“You followed me?” I squeaked, backing away from Paisley. Did she know who I was before? Was she following me to… no, that wasn’t her style. She wasn’t a confrontational girl. Shit, she got scared whenever people raised their voices in mild irritation.

I could see her realise in real-time that following me into the woods alone might not have been the most normal or rational of decisions. Her mouth opened and closed like a confused goldfish, while her brows knit together with worry.

“I’m… I’m sorry,” she stammered. “I was just… I mean…”

“Stalking me?” I finished for her.

Swallowing, her eyes dropped to the forest floor and she nodded. Ah, fuck. There it was, the kicked puppy look. I couldn’t… fuck, I couldn’t stay mad at her. Yes, she’d voted to kick me from the guild, and yes, she hadn’t reached out to me through my FTLN-ID, but… she was still as sweet and caring as ever.

Letting out a long sigh of defeat, I sheathed my sword and approached her. She stayed locked in place, staring at the ground while her eyes fought to stay dry. Tentatively, I reached out and lifted her chin with the tip of my finger. Her eyes went wide when they met mine, and she swayed forward slightly on her feet.

“Paisley,” I said softly. “If you want to come with me, just ask.”

“But I don’t… I don’t know you,” she mumbled, her big dark brown eyes still staring into mine. “I basically forced you to be my friend. Plus, you seem to not want much company, but you haven’t really told me no, either, and…”

“So what, you’re going to creepily follow me?” Ah. Yeah, that’s right. I was talking to her as though I knew her, and yes, I did know her, and yes, I missed her friendship more than I missed my legs, but this was just stupid. Okay, time to switch tactics. “Look, I’m sorry. I have big emotional baggage, okay? I was recently hurt by a lot of people I cared about, people who I thought cared about me. Trust is something I struggle with these days, and you’re not helping it by following me around.”

She listened intently as I spoke, then gasped as my thumb brushed across her cheek. “K-keiko. I’m so sorry. I was really weird and forward and… I’m sorry.”

“As forward as me touching your face just now?” I asked, breaking the tension with a giggle.

Her cheeks, already pink, blushed a pretty crimson. God, she was gorgeous. Maybe there was like, a reasonable explanation for everything that had happened? She was just such a good, kind person normally. Voting to kick me without at least hearing my side of the story was… so not in character for her.

“Keiko,” she whispered, eyes dancing anxiously all over the place. “You’re confusing me.”

“Sorry,” I said, pulling back quickly. “Sorry, uh… shit. So why did you follow me?”

“I want to be proper friends, but you keep running away,” she said dejectedly. “I wanted to actually ask you if we could, you know? If you say no, I’ll fuck off back to town and that will be that.”

God damn it Paisley. Did you ever think that maybe I wanted to do my own thing? I didn’t tell her that, obviously. Despite everything, I still sort of liked her, and I definitely didn’t want to hurt her.

Finally, I sighed and sent her a party invite. “Okay, sure. I’m looking for a spooky tree and your firepower would make this a hell of a lot easier. Want to come?”

“Wait, really? I can come?” she asked, suddenly hopeful.

“Yeah,” I said, giving a shrug. “Why not. Can’t hurt to have a high level friend on this quest.”

“Thanks!” she said shyly. “I’ll be helpful, I promise.”

Rather than reply, I gestured for her to follow, then began to walk further into the forest. She hopped along behind me for a few meters, then as though gaining the courage to do so, pushed up to my side.

When I glanced over at her, I caught her staring at me. “Paisley, why are you so interested in me anyway?”

“Because… I don’t know,” she said. “Well, I guess I’ve always just been really good at picking up on people’s vibes, you know? Like I have some sort of sixth sense for empathy. You seem nice, but also really kinda sad, if you don’t mind me saying so. I guess I just want to help? Is that okay?“

“Help, huh?” I mused, pushing some underbrush out of the way for her. “I hope you treat your friends better than the people you’re attempting to befriend, then. Assuming you can convince me at all, that is.”

“Yes! I do!” she told me adamantly.

“I’ll have to see it to believe it, I think. You seem like the type that’s all nice and happy on the surface, but then you stab people in the back when they least expect it. It’s just a vibe I get from you.” I couldn’t help but tease her, even if some of what I was saying was rather pointed. I’d always been able to convince her of some pretty outlandish shit, despite the fact she was actually pretty smart. She was just way too trusting, I guess.

My teasing was rewarded with an appalled gasp from the gnome mage, and in moments we’d stopped again. “Do I really give off that impression? I’m so sorry! You must have thought I was—“

“Oh my god, it’s okay, it’s okay,” I laughed, my poker face crumbling. “I was just joking.”

That, apparently, wasn't the right thing to say, because she began to tear up. She fought to keep a brave face on, but it was a lost cause.

My hands were on her face again faster than my double timing heartbeat, but this time it was with soothing little brushes of my fingertips. "Hey, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to upset you. I'm sorry."

Shaking her head, she took a few long, deep breaths and said, "No, it's not the joke that's making me sad. You just reminded me of… a best friend of mine. Ex-best friend, I guess. He got kicked from our guild for saying and doing some nasty stuff that was way out of character for him and— well, it doesn't matter anymore. I miss him. I wish I had been brave enough to try and fix things, or just… go after him, make sure he was okay. Instead, I froze up, because I’m a big fucking coward."

It took me a hot moment to realise she was talking about me. She looked so sad, and weirdly, so earnest. She voted to kick me, why did she look like a kicked puppy?

