Time in the daycare could be classified under one word, ‘boring’. After nearly two hours of ‘playing’ in the corner of the room, Page felt like he was going to go insane! Shortly after his encounter with Miss Dawn and Julie, Page tactfully separated himself from the rest of the group, isolating himself in the corner of the room.

Many of the children were playing with blocks, toy cars, or dolls. None of those interested Page! He wanted to play video games, or at least watch anime! However, the daycare had neither of these things! For him, it was like being in prison.

After only twenty minutes of waiting, Page was severely regretting his choice. Not only was his childhood life incredibly boring, he had no choice over how he spent his days. Back when he was a good-for-nothing living in his bedroom, he could browse the internet all day long. If he needed money to buy new games, he could do translation work or draw images of furries. Right now, he couldn’t do any of that!

After nearly two hours, Page felt like he was about to go postal! Firstly, the children were so annoying! They yelled and screamed at every little thing. At one point, a small bug ran across the floor, to which everyone stood up and screamed. Only Page and a nerdy bug-enthusiast kept their cool. Even Miss Dawn yelped when she saw it!

Secondly, Page tried to pass the time by drawing Sakura-chan, but all he had access to were crayons and construction paper! To make it worse, the construction paper was either green, blue, yellow, brown, or red colored! Sakura-chan’s milky-white complexion couldn’t be accurately represented on those backgrounds! The selection of crayon colors wasn’t any better. Page couldn’t do anything but make a mockery of Sakura-chan!

Instead, just so that he was doing something, Page drew several landscapes. First, he drew an open field on a sheet of green construction paper. By using green crayons on the green paper, he succeeded in giving depth to the rolling hills, and even added a few trees with brown crayons! Indeed, after only a few minutes, Page had made a true work of art!

‘This must be because of my Artistry stat!’ Page thought, gazing at his completed drawing.

Next, Page drew a sunset. Using a sheet of blue construction paper, he colored with red, yellow, and orange crayons to make the perfect image of the sun setting over a body of water. With a blue crayon, Page made beautiful waves, making the scene look as if it was alive!

At some point, before Page knew it, a small gathering was made around him!

“That’s a really good drawing!” Miss Dawn said and picked up the drawing of the field. “You’re a really good drawer!”

“Ha, I’m not that great,” Page chuffed, slightly blushing.

He had gotten praise from that pretty woman, and he savored it! While Page didn’t give two hoots what the children around him thought, Miss Dawn’s opinion was worth her weight in gold! That means… It’s worth a lot! Deep inside, Page wanted to secretly snap a picture of Miss Dawn with his cellphone. Too bad he didn’t have one.

“This one is really good, too!” Miss Dawn put the drawing of the field to the side and placed her fingers on the drawing of the sunset and spoke. “These are both really good drawings!”

“Miss Dawn, you flatter me too much,” Page said, letting go of the drawing and putting both hands on his cheeks.

He was blushing a lot! Each compliment hit him like a missile straight from a submarine, a direct hit! Super effective! At this rate, Page would completely fall for Miss Dawn. Without Sakura-chan’s poster on Page’s wall, he might quickly forget about her!

“I’m back!” An old hag said from the entryway of the daycare.

“Oh, Miss Lisa is back,” Miss Dawn said, dropping Page’s drawing. “Welcome back, Miss Lisa.”

Curses! Some random old lady arrived at the daycare, and now Miss Dawn’s attention had been taken away from Page! Whoever this ‘Miss Lisa’ was, she deserved to be staked! Let her feel the wrath of a Lv. 247 Magician, Page Durand!

“Do you need help with those?” Miss Dawn asked the old hag. In the old hag’s hands, there were two grocery bags, which filled to the brim with small boxes.

“Yes,” The old hag replied and passed the bags off to Miss Dawn. The wench, making Miss Dawn carry her load! “Take them into the crafts room and set up for pasta art.”

“Alright,” Miss Dawn said and exited the room with the bags.

Page felt angry! His magnificent Miss Dawn had been replaced by an ugly old hag! She wore an ugly brown sweater and ugly tan pants, and her gray hair was put into an ugly bun. Everything about her was ugly! Miss Lisa… you’ll be remembered as an ugly old hag!

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“Everyone start cleaning up,” The old hag clapped her hands and said. “We’ll be doing pasta art in a few minutes.”

The children around him started cleaning up, hurriedly putting their toys back where they got them from. However, for many of the children, they just put the toy in the general location of where they got them from. They wanted to do pasta art! For them, it was equivalent to going to an amusement park.

Their parents didn’t like it when try tried to make pasta art at home, but Miss Lisa and Miss Dawn encouraged them to do it at the daycare. The only one who didn’t want to do pasta art was… Of course, it was Page! Pasta art? Boring, with a capital ‘b’! It had taken him more than an hour to get accustomed to drawing on construction paper with crayons, and now it was about to be taken away from him! This was outrageous!

