The woman closed her laptop with a squee of delight. It was happening! She’d been looking forward to this day for as long as she could remember.

It was the first day of middle school. She’d met an energetic girl and a shy, blonde-haired boy. The three of them had been inseparable since then, no doubt in part due to their shared childhood dream.

Open a cafe together. A cozy little hole in the wall, nothing big and corporate. A safe space for anyone and everyone, where people could catch up with old friends or enjoy a small meal together. Simple enough in theory, but a lot of hard work in practice. At least, that was what culinary school taught her, and she assumed her friends had learned similar lessons to earn their respective business and economics classes in college. 

And their first opportunity was right here! There was a group of people in the suburbs of her hometown who were willing to sell the ownership of a small little restaurant well within their budget. She had already contacted them and set up an appointment to meet them tomorrow. She would probably be sleepless for the rest of the night. She’d considered texting her partners in crime about the good news, but she wanted to keep it a surprise for when they came back from their grocery run.

After she’d calmed down a little, she opened her laptop again and logged onto the group’s favorite MMO, Soulseeker Online. It was over ten years old by now, but the game had kept up remarkably with recent technological advancements. They’d fallen in love with it in middle school, and the updates were so consistent that they had a never-ending supply of content from it. Every time one of them started to lose interest in the game, a new update announced something that at least one of them got excited for. 

She greeted some of her guild members and shared the good news over the guild chat. She was restocking their little in-game cafe when her screen suddenly went black. She frowned, wondering why her computer had just crashed. A moment later, she felt a pulling sensation tugging on her body, and her vision went dark. She felt like she was falling for a little bit before she landed on what felt like a patch of grass. When her vision cleared, she found herself in a small garden in what looked like a Japanese shrine, with a very worried, blue-haired fox girl looking over her.

“Ah, shit. Kei is gonna kill me,” The blue-haired stranger mumbled to herself. She looked at the woman with worry and nervous excitement. 

“Well,” the kitsune girl said with a nervous laugh. “Uh, welcome back, Sylvie,”

Ninichu

We finally made it to the end! Thank you so, so much for reading and putting up with my non-existent uploading schedule! I really learned a lot working on this story, and I'm honestly really proud of it. The positive comments and fun interactions I got after I posted a chapter really made my day on several occasions, so thank you for that as well! This won't be the last you hear from me, I promise. Sylvia and her friends aren't gonna sit around, so neither will I! I know I'm not the best writer out there, but I do hope I brought you all just a little bit of joy with my writing. See you soon!