Chapter 61: ... Will Be Erased From Player’s Life
The kiss came out of nowhere.
Light. Quick. Just her lips on his for just a short moment. And then she finally pulled back, smiling at him as she turned to start walking like she hadn’t just detonated something.
The problem was, she had.
Specifically, it had registered south of his body, immediately and without warning, and David’s body had decided that now — in the middle of a public arcade, under fluorescent lighting — was an appropriate time to respond to a peck on the lips like he was a man who had never been kissed before.
He had approximately two seconds.
He dropped.
Full bend at the waist, hand sweeping the floor, head down, like something critically important had escaped his person and needed recovering this instant.
Holly stopped walking.
"...What are you doing?"
"Dropped something." He responded, with a serious glance at the carpet.
"Dropped what?"
"My — " He patted his jacket pocket. Bought himself a second. "My card....I think it fell."
Holly looked at the floor around them. Clean carpet. No card. She looked back at him, crouched at knee level, patting the ground with the conviction of a man who knew exactly where his card was.
"David."
"Yeah?"
"Your card is in your hand."
He looked down at his right hand and the ATM card was in his hand.
"This one," he said, "it’s a... it’s the decoy."
A pause.
"The decoy?"
"I keep two. Security measure." He straightened up slowly, carefully, angling slightly to the left and using the cabinet beside him as a kind of casual lean-slash-structural-shield. Very natural. Very normal. Just a man who enjoyed standing at a slight angle. "In case one gets demagnetised."
Holly stared at him.
He held eye contact.
"You," she said slowly, "...are you hard?"
An instant blush rose over David’s face, the embarrassment rising his adrenaline.
"W-what?! Puff ...me? Hard? No..."
’Play it cool bro!’
She looked at him for another second — something moving behind her eyes, somewhere between suspicious and amused — and then she just shook her head and turned back toward the row of cabinets.
"Come on, then. There’s still the claw machine."
"Great," David said. "Yeah. Let’s do that. I’ll be there in — one second."
"Why?"
"Tying my shoe."
Holly looked down at his shoes.
Velcro.
She looked back up.
David looked back at her with the complete serenity of a man who had fully committed to the bit and had nowhere left to go.
"...I like to check they’re secure." he said.
Holly pressed her lips together, still staring.
"I’m not hard, Holly."
With that a sheepish smile drew on her face as she turned away and began walking.
And if her shoulders were shaking slightly, she was at least kind enough not to say anything about it.
When she was gone, David finally reacted, casting a glare at his awakened dragon.
’Really? Just a kiss? Just for this, Eva’s gonna demolish you tonight.’
***
The night had slipped away from both of them.
David checked his watch. 9:47. He looked up and around — half the cabinets had thinned out, the after-school crowd long gone, just a few stragglers nursing their last tokens.
"Hey." He looked over at Holly. "We should probably start heading out. It’s getting late."
She blinked, like he’d pulled her back from somewhere. Then she looked around and seemed to register it too — the thinning crowd, the hour.
"Oh." A small laugh. "I completely forgot about the restaurant."
"The Chinese place?"
"Yeah." She didn’t sound upset about it. "Didn’t even cross my mind after we got here."
"We can go another time."
"No, I know, it’s just—" She smiled, looking down briefly. "I really had fun tonight. Like, genuinely." Her hand found his, fingers settling over his knuckles, thumb moving slow. "Thank you. For, you know. Being good company."
David looked at their hands. "You beat me six-nil. I should be the one thanking you for going easy."
She laughed. "I didn’t go easy."
"I know. That’s the problem."
She squeezed his hand once, then looked up at him. "Come on. Are you taking me home or not?"
"Yeah," he said. "Let’s go."
’Her home,’ he reminded himself, as they walked toward the exit. ’You are taking her to her home. Her home, David. Stay focused.’
---
The cab dropped them at Holly’s street just past ten-thirty.
David stepped out, shut his door, and held hers open as she climbed out. She stepped onto the pavement and he closed it behind her. The cab pulled away. The street settled into that particular late-night quiet — distant traffic, a lit window somewhere up the road, nothing else.
