s theories was that to change something in the world then something in the world had to be sacrificed. He remembered how Sebastian got rid of a few things in this world as well: The Rutherfords, Janice, and even Mikomi’s memories, and how other lives were changed based on those changes. Every single one of those changes required some sort of sacrifice to take place. Mikomi wondered if the lives of Serah’s parents were the sacrifice required to save her from her loneliness.

Thoughts such as these plagued Mikomi day after day, week after week. Mikomi kept it all to himself, though. There was nobody he could talk to about this except for Sebastian and that wasn’t going to happen any time soon. Mikomi lived day to day shouldering this entire burden himself. He even began to self-reflect on his inability to talk to anyone about these problems and started to understand just how Serah felt growing up. With her parents never around to lend her an ear, all she could do was bottle up her emotions and lock them away inside her heart, much like he was doing now. Even though he was going through something similar, this experience only made him grow to love Serah even more.

The air was getting colder as the seasons began to change. Thanksgiving break was coming up and Mikomi already decided to invite Serah over to his house for dinner. He knew that he, along with his mother and father, was the only ‘family’ Serah had and he wanted her to have a memorable holiday. It was the least he could do after changing her life so much. The thing that hurt him the most was the fact that Serah, herself, had no idea anything about her life had changed. No matter how many changes Mikomi made to the world, anyone and everyone that would be affected would just consider the changes as part of their lives without question. In every case, nobody would even realize that anything had changed. In that sense, he began to think that humans were nothing more than mindless drones.

Mikomi started to develop a level of anxiety whenever he thought about people that way. He couldn’t bring himself to think of humans as mere mindless puppets. That would mean that he had succumbed to having a God complex and he was already warned about what may happen to Sebastian if he were to get too out of control. Mikomi never wanted to play God, he simply wanted to fix his life but the ripple effect was real and it was only after the fact that Mikomi realized just how selfish he had been. Despite this, he decided to continue to hide away those emotions so that everyone could have an enjoyable holiday.

It was the weekend before Thanksgiving and Mikomi’s vacation from school had officially begun. It also marked a string of big events for him because not only was Thanksgiving at the end of the month but his birthday was coming up on December 8th as well. Then Christmas and New Year’s followed, creating one long string of celebrations for him and his family. After talking with Serah over the past few weeks, Mikomi learned that he could add another date that had a cause for celebration as Serah told him her birthday was also in December, but not until the 22nd.

Mikomi was wearing his winter coat as he stood outside Serah’s house. It was similar to that of a trench coat, except made out of fleece. He had a matching hat that covered the top of his head. His medium-length hair poked out from underneath it on the sides. He took a couple of deep breaths as he stood before Serah’s door, his breath wisping away as puffs of smoke in the cold morning air.

Mikomi knocked on the door and Serah answered with a smile on her face. Her personality had changed over the past few weeks as that shyness began to wear off. This relationship with him was beginning to bestow a great deal of confidence in her and for the first time in a long time, she felt truly happy.

After being invited in, he took a seat next to her on the couch and the two of them began to have a nice long chat. He learned many things about her… some he already knew and some that he was learning for the first time. He learned how her parents had traveled the world as consultants, helping people establish new companies before moving on to the next… similar to what they did for a living in the original timeline.

What Mikomi didn’t know was that they made a tremendous amount of money and had set up an account to which Serah had access. Should the day come when they passed on, the account was to be turned over in Serah’s name. She wasn’t set for life; however, the amount of money she had would allow her to live comfortably for a while. Since they had passed, she now had access to all of that saved money.

She only told Mikomi because it would have been an eventuality that he would find out. Even after learning of this, Mikomi treated Serah no differently. To him, she was still the same Serah and always would be. She had also told Mikomi that she didn’t intend to just coast through life on her parent’s money. She had a dream of becoming an artist one day and even entertained the thought of taking art classes after school. She never went through with it as she never really had the confidence to see it through. Instead, she opted to come straight home where she would lock herself up in her house and play video games all day. Mikomi could only laugh internally when she told him that because it sounded like a mirror image of himself.

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As the conversation went on, he decided that the ice had been broken enough for him to ask about her plans for Thanksgiving.

“Hey Serah, what do you usually do for Thanksgiving dinner?”

Serah sat there for a moment, putting her finger on the cleft of her chin as if she were thinking about what she did year after year. She then shrugged and offered a rather paltry answer, one that Mikomi half expected, but didn’t want to hear.

“I just kind of sit here and eat a turkey sandwich. I can’t cook that well but at least I have turkey! I know, sad, right?”

“Well, you’re more than welcome to have dinner at our house this year. I’m sure my family would love to have you and so would I.”

