章 28: A Day in Marriage
The wrist watch on Arata's left arm ticked to 4 PM, along with the chime that started the action time. Attori just sent a text about her getting there so late so if he could go around 4 to help, she would love him more. The boyfriend, trying to impress the mother, did what was asked of him. He went to the Hibiya station on his own, and met with Kanaru.
"Attori not with you?" The mother greeted him from afar and only spoke as he entered the booth, "I thought you would be arriving together."
"I took a break from school today. She said dance class practice extended all of a sudden." Arata smiled at the mother before putting on his apron. He then went to the front and took as many orders as he could to help out the swamped mother.
That continued for the next hour, until the customer crowd dissipated with satisfied smiles on their faces. Kanaru then started washing the used mugs, and Arata was left drying the drips left by the beer on their barrels. He also wiped the counter clean and dry.
"So, you took a break from school?" Kanaru hummed as she got near Arata. "Why do you smell like women's perfume?"
"A perfume lady at the mall sprayed her product in the air. It got on me." The man chuckled. It did happen on their way home. Since it was the afternoon action time by then, Arata chose to walk Yukari to their house and got to the train station afterwards, leaving him no time to change clothes. He was still wearing the expensive ones he just bought.
"Well, that's a good excuse." Kanaru shrugged as she hung the dried mugs. She then walked near the man and looked at him as if inspecting the way he dressed. "You look more than a normal student, with all that good stuff. Did you come from a well-off family or something?"
"Are you afraid Attori will get rejected?" Arata answered her with another question. He could not just tell her about Imperial Kitchen; he doubted Attori remembered he owned that place.
Even though he did not reach that kind of phase in life in the world where he was a loser, the player knew that some people did think discrepancies between nuclear families affect their children's chances of getting married. With Attori's situation, she would probably be rejected by a lot of parents. In fact, even Arata could say the game MC's parents would reject her for sure. They liked Keiko a lot more, based on the prologue of the story.
"Well, aren't you a mind-reader?" Kanaru laughed out as if they were talking about a simple joke. She then hummed as if hiding a sigh under it. "Well, who would even want their son married to my daughter? She took after a mysterious person in the family, and would go bonkers after a series of provoking." The mother rubbed her neck. "I know it was my fault she grew up like that, so I can't curse someone else to live with her."
"Wow, even her beloved mother looks at her like that..." Arata frowned at the direction of the mother. "With all due respect, Kanaru-san, I'm not sitting through you insulting my girlfriend like that."
"Not coming up with a usual 'you're the mother, you shouldn't be insulting your own child' comeback?" Kanaru chuckled, noticing that she must have triggered Arata's anger. She then waved her hand as if dismissing the thought. "Well, anyway, I'm just checking. I would probably kick you to next week if you start encouraging me and joined me in saying bad things about her."
Arata lost his voice all of a sudden. He was not expecting a test to be so obvious yet so discreet. He was defeated, and so he just scratched his head before tending to the store front again, looking out for any customer.
He then remembered. He smiled at Kanaru. "Kanaru-san, have you eating lunch?"
"I just take heavy breakfast so I could the say without lunch. Then again, you're offering to cover for me until Attori gets here?" The mother smiled deviously, comparable to how Attori would do it. She then brought her palms together and pressed them against her cheek. "Thank you for the break~!"
"Take care, Kanaru-san." He waved at her as she went out of the booth. He watched her get near him to pet his head before leaving.
A satisfied snuff came to him as he sat down on a seat allotted for them. Silence had engulfed the booth as he sat there all alone. Despite being used to being on his own before, he just could not sit tight. His smile plastered on his face began to wriggle in awkwardness. He then sighed and brought his phone out to fiddle with it. For some known reasons to him, he could only access messages through his phone. He sobbed aloud, knowing no one was there.
"Arata-kun!"
A familiar voice then startled the man. He shot his gaze at the store front and saw a blond girl wearing the usual dirndl with a white bodice and green skirt, pieced together by a brown corset. Looking at her longer, her hair seemed like a wig, which were as fake as her freckles. Arata stood up to greet her.
"Uhh, hi?" The god was trying to familiarize himself with her.
"Geez, Arata-kun, it's me, Momoka!" She waved at him. "Is my costume really that good?"
"Uh, Mo... Momoka!?" Arata was stunned for a second and ecstatic the next. "Momoka! What- what are you doing here!? It's so nice to see you!"
Momoka was one of the date-ables Arata already maxed before the patch. She was a cafe-club worker before, but finding her in Hibiya Oktoberfest in a costume surprised him a lot. To be told, she was already thirty, but she does look half her age. She had a small stature and average bust size. Her skin looked smooth, and her voice reminded him of a real highschooler. Then again, she was far beyond that point, and could even be Arata's mother already.
"Oh, the club got a spot here so I was sent to hand out fliers." She handed him one of this glossy paper ads she was pressing against her abdomen. "You, why are you here? Children are not supposed to be here after all."
He went over the flier that promoted both the booth and the club itself. He gave his gaze back to Momoka. "I'm helping out Attori's mother. This is her booth." He paused, collecting faint memories of his interactions with Momoka.
