"Don't tell me there's also someone fetching us?" Rin asked right as we stepped inside the airport.

"No, no. That's too much of a stretch at this point…"

Now knowing that, we made our way to a vending machine in the arrival lobby that has data SIM cards because we forgot to order in advance and got two of them with unlimited data for a month at a discounted price. Thank goodness I loaded enough money on my Psuica card. Meanwhile, I just withdrew a little bit in Yen to give us a head start and headed to the airport's station.

The last time I was in Tokyo was when I attended Kaizo and Ichika-san's wedding, and man did I forget how insanely packed the city can be. It's so different from the denseness that the Capital has, and no way does our capital city have as much transit network as Tokyo.

In reality, Capital's transportation is still very reliant on cars rather than trains. As for our bullet trains, Cotona just happened to be close to the center of things while one of the few lines are only connected to major Orion cities.

Once we got to the first major station, we had to switch lines towards the city center where our place to stay is situated.

"**Wow, your Japanese is great!"

"**Thank you very much…"

And there it is, my first 'nihongo jouzu' in years. I had to ask around the neighborhood since our GPS is somewhat failing us. But memes aside, it really helps that Rin and I speak and understand enough to properly converse with the locals and things were smoothed out quickly.

"**Hello, this is Sakato. Yes. Thank you very much. We have arrived in the place. May I know the pin for the lock box?

**Yes, it opened. As per instructed, I will be sending additional proof of check-in. Thank you very much for having us."

I'm not really sure if it is common to have contactless check-in on a Windbnb in Japan, but at least the process is not complicated, thus we have secured a home in the city for a week.

"Sweet apple pie, how did you find a place this nice, Potato?!"

"'They', I should say. The people who covered our flight and this place are the same. Like I told you, I'll tell you the truth at some point. But well, we got ourselves a nice place.

I'm not one to guess the size of a house in square meters the moment I see it, but I would say that it is a decent size for two people. It is a fully furnished house with two floors, a nice kitchen, has a bath that is enough to fit myself as I am a giant compared here, and it also has something that made me realize I have never bought for my own house all these years—a Japanese bidet.

After having a quick tour of the house and taking pictures to be sent to our host, we turned on the essential appliances and finally got to rest on the couches after getting our luggage in.

"I think I get it now."

I flinched as Rin suddenly started.

"Get what…?"

"Someone paid for our plane tickets, and nice ones at that, along with getting us sorted with a similarly nice lodging… which in total would cost quite a looooot in Yen. There's probably a company that sponsored a bit of this trip… and you are under NDA, aren't you, Nina-san~?"

Needless to say, I was sweating profusely.

"You're full of yourself, Rin-chan."

"Oh, well! Nothing I can do about it, hypothetically.

It's fun to call you Nina, huh."

"Did I just suddenly get a new nickname? It sounds like a girl's name, though.

I wonder how would you react if I suddenly turn into a girl?"

"You would probably look cute. But I'd probably prefer it if you're shorter than me, has a nice black hair that extends to your back but tied loosely and resting on your shoulder… would you have a big chest?"

"Don't make me answer that."

"Medium it is, then! Probably the same size as mine just for convenience!"

As much as I am relieved that she's comfortable enough to talk with me about these things (and I probably have to get used to this), sometimes she catches me off my guard…

"And then… And then… I will call you Nina-chan… Heheheh…"

She sounds like an ojisan, but in reality, it's obvious from her face that she is in bliss with whatever fantasy she is concocting inside her mind. Reina, I am very sorry if by chance you see this. She's probably thinking about how she will dress me- dress the female version of myself—Nina, do her hair, paint her nails, and whatever things women do together.

Well… a part of me wants to see Rin draw the version of me, but I will keep that to myself for the time being.

"Oh, right, what should we do with food, Rin? Or are you tired?"

"I still have some energy to walk around. Maybe we should eat out?"

This is Japan, after all. We may be at the center of a residential part of Tokyo, but opening the maps app on my phone immediately bombarded me with restaurants near our place.

"There's a katsu shop ten minutes away from here if we walk. It has some good reviews."

"Let's go with anything for now, I guess? I also want to stop by a konbini when we go back later, and then I'll maybe catch some Z's."

"We'll go there for lunch then. I'm thinking we should just get takeout at a curry place later and then we'll plan the week at dinner. Sounds good?"

"Yeeeeep.

