On the night after the sports festival, Akari was getting a ride from her father to a certain someone's house.

This was quite unusual since Akari didn't have that many close friends that she visited often.

In all honesty, the only close "friend" that Akari visited often was Takei.

However, Takei would not be here tonight.

Tonight was a night designated for only girls, and Akari was invited to partake.

Since she hadn't really been over to any other houses than Takei's house for a long time, she decided to accept the invitation out of sheer curiosity.

As a result of Akari denying everyone's invitations to friendly outings, many people just passed it off as the goddess being a busy person.

However, the truth was much more drastic than they thought.

Due to being an object of reverence for so long, Akari could sense other people's emotions on a subconscious level.

Every detail of happiness, envy, and jealousy, would be revealed to her.

As time passed, she rejected every invitation because Akari believed people were too troublesome.

She felt that the personification of the goddess was just a way of people escaping reality by forcing expectations on others.

Without sugar coating it, Akari hated people.

She was no goddess, rather she was just a normal human girl who felt all different types of emotions.

These fellow humans had slapped a label onto her and made her an object of reverence. As a result, she unknowingly had a deep-seated hatred for other humans.

Akari's defensive field became an impenetrable fortress that didn't let everyone in, and was eventually a result of her isolation.

She still kept her positive and cheery demeanor at school, but at home was a different story.

It was truly a living hell for her.

However, there was a light at the end of the tunnel.

Akari had met a kindred soul that had the same opinion of others as she did.

He had a dull monotonous outlook at life, and was extremely wary of other people.

Seeing him was like seeing a mirror version of herself.

Some events happened and they began to spend more time together, which resulted in a newly found relationship.

They both slowly helped each other heal from the deep wounds inside of their hearts.

As a result, a great story was created.

However, everyone already knows about that story, so it won't be retold.

One important thing that Akari had regained from that beneficial relationship was her trust in people.

Nowadays, she was able to let more people enter her personal circle.

Akari was willing to change for the better.

Finally arriving at the location, Akari said goodbye to her dad and entered the house.

The host's mom told her that everyone was in the backyard, so Akari went to the backyard through the house.

Once she got there, Akari spotted a table with three girls sitting there.

As soon as one girl spotted her, everyone else followed in tandem.

"Akarin!"

"Akari, welcome."

"Goddess..."

Helena, Rikka, and Arisa were sitting at the table and awaiting her arrival.

The host of the party, Rikka, motioned Akari to sit down next to her.

Nodding gently, Akari took the seat in-between Rikka and Helena.

"I believe introductions are in order between the two of you?"

Rikka looked between Akari and Arisa.

Remembering that Arisa had a shy nature to her, Akari decided to take the initiative.

"It seems that you know me already, but my name is Akari Akazawa. I'm from Class 1-B, and I hope we can be friends for the foreseeable future."

Realizing that Akari went first for her sake, Arisa tried her best to respond to a greater being.

"A-ah, yes! My name is Arisa Kawasegawa... It's nice to meet you, goddess!"

After hearing Arisa calling her the annoying nickname, Akari tensed up immediately.

"That's not going to do, call me Akari."

Deciding to cut the problem at its root, Akari forced Arisa to change her manner of speaking.

"But..."

"A-k-a-r-i, Akari."

"It's nice to meet you, Akari."

After successfully convincing Arisa to call her by her first name, the conversation between all four girls grew from there.

They all talked about many things such as cooking, music albums, art, and the current topics that they were learning in school.

As the conversation progressed, Akari realized that she was truly enjoying the topics that they were discussing.

Usually, she would just nod and smile when the girls at school would talk.

However, Akari could speak her mind amongst her close friends here.

They wouldn't judge her at all, rather they would encourage her to keep on going.

After just an hour of this conversation happening, Akari knew that these girls were true friends.

"It's getting a bit late, looks like we have to wrap this up since we have school tomorrow."

Helena checked the time on her phone and found that it was approaching nine in the evening.

Since they were all good students, they would have to head to bed soon in order to be prepared for school tomorrow.

Akari had already notified Takei beforehand that she would be busy tonight, in which he responded with a thumbs up emoji over text.

Once Helena realized that the night was about to be over, she decided to drop a huge information bomb on the meeting.

"I think I have a crush on Takei."

Once Helena finished her sentence, all of the girls had a shocked expression on their faces.

I actually don't have a crush on him, but it's funny to get a reaction...

"Just kidding, moving on to the actual topic."

Helena laughed as a sigh of relief came from all of the other girls.

"I was just wondering what love felt like, since I've never been in love myself."

As expected, the girls' talk eventually turned to love as one of the topics.

Akari, Rikka, and Arisa didn't have much in the way of relationships, but they had experienced love in some way, type, or form before.

Starting off the conversation, Rikka explained her opinion on love.

"It's a blinding emotion. Love makes you blind to everything else, for better or for worse. Nothing else matters to you then being with the person in front of you."

Once Rikka finished her explanation, Akari and Arisa nodded in agreement.

Next, Arisa volunteered to go.

"Love makes you do unusual things for the person that you love. Sometimes, you're willing to do them, no matter the cost."

Once again, Akari and Rikka nodded in agreement to Arisa's viewpoint.

Finally, it was Akari's turn.

"Well, I think love makes your world more colorful. Everything becomes more vibrant and happy. You begin to see everything in a new color and slowly appreciate life more. Every second with the person you like is just pure bliss. Sometimes you want to spoil them, and other times you want them to spoil you. Once you fall in love, you feel like that person owns a piece of your heart. There's just so much that goes into the special connection between two people that-"

""Stop!""

All three of the other girls begged Akari to stop her tangent.

It seemed that they weren't able to handle Akari's highly destructive heroine power.

---

Akari's Final Affection Meter: 90 -> 94%

Beware the goddess's attack power when it's combined with her heroine power multiplier.

It's deadly, to say the least.

Sugar-san: Woooooo! The ending I want is inevitable!

Serious-san: You're just shoving it in my face now...