Shinichi was not happy. Even Naoki was avoiding his gaze as their manager laid out suggestions for keeping his relationship with Danika quiet until they were ready to make it public."No," Shinichi refused again. He knew that he was being childishly stubborn, but he was not going to agree to avoid being seen with her in public.
"You are making this needlessly complicated," Priyadarshi complained. "I"m not suggesting anything extreme, I"m just saying that you should maintain your usual routine for a few more months. Just go straight home after work like always, and meet her online. If she really cares about you, she"ll be able to understand, and be willing to work around your career."
"Ouch," Naoki muttered.
"He"s never going to agree, so you should probably just ask Zippy directly," Akito advised Priyadarshi.
"That would probably be the easiest," Kimitoshi agreed.
"No!" Shinichi protested. "Leave her out of this."
Naoki stood up and walked over to him, slapped his hands down on Shinichi"s shoulders and said, "Idiot. If you leave her out of this, aren"t you isolating her even worse than if you just go along with it all? You think she"s actually very bright, and you trust her a lot don"t you? So just go see what she thinks of everything."
--
The world ended, but it was restored again.
The Jade Emperor quickly became aware that something had gone wrong with the last update, and followed the priorities given to the G.o.ds long ago. He began to remove the areas that had no player location registered to them, and he also reduced his own footprint, by removing every instance of the traveling merchant that was not in the vicinity of a player.
It still wasn"t enough, so he began to put the world to sleep. Even with everything that he could do, he estimated that there were only about 20 minutes left until the world ended. He waited impatiently for one of the firsts among the celestial servants to return to their works.p.a.ces.
--
"That sounds reasonable," Danika agreed a little grudgingly, "since it"s only actually for about a month."
"It"s for at least three or four months," Shinichi objected.
"But you"re going to be gone for most of them anyway," she pointed out, "and none of these restrictions will really matter when you"re not here?"
Shinichi gazed at her with such a hurt expression that Danika felt almost as exasperated as she was confused. He had been waiting for her when she"d exited the VR-medi pod after her shift ended, and he seemed a lot more upset about having to hide their relationship temporarily than concerned about how she was going to affect his career in the long run.
"Do you want me to tell you that we should run out and cause a tabloid scandal, that might wreck your career right away instead?" she asked a little sharply.
Shinichi ran his hands through his hair and laughed bitterly. "No," he conceded reluctantly. "I just want to be able to sleep beside you every night," he admitted finally.
"That won"t be possible without one, or both, of us giving up our jobs," she pointed out reasonably, "and then we wouldn"t even be able to afford a place. You travel too much on a regular basis, and I couldn"t have taken you with me for my training weeks."
Her logical response did not please him, but he couldn"t do more than protest, "But at least when I"m not in some other town or country, and you"re working from home, we shouldn"t have to be artificially separated?"
"Technically this is just another part of your job though?" she pointed out questioningly.
"You…" he complained accusingly. "Why don"t you care?"
"I care! I just don"t think they are demanding anything unreasonable? I can come stay with you every weekend, right? You didn"t list anything against us meeting there," Danika replied quickly.
"That"s about the only place though," he grumbled. "And I feel like that"s because they already have our building completely under surveillance."
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She didn"t know what else to say. She scooted closer and hugged him. "You said that you"d wait for me as long as I needed you to," she reminded him. "Why is waiting for this any different?"
"I said I"d have dinner with your dad, and meet your cousin after I got back, are we supposed to do that at my place too?" Shinichi countered.
"Would that be a problem? I"m pretty sure that Mei would be thrilled," Danika replied a little dryly.
Shinichi pulled back a little and blinked at her in surprise.
--
Danika had expected Shinichi to stay over again, but he was actually more responsible and dutiful than he was acting. He went to his next appointment after surprising her with the cold supper of fruits, cheeses, and sliced meats that he"d brought with him and put in the chiller while he waited for her shift to end. There were tiny but beautiful chocolate cups, shaped like flowers and full of mousse, for dessert.
His last kiss was sweet.
Danika had promised to contact Mei and her father about the change in plans, so she sent out messages before she did her exercises. She checked for replies before logging in to the game after getting cleaned up for the night.
As she"d predicted, Mei was thrilled by the idea of getting to see Shinichi"s place. She wasn"t quite sure how to answer the question of, "What should I bring?"
Shinichi replied almost instantly to her text with: "Flowers, n.o.body has to eat them and they don"t last long."
Danika relayed that to Mei, and arranged to meet her at the train station instead of waiting for her to come to Danika"s apartment, since they"d be traveling in almost the opposite direction from there anyway.
--
When Danika finally logged in again, MatchlessMinion was waiting impatiently.
"Are you ready to play bait?" he asked.
"Uh, sure?" Danika agreed questioningly.
"Almost everyone is online, and we"ve moved your stone s.p.a.ce to Tianxia. The steel traps I ordered from the metal working etain we met, Ikadars, are planted among the flowerbeds Shrubbery threw together on our new plot there," MatchlessMinion informed her. "And Logical Heart created this awesome magic nullification field for the future viewing area, so make sure you remember that you need to be outside of the flower border to go invisible or anything. It doesn"t work on G.o.d granted effects though, so people will still be able to take pictures or heal."
"Wait, how do we have a plot already?" Danika asked with confusion.
"Technically Kit has a plot for now. She built up a pretty good reputation setting all those boundaries, so n.o.body objected when she came down and claimed the area the newbies scouted out," he explained.
"She finished learning to control her Empress flag!?" Danika exclaimed.
"Yeah! Last night, so we threw everything together when each of us had time. You obviously haven"t checked the guild messages all day," MatchlessMinion replied with a cheeky grin on his plushy little face.