Aaaahhhh… It's so nice and cool here…"

"That didn't occur to me, huh…"

I still don't get how drastic the temperatures between Orio and Japan can be even with how close our land masses are. It is currently around noon which makes the temperature here at around 25°C, while at the same time in Orio, it would probably be 34°C with a heat index of 42. I'm not going to pretend I know why that's the case, especially with the recent changes in seasonal patterns, but I think I at least know that it has something to do with wind currents… and that's about what my dumb brain has to offer.

What's important is that we have escaped summer… for a little while.

The "cold" 25 degrees was very much pleasant to our skin as we headed out for a little stroll to the katsu restaurant I found around the blocks. Upon greeting and sitting to our table as we entered the shop, the reverberating voice of a Japanese man greeting back at us immediately tells us at that the restaurant indeed has an open kitchen. What immediately hit our nose was the smell of the oil used for frying along with the pork, and the fragrance of the sauce within the small premises with a few tables occupied.

From the corner of my eyes, I saw a small TV playing a feed of an extremely crowded place as the waiter approaches us.

"**Golden Week was rough, isn't it?" out of curiosity, I started a conversation.

"**Yes… I also went on vacation and… it was so hard to get a ticket for a shinkansen!"

"**It must be rough…"

"**Are you two coming from work?"

"**Ah, no. We're actually Oriojin (Orions). We just arrived here this morning."

"**Ohh! Your Japanese is good!"

That's number two.

So it seems it was really a good idea to come here after the Golden Week, as it's probably not the best time for tourists when the country is basically taking a holiday as reflected from the video in the TV.

But regardless, we partook on our first meal back in the country with unbelievably juicy tonkatsu and headed out to do some shopping while also doing some initial exploring around the neighborhood. Truly, Japan has a very different vibe compared to Orio, and we haven't even scratched the surface as we have never even seen Tokyo's nightlife which we were raring to see.

Still, it feels weird that I am in a different place with weights off my shoulders, at least for a while, and… just living like a normal person? It hasn't even been 24 hours since we got here and it already made me realize how much thinking I do back at home, especially coming from a situation where our entire families were in a very challenging spot with stress getting the better of us.

I feel like for the first time in 18 years, I am finally able to relax.

With majority of our shopping done for our week-long stay in the city, we immediately hurried back home as fatigue began to creep up on us—not being used even with short flights, and all. For the time being, we just went to our separate rooms to do our own matters, and for Rin to apparently take a nap while I just checked my bags and the devices I brought with me, and just let the gravity lead me down to the bed…

To which I wept, as though the light feeling in me also made my restraints loose and let out any remaining feelings I had over the past months. Lo and behold, my mind and body felt so much lighter after waking up from a 15-minute doze.

~ ~ ~

"…Yeaaahh—let's not make the schedule hard on ourselves, Potato."

"We'll just take it lightly, I guess. We should just prioritize the ones we really want to go to, then we'll have to agree if there will be places that we will miss."

"Let's go with that then. We already almost forgot this is a trip solely for both of us, haha."

"I guess… I'm not really used to traveling so my brain either goes the laid-back route or overthink things. There's really no in-between…"

"With that out of the way…!" the apple got a huge stretch out, "I guess we can just take it easy for the rest of the night…"

"Man…that curry is heavenly…"

With the thought of nothing to do for the rest of the day, I leaned back to the couch, spaced out for a few moments, and reluctantly got up and walked towards the fridge bringing out two cans of beer on my hands… which I handed one to Rin with my pulse somehow racing.

"You sure about this?"

"I already told you Mom and Dad is okay with it. I don't even know if I'll like it, you know."

"I'd be lying if I told I wasn't worried if you somehow got influenced by Sora and Kyo, aka two alcohol pumps."

"Pumps…! Ahahaha… that's accurate!

But no. I just think that this calls for celebration and not some kind of FOMO, okay?"

"…"

Frankly, I was anxious, but perhaps also a little overprotective. A small part of me thinks that something might happen to her as she just got out of hospitalization, but I was still almost certain that she would be fine, aside from not really knowing what her tolerance would be like.

But the cans have popped with the classic, satisfying sound that it makes. I resolved to just let go of my reservations once a clank sounded from the two tins briefly colliding. I watched both of her hands clutch on the chilled can as she slowly raises it to her lips.

"How was it?"

Her eyes squinted with a little bit of twitch from them.

"…Huh. It's… okay, I guess?"

"The bitterness put you off a bit, didn't you?"

"Yeah. Of all the people I know you're probably the one that hates bitter stuff the most, but you can drink this? Are they all like this?"