“Did you ask him why he said what he did?” I questioned tentatively. This was dangerous ground to tread, and still very raw for me.

She shook her head silently.

Dropping my hands from her face, I motioned for us to keep walking and did my best not to get angry at her. “Why not?”

“He unfriended me before I could speak to him… and uh, I forgot his last name,” she told me sheepishly. “I couldn’t find his FTLN-ID because I couldn’t remember his goddamn last name, because I’m a total idiot.”

I stared at her, so incredulous that I almost tripped on a fallen tree branch. “You forgot his name?”

“It was Japanese! I didn’t know how to spell it!” she exclaimed, throwing her hands in the air. “You try and figure out how to spell—” Her gaze landed on my face and she ground to a halt. “Uh… crap. I mean, sorry. That was kinda insensitive of me.”

I shrugged, still processing what she’d just told me. My fuckin’... my last name, my real one. It had a long e sound in it, but it romanized to ii. I’d never actually spelled my name out to her, I only ever spoke it.

Groaning, I massaged my temples and turned my eyes heavenward. How to approach this… “I’m going to guess that this friend of yours was also of Asian descent?”

“Yes, he was,” she mumbled. “Japanese, like you, if I had to guess.”

Biting my lip, I thought for just a moment, then inwardly shrugged. What the hell, it couldn’t hurt, right?

“I won’t ask his name, that’s a breach of trust, but I can try to help by going through common misspellings. Do you want that?” I asked, giving her an encouraging smile.

Her gasp of relief and excitement took a second to arrive, as though it had gotten stuck in her throat, only for it all to be released in a torrent of words. “Yes, oh my god, yes. Please. I miss him so much, and he deserved so much better than what happened, and I— yes. Please.”

My heart almost broke at her earnest tone. With a deep, steadying breath, I began to explain how different Japanese sounds were romanized. Of course, when I got to the ii sound, she perked up and proceeded to slap her forehead hard enough to make it go red. Girl really needed to get some impulse control, one day she was going to really fuck things up, or hurt herself, or hurt someone else. Physically. She’d already hurt me emotionally.

However… the very fact that she wanted to talk to me, me as in Rosco, not me as in Keiko… it warmed me up to the idea of making friends with her again now. I had no intention of going back to my old character. It just… made me uncomfortable, even thinking about it. I guess there was a lot of bad history attached to that character now. It would be interesting to have a conversation with her, though, and find out what happened from her perspective.

“Thank you so much for your help,” she said softly, once we’d puzzled out all the sounds she needed. “You’re kinda prickly on the surface, and beautiful, of course, but also really nice underneath, huh?”

“Don’t tell anyone,” I glanced away, fighting a blush. “I have a reputation to keep.”

“Kinda like a rose, actually.” she winked, clearly enjoying the turned tables. “Cliche, I know, but it fits.”

Oh gosh. Suddenly, a funny, buzzing warmth bloomed in my stomach.

“You’re gorgeous,” she blurted, stepping closer. “I feel like you… uh… well, I just think that you need to hear that, you know?”

“Why on earth would I… Paisley, please,” I all but begged her. “Stop.”

“Sorry, sorry,” she apologized, taking a quick step away. “God, I’m so bad at this. How can I be so good at reading people one moment, and then completely fuck it up the next? I can’t believe I just assumed…”

“Assumed what?” I asked, meeting her eyes with a look of confusion.

She bit her lip and shrugged. “A lot of things. Don’t worry… it’s nothing. I’ll stop.”

“I am so confused,” I muttered, more to myself than to her, although I knew she’d have heard me. Either way, she didn’t reply, and we awkwardly continued our journey in silence.

We walked on into the increasingly spooky woods together in silence, save for the occasional run-in with more creepy undead dryad things. Paisley made short work of them with her pinpoint accurate aim and deadly arsenal of spells. It was a little humbling to see her in action from the perspective of my newbieness. I mean, she was instantly incinerating half a dozen enemies at a time, nullifying fights that would have taken me five minutes to push through.

"You're really strong," I remarked after she lanced something called a Minor Rotting Treant like it was a boil.

Glancing over at me, she gave a happy, open little smile. "It's just levels and gear. You're the one who actually knows how to use that katana. That's proper impressive."

“Stop,” I laughed, feeling my stomach go all warm again. I was about to shut down the weird feelings and the stupid bashful, embarrassed response to her praise when Elena’s voice echoed through my memories. Why did it matter? Why not just enjoy who I was now? I could just let this chance at friendship with one of my favourite people in the world blossom again. Hell, it was practically a new friendship, considering how different I seemed to be these days.

Unaware of the battle that had just raged inside my digital skull, Paisley winked at me. “Why do you want me to stop? You look like you enjoy my cheerleading, even if you don’t know what to do with it.”

Oh god, her teasing hit so different now. So different and so good.

“Okay, fine,” I grumbled, unable to fight the simultaneous grin and reddening of my cheeks. “Fine, yes, I have a bit of an ego when it comes to my skills with slightly curved stabbing implements. Um, and yes, I do like it when you cheerlead for me. Happy?”

“For now,” she replied, giving a sort of combination giggle and smirk as she looted the bodies. Oh geez, I wasn’t the only one acting different. Paisley was much more… what? I didn’t even have a word for the difference between the Paisley of my memories and the girl bouncing through the forest ahead of me. Maybe I’d find one later, google it or something.