There was a gush of air as we stepped out into a small kitchen of sorts. Pots, pans, and utensils were haphazardly strewn about, hanging from kitchen racks or piled on the countertops. On the far end of the room, the kitchen led out behind a counter with a display case and a cash register. Peeking out, I saw an assortment of tables and chairs dotting a medium-sized seating area. With a little work, this place could be a nice cafe. This was exactly the kind of place Karyl, Alec and I wanted to buy, and probably well within our budget too. Actually, the store looked exactly like the pictures I’d been browsing earlier today. That was a really weird coincidence. 

Wait. Knowing these three, that was probably the point.

I slowly turned around to face the perpetrators. “You don’t happen to be the sellers of that store I was looking at online, do you?”

“Surprise,” Kei grinned. “We were gonna have a fun little reunion when you came here with Alec and Karyl tomorrow, but my little fox had to be all impatient and screw it up.”

“I said I’m sorry!” Nina pouted. “Besides, you should know better than to leave me alone at night!”

Kei chuckled, “Guess I’ll just have to keep you even closer in bed from now on,”

I couldn’t help but crack a smile. “Of course you’re the sellers. And you two are dating now? Looks like it’s been going well.”

“Well it’s been going on for three years now, so it better be,” Kei joked. “When we first started dating, she was just as much of a mess as you were.”

My sister’s blush grew even redder as she mumbled, “In my defense, it was hard to focus around you after you pinned me to the wall to ask me out,”

Kei cleared her throat, making a poor attempt to hide a blush of her own. “Speaking of, how are things between you and Alec?”

I made a face. “Eh, the two of us didn’t really work out,”

Kei and Nina exchanged a look with each other, then back at me, as if they weren’t sure they’d heard me right. I let them struggle a bit until I couldn’t keep a straight face anymore.

“Kidding! We’ve been dating for around a year now,”

“Goddess, don’t do that to us!” Nina complained.

“Why not? It was thanks to your meddling that got us together in the first place anyway, isn’t it?” I teased. “He finally confessed to me at the beginning of the Fall quarter of our senior year, after he tricked me into… aw man!”

“What’s wrong with being tricked?” Kei teased. “It’s a pretty effective strategy for dealing with you and your sister, at least from my experience.”

“No, it’s not that. Thing is, Alec actually admitted that he was going to trick me into going on a date with him the night we got captured during the harvest festival. And even though he forgot that promise, he and Karyl set up this whole scheme that ended up with me on a date with him to one of the local dessert cafes.”

Nina giggled, “Well, that certainly sounds like Alec.”

“While it is all well and good for you to catch up with each other, we should probably inform Sylvia and her partners about the events that have been happening as of late,” Anna interrupted. “Sylvia, could you contact Karyl and Alec for us? I’d like all of you to be present so that we may discuss the matter at hand.”

“Yeah, I can do that,” I said. “I’d need a phone for that though. And preferably a way to change my voice back to normal.”

“Check your console’s inventory,” Nina suggested. “Your phone probably ended up there when you came to Haredo. As for your voice, I think you still have the solution to that in there too.”

Consoles were the devices that Nina and Kei used in the game to access their inventories, among other things. They weren’t really physical items, more like a pop-up window that you could summon in front of you. “Those still work outside Haredo?” I asked. “I thought they were just the physical manifestation of the game’s menus or something,”

“As long as you have the goddess’ blessing, you should be able to bring it up,” Kei told me. “Consoles are essentially interfaces for connecting to the magic around you. It wasn’t really connected to the game in the first place, even if it resembles the systems there,”

Sure enough, the consoles opened and functioned just how I remembered. I found my phone in there, along with a familiar crescent moon necklace.

“Oh, I remember using this,” I commented. I pulled it out of my inventory, examining the necklace’s silver sheen and intricately carved runes. “Is this the solution you were talking about, sis?”

Nina nodded, “Yep! You should be able to use that as a spell focus. Put your hands around it and imagine your human form, and the necklace will take care of the rest.”

I followed my sister’s instructions and was quickly overtaken by a rush of vertigo as I returned to my original height. There was this sort of light that glowed around me as my guild dress shifted back into my skinny jeans and T-shirt combo. As the light faded, I watched the vibrant pinks and blues of my hair and eyes flow into the crescent moon, replaced by my usual brown eyes and long black curly hair. Strangely, the whole thing was kind of like growing up, just really fast.

“Goddess! Look at you all adult and stuff!” Nina exclaimed.

I smiled, “You really think so? Alec and Karyl tell me that I still look like a teenager half the time,”

“Well, you can certainly act the part,” my sister teased.

“Do not!” I pouted jokingly, sticking my tongue out at Nina for good measure.

“Goddess, just call your friends already!”

“I’m working on it.” I checked my phone and winced at the notifications. There were about twenty missed calls, mostly from Karyl. She was going to give me an earful, so I opted to call my boyfriend instead.

He picked up on the second ring. “Hey, Syl-” There was a brief shuffling sound and then-

“Sylvie! Where the hell are you!?” Karyl shouted into the phone. I winced, pulling the phone slightly away from my ear. “You can’t just leave in the middle of the night without saying anything!”

“I’m sorry! It wasn’t on purpose, I- uh… Look, I’m at the restaurant we were planning to buy. Can you two come over here? I promise I’ll explain everything once you’re here.”

“Did you walk all the way there!? In the middle of the night!? Sylvie, you better have a good explanation for this!”

“Cut her some slack Karyl,” I heard Alec say through the phone. “At least let her explain before you chew her out.”

“It’ll be a lot easier to explain in person, promise,” I assured them “Just trust me on this, okay?”

“There better be!” Karyl threatened. “See you in a few minutes.” The line went dead shortly after.

“Seesh. Love you too,” I grumbled to myself.

“I didn’t know Karyl was so protective of you,” Nina said. “Are you going to be okay once she gets here?”

“Worry about yourself, sis. The second she gets her other memories back she’s coming after you, not me.”