"Beers, I guess. So what's the verdict?"

She took a pause for a little while and suddenly looked at the can, then at me.

"Didn't people say Sap*oro is one of the best here or something?"

"That's why that's the one I got. Let me guess, you prefer the sweet taste?"

"Yeah…? Did you make me start with a good one?"

"Even I don't like some flavors. I like ones that go down easily.

Now that I think about it, we should have had this when we were still eating."

"Next time, maybe?"

"So you don't mind it."

"Yup."

"Uh, congrats, I guess."

▪ ▪ ▪

May 10.

Yes, a day got skipped as we did not really do anything aside from just walking around the city and exploring various malls to see if there is anything interesting. We also looked around and passed through several shopping districts and wet markets to see what kind of raw ingredients they sell here. As much as I wanted to splurge on high quality fish, I couldn't as we really only planned on eating out for the rest of the time we will be in Tokyo, as we will be going down to Kyoto where we will have to take care of our own food for the next two weeks. Still, it gave us a perspective on how we will be living here in contrast to how we did shopping for Giotto's North as it was for work.

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

But in the two days we are here, perhaps the best decision we've made is opting to eat on restaurants that are family owned and not easily found. This country really is a treasure trove of food, and I'm loving every bite of it.

It made me think that it wasn't a bad idea to actually go live in this country even if I don't know if I will actually be able to, until I remember that I am Japanese and Grandpa Kinrou has some relatives here. Well, it's just a thought that's probably going to be up in the air for a while, and it's not really that simple to decide as my life is still in Orio where I can't just simply leave a lot of things there, and I still know too little of the culture to even think of settling in. And besides, I have no plans on using the goodwill that Yohan gave us for something like this.

"Alright, I'll head out now, Rin. Let's meet as scheduled at this station then we head to the Skytree."

"Sounds good. Take care."

Dressed with a semiformal attire, I headed out alone towards the real hustle and bustle of Tokyo where I will be towered over by skyscrapers.

Sometimes, Rin can be very sharp. She had her suspicions about our arrival flight and how easily we got a place of stay in this dense concrete jungle, but she never asked or bugged me beyond that. I have never really confirmed anything with her, but me suddenly going out well-dressed is probably a dead giveaway already… but let's leave it at that.

In the end, I will be thinking about work for about four hours out of the three weeks we will be here, but that's fine. Whatever the frick I am doing will probably be out in the open soon enough.

…

That aside, the view from the Skytree was amazing. My shaking legs notwithstanding because of the height, I was able to snag a reservation at one of the restaurants in the tower and had a dinner date with a view of stippled lights from beneath.

And as we descended, we got the prime opportunity to see the city in its glory towards Shibuya. It is night, but everything is so bright with all the lights wherever you look at, entrancing you with a myriad of colors as you walk astonished between people. Having found a good spot, we were able to sit down amidst the busyness of the city and I managed to capture the moment with a proper camera while resting.

"Here," from the vending machine, Rin handed out a bottle of hot mocha and sat back beside me shoulder to shoulder.

"Thanks."

"You should have brought another layer."

"Yeah, that's my bad. I thought a blazer would cut it. I still haven't learned my lesson when temperature drops like this."

"You think after six years we'll already be used to the cold, but the tropical Orion in us still hasn't adjusted."

"Let's go home."

"So you can't take it anymore, ahahaha."

"Shut."

And what do you know, the Shibuya Meltdown we keep seeing all around social media is actually real.

~ ~ ~

"I wonder how cold it is in Hokkaido right now."

"Um, Rin-san, I'm afraid we don't have the budget for that."

"I was just wondering, you idiot."

It has only been three days and it has already become a constant that we get home in the evening with our energy all spent. It's finally coming back to me that while I pretty much don't tire out easily, it's a different matter mentally, especially when you're constantly adjusting yourself to the culture, the language, and that you're around different people all day. At the end of the day, we're the odd ones out even if we don't exactly look like it.

Thus, with each of our own mental and physical strains, it has been a regular occurrence to see ourselves warming up to this temporary home.

"Maybe next time we can go there."

"Well, I'm not sure when that will be."

"Don't decide that for yourself, Potato. I want to bring Mom and Dad plus one in there some time, but maybe not in the winter."

"So I am the plus one?"

"Uh, maybe not just a plus one at that point, but I'll leave that up to you."

"Now everything just seems like a formality when you put it that way. Cut me some slack, ma'am…

I'm gonna go sleep…"

"Goodnight~"

▪ ▪ ▪

May 11th.