"Oh, is Attori the blue-haired girl that stays here? I saw her yesterday." She chuckled before leaning at the store counter. "I just started yesterday so that's probably why you haven't seen me around." Momoka chuckled and then eyed at Arata differently. "Ne, do you have time in the evening? You haven't been dropping by the club. I thought you were just very busy in school." She reached out to stroke at his face. "I missed you, Arata-kun."
Arata froze, getting a series of flashbacks about Momoka's route. It was simple, but too much of a roller coaster. Her route asked for the musclehead MC, and Arata barely delivered. He could only chuckle at her touch, but used a hand to take her hand off gently. "I'll see if I can find some time."
"Okay." She just placed her arm on the counter, still leaning against it. "How about school? Are you doing good with school?" The date-able was tilting her head left and right, at a very slow pace just to keep Arata's attention and not get dizzy at all.
"I'm... doing fine." The man could not help but to attend more to where his gaze landed, rather than answering her questions. Arata could bet Momoka planned to lean down at an angle where her dirndl's collar would swoop so low, showing almost half of her chest to him. Moreover, thinking that Kanaru could come back anytime made him worried. He was not cheating, but deliberately ogling at another woman's chest in front of his girlfriend's mother was too much of a risk. Even for a game.
Momoka seemed to read his mind, perhaps through the sweat raining down his forehead. She pulled out a hanky and patted his face. "No need to be so you!" She just laughed, letting him take the hanky. "You can just come when you're free! See you, Arata-kun!" She waved and left, passing fliers to the passers-by that would stop to look at her.
Arata looked down at the hanky left by the grown woman. It had her initials sewn on one edge while having the club's logo at the one next to it. He stared at the blue crown with the letters CV written in the circle of the gem. He whispered, "making me go to Crown Velvet, huh." Then he twitched.
With 480 Affection points being handed to a date-able outside the customary 100 Affection points for every date, it was viable to max Tohru even if a newbie manages to open her. It only led to one conclusion: the new date-able will be introduced soon. And she will be found in Crown Velvet.
"Was that a hooker?" Kanaru's voice thundered across Arata's hearing, causing him to shriek in an ugly way, like a startled duck. She stifled a spit as she drank her drink with a straw. "I'm seeing a lot more of you which I bet Attori likes." She went to the side to go in the booth before sitting down the seat for the booth owners. "Who was that girl earlier?"
"That was an old friend. Her company had a booth at the far side of the fest." Arata wiggled the flier, secretly stashing the hanky in his back pocket. "She was handing out fliers when she saw me."
"Hm, her company? How old is she?" Kanaru made a curious hum, deceived by Momoka's appearance.
"Around late-twenties." Arata tried to be respectful. He heard women were easy to offend just by talking about ages. "But she's using her appearance to her advantage. Their c-company grew famous because of her."
Kanaru could only burr at what she thought. She opened her boxed rice and meat while offering fried potato cuttings with hand gestures. She saw Arata sat down next to her and took a piece of the offered potato. She only remained silent.
[You are not qualified to access this scene! Please switch to a routed playthrough for more scenes about Mad Bitch Attei Attori's route.]
'Again? I thought I told Sayaka to cut it out.' Arata thought as he heard the error message. He just sighed and turned to the mother who was supposed to be talking. He had to rub his forehead to relieve the forming headache.
Soon, the current action time had to move on, and 6 PM action time came to pass. More customers gathered round the fest booths, and Arata had to serve more beer than usual. Kanaru excused herself for a while, being called by their contact in Hibiya. It was the after work rush, and Arata had to deal with it alone. It was a good thing that he had both the clothes which added a fraction of Speed in exchange of Stamina cost, which were Level 101 items. He moved like he was two people, but his Stamina was depleted right after.
The player started munching on the last chocolate nougat bar he had to heal less than 10% of his Stamina. It was enough for him to survive another action in the next action time. 9 PM came, and Attori went to check up on him. She did not see her mother, but she was more disturbed by her boyfriend's state.
"Hey, are you okay?" The mad girl sat down next to him and combed his hair. "What happened to you?"
"Nothing really." Arata finished the nougat bar, only to fall straight to Attori's chest, which she offered willingly. He wrapped his arms around her waist and savored the smell and warmth of his girlfriend's moist bosom. "Ah, it does feel relieving..."
"There, there. You must have worked so hard today!" Attori laughed out as she caressed his head. "It's okay, Arata. I think you should rest."
"Nah. Battery charging 20%!" He rubbed his face against her cleavage, not minding her white uniform. "Stay with me, Attori..."
"Of course, I'm not going anywhere" -she placed a kiss on his head, before keeping her face inside his tuft of locks- "because I love you, Arata."
クリエイターの想い 
droopyghost
droopyghost I'm sorry I wasn't able to finish this one on time. I'm still going to pay my backlogs. Then again, thanks for reading! Don't be shy and feed power stones to us!
Dirndl (deern-del), not a typo, is the usual dress females wore during Oktoberfest in Munich.