“A real Thanksgiving dinner? Like.. with real turkey and potatoes and biscuits and stuffing and cranberry sauce and… and… TURKEY?”

Mikomi laughed but Serah didn’t think her reaction was all that funny. She gave him a punishment chop over the head for it. Mikomi rubbed the spot where it had connected but he still had a slight smirk on his face as he found her reaction kind of cute. Still, it was quite sad that she hadn’t had a real Thanksgiving meal in quite some time. He saw this as a great opportunity to treat her to one.

“Sorry for laughing but yeah… it’ll have all of that and then some. My mom always makes a huge meal and it’s the one day of the year we just completely throw our diets out the window… especially my father. There’s going to be PLENTY of food so if you want to come over and gorge with the rest of us, I’d love for you to.”

“Well, since you put it so eloquently… how could I pass this up?”

Mikomi smiled as he was genuinely happy that Serah took him up on his offer. Just hearing her response was a testament to how much she had changed recently and it was one of the things that made him happy. He realized that this would be his first Thanksgiving with Serah because even though they dated throughout high school in the original timeline, Serah’s mentality was very different. She always spent Thanksgiving and all other holidays alone at her house and specifically told Mikomi not to bother her. He loved her so he always granted her wish every year but here in this timeline, things were much different. The joy he got from knowing how special this holiday would be almost made him forget the pain he had been putting himself through these past few weeks.

The two of them had spent every day that week together doing miscellaneous things. One of which involved going to the mall with Ryan tagging along. The three of them stopped by Game Lot and discussed some of the titles that had recently come out. Mikomi found himself in a position where he had to keep his mouth shut because he knew of these titles already and had beaten most of them. He saw Ryan and Serah talking about the latest RPG to come out, Shadow Wing. Seeing them go back and forth over it made him quite happy. Even though they were getting along in this timeline, he could only recall how things went in the original. This made watching them interact a bittersweet moment for him.

Even though things were going okay, there was still that nagging feeling in the back of his head about the lives he altered just for his happiness. Those thoughts weighed heavy but in hindsight, there wasn’t anything he could do about them now. The only thing he could do was press forward and see what else was in store for him. Still, with every step he took, he braced himself in case something else had changed. It was that feeling of walking on eggshells that were the root of his depression.

Thanksgiving had finally arrived. Serah showed up around 10 AM, not because she didn’t want to avoid being too early but because she had spent a good deal of the night playing the new Shadow Wing RPG that came out, and she kind of overslept. Serah didn’t feel all too bad about it since Mikomi was still sleeping when she arrived. He had picked up a copy of the game and stayed up for a good portion of the night playing it as well. Even Ryan bought one as there was no way the three of them were going to leave Game Lot without a copy of the game.

Serah stood in the doorway and gazed at how peaceful Mikomi looked asleep. She decided to explore her newfound personality and a grin came over her face as she intended to rile him up a little bit. She approached his bed and slowly, yet gently, lifted his covers to not disturb him. She then slid underneath them and crawled up on top of him. This caused Mikomi to wake up instantly but when he did, all he could see was this massive lump on top of him. Mikomi lifted the sheet covers and Serah popped her head out and yelled ‘BOO.’ Mikomi nearly had a heart attack as he could hear his mother and father laughing in the other room.

“This isn’t funny!” yelled Mikomi loud enough for his parents to hear.

Despite being a bit peeved, he kissed Serah and then sat up in bed. After all, it’s not every day you get to be woken up by a beautiful girl that decided to crawl into the same bed as you. Mikomi’s face was a little red around the cheeks as he realized that for a brief moment, they were in the same bed together. She glanced over to her left and saw Mikomi’s console sitting there on the floor with a certain game stuck in it. She could only laugh as they knew they had done the same exact thing last night. She looked back at him and needed to know something.

“So how far did you get in Shadow Wing last night?”

“I leveled Stacatto up to 25 and earned my freelance knight title. I saved right before I was about to be sent out on my first mission. How about you?”

“I completed the first three missions. My Stacatto is level 37.”

“Level 37 in just one night!? H-how!? You’re like... Almost to the part where you meet up with Mattock!”

“Who’s Mattock?”

“You know... The person who leads Stacatto on the main quest to find the Shadow Wing blade!”

Mikomi covered his mouth as he realized that he just said something about a part of the game that neither of them reached yet. In his groggy state, his mind wasn’t thinking clearly and he ended up blurting out something that he shouldn’t have said. Mikomi had beaten this game so many times in the original timeline so his knowledge of the title was second to none in this world but in his freshly awoken state, he completely forgot that he wasn’t supposed to know any of this yet and ended up backing himself into a corner.