I guess today's the day we fulfill our dreams- I'm not even done with the sentence and I already feel the cringe.

Let's just get this out of the way—we're not that much of a weeb, or at least we've dialed it down. I can vaguely remember throwing references left, right, and center in high school and mostly at the wrong place and wrong time which makes that past a lot more embarrassing.

Our collective owned figurine count is zero, but the art we both own is a different story. As for Rin, most of the posters she owns were from ManCons, ONrio, and other conventions that we attended. Meanwhile, when I started watching virtual streamers, I got exposed to illustrators rather than just manga artists, which made my print collection quite large now. Still, I am quite picky with what art I purchase as they range from mostly landscapes, drawings from anime style illustrators that utilizes oil painting techniques, and character illustrations that gave me goosebumps when I looked at them. I'm not really one to buy mostly character-centered drawings, but when I do, they would be ones that give life to the white walls of my room.

And that is the intent of today's trip to Akihabara.

As expected, the daylight gives the extra colorful district even more vibrance. The place is brimming with intellectual property that I most likely can't mention here, but it definitely feels different to be here than just seeing the area from intangible pixels.

But while the two of us do not know where to start, one idea that came to us was to hunt for shikishi boards that has the signature of artists that we follow and taking pictures of them if allowed. The search then lead to a domino effect of going to stores where we found potential things that we wanted to buy from.

"Giiin, come here for a sec."

"Just a bit. Why is the autofocus suddenly so wack…"

"Is that more important than the plushie you missed out on?"

I have never turned my head faster.

You see, I involve myself anonymously to some communities when I have free time, and that's how I keep myself up to date with references in memes. In terms of Yololive, there is one meme that really shook me, and it involves one specific merchandise that lives in my head rent-free…

And it is right in front of my eyes.

There is this one Witter user that made a series of videos about this certain comet vtuber plushie trying to kill him with a knife, and weirdly, that made me want to own one… but the stocks were very limited and I obviously wasn't able to get one myself.

Yet, it's blue, two-toned eyes are staring directly to my soul from the shelf as I felt its danger and killing intent under a facade of cuteness. Now, the eldtritch being is in my hands.

"Rin… I can finally die."

"No, you won't. You didn't see the announcement that they're doing a rerun?"

"I actually didn't. Thanks for pointing that out."

"Don't talk to the doll now, okay?"

"I can't promise you that."

Going from one store after another, we started to build up a haul thinking that we can't really just up and go to Japan any time we want, and so, uncharacteristically, we bought figurines, or at least Nyendoroids. Then we proceeded on going to bookstores in search for art books.

And for a moment, I was put into a quite interesting situation.

While I was having trouble looking for an art book of a certain artist, a woman with a face mask suddenly walked towards the aisle I am in and swiftly took a different art book.

"**Excuse me…" I made way as the woman weakly uttered and walked past me.

"…"

"Have you found what you're looking for, Gin?" with three books on her hand, Rin walked to where I am.

"Not yet. Found someone, though," and I whispered a name to her ear.

"Wait, seriously?"

"You know how she looks like, right?"

"Yeah…"

Well, it turns out the Japanese woman that walked past me is actually a vtuber. There are some of them that are very private, others who have an alternate internet persona, and a few that presents themselves with their virtual avatar and real-life appearance openly. The one I encountered happens to fall on the second category.

I happened to know this vtuber's alternate persona before she became a streamer so my first thought was that it was the utaite I listen to sometimes, and then she is a vtuber that just bought an art book with her virtual character in the cover. It would be very scummy of me to just suddenly approach her as these personalities maintain various levels of privacy. While not to a similar extent, even I do understand their circumstances a little as my face has already been seen by four million people in YouCube as I presented myself in a YouCube channel when Giotto's North first opened, and I sometimes get recognized. But thankfully, I am still a nobody in the grand scale of the internet.

"Oh, found it.

Let's go have lunch, Rin."

"Then crane games and gachapon afterwards?" she cheekily added.

"Oh no…"

▪ ▪ ▪

Thursday was quite an interesting one for we left the prefecture for Yokohama to finally witness the one thing I have been excited to see ever since it took over the news.

I do not really follow the franchise, and if anything, I have just recently been exposed to the various G*ndam series as I started with the most recent one that is still ongoing in this season of spring. I have heard of how dark the shows can get, and that kind of prepared me for what is to come, but my word, the G*ndam universe is insane.