“Page, you too,” The old hag said to him, noticing him not cleaning up his paper or crayons.

“I don’t want to do pasta art,” Page stated.

“Everyone has to do it,” The old had said, walking toward Page. “Don’t you want to have fun with everyone else?”

Fun? Of course Page wanted to have fun, but their definition of fun was completely different! To the old hag and the children, it was pasta art. To Page, it was playing a visual novel or a gal game! If only he could have a laptop with Honey Honey Super Sweet Life loaded onto it, then he’d never be bored!

“No!” Page vehemently declared. “You have a TV and radio in the other room. Let me play with those!”

“You can’t,” Miss Lisa said, ruffling Page’s hair. “Those are only for me and Miss Dawn. If you want, you can make a TV with pasta.”

Page wanted to curse at the woman! He knew that making a television out of pasta was impossible. Just what kind of game was the old hag trying to play? ‘Make a TV with pasta’ she said. What a load of crap! An ordinary five-year-old might have been tricked by this ruse, but not Page! He saw right through it!

“I’m ready!” Suddenly, the cheerful voice of a goddess rang through the room! It was Miss Dawn!

“Good, good,” The old hag turned away from Page and said. “Everyone, hurry up and finishing cleaning! Once everything is clean, we will move to the other room!”

The children hurriedly cleaned, much faster than before! Their time for pasta art, a time they held dear, was coming close! Even Page’s pile of art supplies was cleaned up for him, with his drawing being thrown in the trash can. Oh well, he didn’t want them. In fact, the only person who could have wanted them was Miss Dawn, but she already forgot about them! It was all that old hag’s fault!

‘I’ll just have to impress my beauty with another creation,’ Page resolved himself and followed the other children into the other room.

“Everyone take a seat at a table,” Miss Lisa spoke as a rush of kids ran past her. “You’ll have to share glue and plates of pasta, so spread out.”

Inside the other room, four large tables had been placed into two rows. On the tops of the tables, there were plastic tubs, plates of various types of pasta, and several bottles of glue placed throughout. Just inside the doorway, Miss Dawn was standing, handing out paper to the children who entered.

Page took a sheet of white paper from Miss Dawn, then sat in the furthest corner of the room. He was among the last to enter the room, so there weren’t many seats open to him in the first place, so he was lucky to get the exact spot he wanted. Most of the children had sat at the front of the room, immediately after entering. For Page, he chose this strategic location for two reasons. Firstly, so he wouldn’t be sucked into any conversations with the children. Secondly, so he could watch Miss Dawn wherever she went!

After a few minutes, the normality of pasta art set in. The children were busy drawing their outlines on their papers or gluing pieces of pasta in random locations. None of them had any artistic sense! However, for Page, artistic sense was what he made more than anything of!

He didn’t need to make any outlines on his paper. Rather, he quickly began placing down pasta. With a combination of spaghetti, angel hair, and fettuccine, Page skillfully constructed the lattice structure of a large building! As fast as the glue would dry, he was making a famous French landmark!

“Wow, what are you making?” Just as Page planned, Miss Dawn came to him and asked this question!

“It’s the Eiffel Tower,” Page replied, holding two pieces of spaghetti in place.

Around him, nobody had even tried to make a 3D sculpture! Faces, pets, and random shapes were the favorite among the children! Compared to Page’s, which stood several inches off the table, they might as well be 2D!

“It’s really good!” Miss Dawn exclaimed!

“What is this?” The old hag had finally noticed and was coming Page’s way. “It’s some kind of tower.”

“It’s the Eiffel Tower,” Page replied, begrudgingly.

He didn’t want praise from the old hag, he wanted it from Miss Dawn! For every second that the old hag was speaking, it was a second that Miss Dawn couldn’t!

“Really, really,” Julie came walking over on the other side of the table.

As soon as she got close enough… She grabbed Page’s tower! Her tiny hands wrapped partially around the pasta tower, and the poorly-glued noodles stood no chance against her grip! She closed her hand, and the tower came toppling down. First, the joints around Julie’s hand came apart, then the other joins broke, too. It was an avalanching effect!

“No!” Page shouted. Right in front of him, his creation was destroyed!

“Aw, it broke,” Miss Dawn said, dejected.

‘Hey, don’t say that like it couldn’t be helped!’ Page wanted to yell.

Miss Dawn talked like the tower came down on its own, but that wasn’t how it happened! That little kid, Julie, had taken it out with his fist! According to Miss Dawn, there wasn’t any blame to be placed for the destruction of the tower, but that wasn’t true! It was 100% Julie’s fault!

“Don’t worry, you can make another one,” Miss Dawn said and patted Page’s back.

‘Anything for you, my goddess!’ Page started work on another Eiffel tower as he thought this.