He stood there and did a very quick, very private calculation.
Arcade tokens. Her games. His games. The racing cabinet she’d paid for, which he hadn’t asked her to. Snacks from the vending machine midway through. The cab.
One hundred and twenty-seven dollars. Total. On one evening.
’You went past the margin,’ he told himself. ’You significantly went past the margin.’
He kept his face completely neutral.
Holly turned to face him, standing a step away on the pavement, and she was smiling in that easy, unself-conscious way she had that he was starting to find genuinely inconvenient.
"I really did have a good time," she said.
"Yeah?"
"Best Thursday I’ve had in a while, honestly." She tilted her head. "You sure you’re not secretly a fun person?"
"I’m very boring. You just got lucky with the arcade."
"David. I beat you six-nil."
"I’ve already moved past that."
She laughed. Stepped closer. The street was quiet around them, and the light from her building caught the side of her face, and she looked at him for a moment without saying anything — just looked, the way people do when they’re deciding something they’ve already decided.
Then she leaned in.
It started soft. Just her lips on his, slow and deliberate. Then she pressed closer, one hand rising to the front of his jacket, and the soft thing became something else — something that had weight to it, intention, the kind of kiss that knew exactly what it was doing.
His hands moved on their own. Settled at her waist, drawing her in. He felt her exhale against him.
The street was completely quiet.
The moment stretched, warm and unhurried, and he was just starting to stop thinking entirely when—
"Big sis, what are you doing?"
Small voice. Squeaky. Feminine. From somewhere above them.
Holly pulled back so fast she nearly caught his chin. She spun around, and David followed her eyeline up to the building — a tiny window, slightly cracked, and framed in it, peering down at them with enormous curious eyes, was a little girl. Golden-haired, soft-cheeked, almost completely identical to Holly in miniature.
"Oh my God," Holly breathed.
The little girl pressed her face closer to the gap. "Is that your boyfriend?"
David’s mouth twitched.
"Margaret." Holly’s voice had gone up a full octave. "Get inside. What are you still doing awake?"
"I heard the door—"
"Inside. Now."
A pause. Then the sound of small feet, a chair scraping, something that might have been a lamp wobbling. The window clicked shut.
Holly turned back around. Her face was pink from the ears down.
"I’m so sorry," she said.
David pressed his lips together. "It’s fine."
"She’s supposed to be asleep—"
"Holly. It’s fine." He was definitely smiling now. Couldn’t fully stop it. "You have siblings?"
She exhaled. "One. Clearly." Then something in her expression settled, softened. "Do you?"
He thought about it. About the System. About the way it had a habit of inserting itself precisely when he didn’t ask for it. "Let’s just say I know what it’s like to have my privacy... intruded on."
Holly looked at him for a second. Then she laughed — quiet and genuine. "Looks like we have another thing in common."
"Another," he said.
"Another." She stepped back in. Her hand came up, fingers curling around the collar of his shirt, and she rose onto her toes, eyes level with his. "Goodnight, David."
"Goodnight."
She kissed him once more — brief, certain, a punctuation mark — and then she was pulling back, turning away, opening the door. She stepped inside and paused in the frame, one hand on the door, looking back at him with flushed cheeks and a smile she wasn’t trying to hide.
Then the door closed.
David stood on the pavement. Quiet street. Empty air where she’d been standing thirty seconds ago.
He looked down at his side.
The notification was already there, floating calm and unhurried in the corner of his vision.
[Name: Holly Houston]
[ Temptation Level: 51%]
He looked at it for a moment.
’Well,’ he thought. ’That isn’t so-’
His thoughts however were abruptly cut short.
[Alert! Alert!]
David blinked.
[Player has successfully progressed! Preliminary stage almost overcome! Congratulations, a new task has been set for Player!]
[A Dungeon Gate will open in the next 2 weeks. Player is to specialize in martial feats for his own good.]
[Reward: +1 Guaranteed A- Rank Skill!]
[Penalty: Holly Houston Will Be Erased from Player’s Life!]
He stood there on the empty pavement and read it twice.
Then a third time.
’I’m sorry....what?!’