With that, we went to the factory for a tour… and it was surreal seeing a life sized mech from ground level that actually moves and dwarfs over puny humans. Afterwards, we looked through more models that I will not pretend to know, but they are very cool. It has somehow convinced me to buy my first model kit to build when we get back home and we proceeded to go to the viewing dock where we were able to see the G*ndam up close from an elevation.

If it's not obvious enough, these past four days in Tokyo have been burning a hole through our wallets.

As for the next day, we intended it to be the time for us to tick everything in our checkboxes including the minor things we wanted to do while in the metro.

The five days in this country reaffirmed how much appreciation we have on how walkable it is. As it stands for Orio, we only have started to build an actual transit network outside the Capital, which is why the city is mostly just accessible by a car until recently when lines have opened—which benefited university students that are far from CSU, for example. But in here, having a massive train network really lets you move around physically in contrast to a traffic-ridden city where you have no choice but to put up with it.

And while we're on that topic, sidewalks here are massive compared to what you see back home—which is sometimes nonexistent. It really is nice to see things in a way that you can absorb yourself in the place when you're on foot rather than just passing by them at 30 kilometers per hour.

Rin isn't really the kind to think about the clothes she buys, evident with her preferring skirts and clothes that aren't too decorated. And then there's me, who is even less sensible in terms of fashion; who would most likely end up wearing seven of the same-colored shirts in a week, basically wears only black shorts, hates jeans, and would prefer looser pants.

I don't want to recall the times I ripped my jeans on unflattering places when I move more than a normal human does.

Nonetheless, we went clothes shopping around many shops at the city. I didn't feel like there was anything off or out of place with my outfit, but it made me feel like it was catching glances of the people walking out and about with their outfits absolutely on point. Heck, the vtuber I coincidentally saw at Akihabara was covert but she was still dressed stylishly.

On that note, we picked clothes and judged each other's choices whether it suits us or not without trying to ask for recommendations from the clerk, especially me who acted like a gaijin. I am still socially anxious, and I didn't really feel like hearing what the clerks would say even if they most likely have nothing bad to say. That's just what happens when my mind goes overdrive in social situations, but at least I'm overcoming it bit by bit… well, yeah, bit by bit.

Anyway, coin lockers are incredibly convenient. With our shopping done, we decided to go eat emptyhanded, which is where the lockers came in handy as we just stored our bags in them for a while, and explored the other wards if there is anything interesting to see.

"I think I'm getting used to this."

"Just make sure not to get too used to drinking, Rin…"

"I won't, I won't. Ahaha."

At night, we decided to look around bars and izakaya before we go home and retire for the night. And there is no freaking way we are taking a stop to Golden Gai at a Friday night. How could we even survive there if the government is urging people to drink, and while we're at it, the drinking culture here is insane.

Well, I didn't say we went to Golden Gai, but instead we passed through the district just to observe it out of curiosity, and then continued searching until we found an uncrowded enough place to settle to while reviewing the pictures we took for the day.

Still… no one knows how much tolerance Rin actually has, not even herself, so this could go whatever way.

"Also… who knew Shiro drinks at midday?"

"Woah, when did this happen?"

"Some time when I had lunch with her after I recovered."

"Ahh. I've never really drank with the others, honestly. I know Jean and Nagi do drink, but I feel like Akira is too busy being Tenth's assistant at school to even think about it. Well, I'll try planning on gathering when we get back home.

Anyway, how are you feeling?"

"Nothing different after two glasses, I guess."

"Now you got my coworker at Giotto's beat. The guy's already all over the place after one."

"I get the impression that everyone in Giotto's can hold their liquor back in my WT. I somehow feel sorry for him.

**Excuse me! Can I please get a refill?

I swear this will be my last tonight."

"Mhm. But tell me if I do sound strict though. I'll try to dial it down."

"I don't even know my capacity so I'll probably listen to you anyway."

Then after that, we went straight home after getting our bags back with both of us still sober.

The reason why we wanted to get our checkboxes filled at the end of the weekday is because we are indeed moving to Kyoto for the rest of our stay in this country, so we wanted to have our weekend as open as possible to rest before we go back to the house with an onsen where we used to live near Giotto's North at Sunday evening.

But it never goes as planned as we still went to karaoke the next day for 2 hours and ended up with a sore throat…

▪ ▪ ▪

Sunday.

Learning our lesson from ruining our throats from all the singing, we decided to rest completely for the rest of the Saturday and today before we headed out to the station to catch our shinkansen to Kyoto.

