Book 4: Chapter 7 (1/2)

“I will take care of this sweetie…”

“Mother…”

“Hurry, you must leave for some time. Do not worry.”

“W-wait…”

“Go… pack, I will write a letter, you must go immediately!”

“Where?”

“That all-girls school!”

“Riphorn?”

“Here… they sent me the paperwork. This school has a full campus with a dormitory. They offered to house the boys during this experiment. I signed the permission slips. Please leave!”

Mother’s voice echoed in my head as my eyes opened sleepily. The Riphorn All-girl’s Academy was a few hours north of my home. I left my mother with my still unconscious father, carrying only what I could toss in my bag in a hurry. I was now on a train heading towards the place. It was a week early, but I had a note and Mother also sent an email just in case. If things didn’t turn out well, I might be sleeping on the street for a while.

Father was still alive, right? I was pretty sure I could see him breathing. Mother didn’t want me in the room anymore after I had hit him. She wasn’t angry at me. In fact, she didn’t seem all that upset. Maria came out of her room too during the commotion. I barely had a second to kiss her goodbye before I was pushed out the door. I thought about calling Akiko or Sasori. I could easily stay with Sasori as long as I stayed low.

No, in the end, I got on the train and I left. It wasn’t like I wouldn’t come back. It was just a two-month experiment. Father would heal by then, and Mother would have spoken to him and possibly defused any problems that might come of it. At least, that was what I hoped. Frankly, my mind was really shaky at the moment.

“Are you okay?” A gentle voice asked next to me.

I glanced over to see Netori floating beside me. “I’m fine.”

“You’re shaking…” She said, glancing at my hands.

“Am I?” I responded bitterly.

Netori put a hand gently on my knee. “You may not believe me, but I never wanted you to have to suffer in this game.”

I shot her a look of disbelief. “Seriously? How can you say that? The very nature of this game is to suffer, Fight for what you want, or you lose it. But even if you fight for what you want, the consequences of fighting can cause you to lose in much the same way.”

“That is the nature of NTR. I am Netori, I take. Netorare loses. You can’t have one without the other. You can’t take something without someone else losing something.”

“Well, I hate it! I hate that I’ve grown so numb. I hate that I’ve grown so callous about taking someone from someone else. I hate that the only alternative is to lose what is important to me. I only agreed to go to this school because I wanted to possess the woman whom Netorare once possessed. I stuck my dick in her once when she wasn’t even aware of it, and now I feel some sense of ownership over her like she should be my woman.

“You know… there is a third aspect to us as well. You need to come to understand her one day.”

“Sharing? Netorase? She has made me feel more regret than anyone! Putting aside Kira, I still even have some regrets when it comes to Gina. She got pregnant with some other guy and then tried to falsely trap me with her child, yet, deep down I feel like I could have done something more for her.”

Netori hugged my arm gently, not a sense of anger or frustration on her face. Usually when I complain about such things, she’d respond sarcastically or grow indignant. This time, however, she only continued to hold me, a gentle and kind smile on her face. It was a side of Netori I was unused to seeing.

“Hakaru… given the relationships you’ve pursued and the experience you’ve gained. It’s easy to forget you’re only seventeen. You have done things that are miraculous and amazing. You are truly becoming a man. What you did with your father, I won’t say you took the wrong action.

“You’ve grown the capacity to make choices. There was a time where you were frozen into inaction, unable to chose for fear of whatever happened next. You’ve grown past that, but now you’re in the next stage. You must live with choices you made. You can’t spend your time wondering what might have been. Accepting the consequences and living with them is also a part of being a man.

“So, choose your battles. Don’t do the right thing. Do the thing that you want to do. Take what you want. Just be prepared and strong enough to face the consequences head-on.”

I looked over at her wryly. “Is that your official advice as a goddess?”

“It’s my advice… as a friend.” She glanced over at me, and then the mischievous smile she always wore returned. “A girlfriend.”

“What?” I turned my head.

Suddenly, she leaned forward to kiss me. Her lips pressed against mine. I was so stunned that my body froze and I couldn’t move. Her hand reached up and touched my cheek in a gesture that I couldn’t have possibly predicted. I closed my eyes and reached up to grab her hand, and I only felt air. When my eyes opened again, she was gone, but the feel, smell, and taste of her lips against mine remained.

The shock of what happened earlier had caused me to slip back into bad habits. However, just when I felt like falling apart, Netori was there to say the right things and pull me back together. I leaned back and sighed. I did need to become stronger. I was still far too immature. I needed to take definitive actions and choose the direction I wanted to go.

A knock on my door caught me a little off guard. “Come in…”

I noticed that the train was starting to slow down. Had we already arrived at our destination? I straightened up, sitting properly in my seat. The door slid open and a pretty ticket collector glanced in. She was a blonde girl with a western appearance. She probably was abroad trying to widen her horizons.