While we update our parents every night, it really wasn't enough as it was only a few minutes in a call since we go the bed earlier with the time zone adjusted by an hour. Yes, we are below Japan and yet Orio follows the UTC+8 time zone. Nevertheless, the we used the rest of the day to tell our stories after concluding our trip in Tokyo and told them stuff as though we wanted them to also go here next time.

Then, we preemptively did some planning on how our living condition would be in Kyoto as we would not do any more sightseeing for the most part, and that we are graduating from basically eating out for the entire week, which means we're practically going to be like residents there rather than tourists. After all, we are so much more used to Kyoto than other places here in Japan.

"Oh? You're already wearing the shirt you bought," Rin noticed as we wrapping our packing.

"Yeah. It's so comfy that I'm definitely taking care of this."

"You sure took a liking to it, huh."

"Duh. The moment I felt the cloth's texture in the store I knew I had to get it."

It is quite literally just a white button-down long-sleeved shirt that I got in our shopping trip. But what sets it apart is that it has a velvet-like feel to it inside and outside despite not being that type of cloth. It honestly feels like a portable bed with how comfortable it is to wear and my brain thought that it would be nice to wear on the three-hour bullet train ride.

"Ahhh, I'm going to miss this place…" Rin sighed. "But somehow it's also tiring."

"This is Tokyo after all. I would more worried if this place is a ghost town."

"I wonder if there will be a lot of tourists in Kyoto…"

"Crap, I forgot about that. Still, I think we're less likely to get lost there. Haha."

"Let's just go to the station."

"Okaaay."

In the end, Rin liked resting on my shoulder in the train because of the shirt.

~ ~ ~

Around 9 o'clock, we arrived at the station and switched to another train. After getting to our stop, at that point we were suddenly visited fatigue and had to call a cab for a short travel that we couldn't risk walking with the drowsiness adding up.

"Hello… Yuzuri-san…"

"Hello, Gin-kun? You sound tired. Ahahaha. We just finished cleaning up at the resto. Are you in Kyoto yet?"

"Yes… We're in front of the house."

"Oh! Then can you put the gate's passcode for me? The current caretaker will hand you the gate's keys tomorrow, but the keys for the house is in the lock box, so don't hang up!"

Yuzuri-san may not be the current caretaker of the house anymore, but she maintained her connections. Also, it seems that sometimes she still helps out with Anew Company by commission if Yugare-san requests it from her.

Even after these years she's still the very reliable onee-san. This time, we're renting the house for the rest of our stay, but with Yuzuri-san pulling some strings we managed to get a hefty discount which is a relief to my dwindling bank account. With her instructions, we managed to enter the house without any issues.

Doors open, doors closed.

Bags dropped vigorously, and a sigh in unison was left out.

"Why are we suddenly so tired…"

"Maybe it's because we're much used to this place that we're not as tensed…"

Whether it is true or not, Rin made a valid point.

"I'll go check the entire house… Yawn…"

And before I even took another step, I suddenly heard Rin behind rustling at her bags as if looking for something, and I guess that something was the solution she used to remove the black dye from her hair.

Thus, she immediately ran into the bathroom somewhat excitedly amidst the exhaustion while I checked the inside and out of the house and sat on the nostalgic engawa afterwards, watching the moon for a little while.

By the time I came back inside, she was back to sporting her white hair as she sat on the couch drying them with a towel. Hurriedly, I picked up a hair dryer I found when checking the rooms and made Rin sit still as the dryer began to whirr and let out hot air.

"Thanks…

I want to go to the onsen but I'll probably pass out there with how tired I am…"

"Just wait for tomorrow. Hahaha. It's not going run away from us."

As I was drying her hair, I started noticing her head bobbing.

"Just a little more."

"Mhm…"

This time, like it was five years ago, we have no choice but to share a room. But at this point it's not like it's any different from when I was still taking care of her in the middle of recovery, which is why we opted to choose this place rather than going to the trouble of looking for another lodging. And hey, we love the place.

With Rin able to barely stay up miraculously, we took our bags in and laid our futons spaced out by at least a foot as we always mutually agree with.

Not being able to fight the sleepiness anymore, we just landed on our futons without a care in the world apart from the enhanced comfort of the tatami mats underneath, and in my case, the super comfy shirt that I couldn't bother changing.

"You still awake, Rin…?"

"Yeah…"

"Then go to sleep… Don't fight it…"

"Ehehe… Goodnight then, Potatooooooo…"

"That was fast."

"Goodnight, Rin."