Hey Conor! Time to wake up!”

Fig’s now familiar voice eagerly called out to me and dragged me into consciousness. Despite how tired I’d felt last night, I felt pretty well rested now. Whether that was because of my refilling mana or just sleeping well, I had no idea. 

Checking my phone showed that it was exactly eight AM, so scratch that previous statement, it was definitely the mana making me feel awake.

I sat up and stretched as I questioned fig while I waited for my brain to boot up.

“Why would you wake me up right now, Fig?”

She crossed her arms and looked down at me as though I had just said something extremely foolish.

“Don’t be so lazy! You start work in two days, and a few days ago you were sleeping in past noon! If you don’t start getting up early now, you’re screwed!”

“But… it’s Saturday…” I complained.

“Your sleep schedule needs all the help it can get!”

“Blech…”

She was probably right, of course, and I wasn’t exactly too tired to function, but being up this early made me feel tired just thinking about it. Sleeping in on Saturday is a matter of principle!

Despite my complaints, I stood up and made my way to the kitchen, passing by two plates covered in toast crumbs as I went by the sink. Leave it to Mile and Noitte to make me feel like a bum even on the weekend. Taking a cue from the two of them, I made myself some toast with jelly and a cup of orange juice, ensuring that I had some energy before going out to the park this morning. 

My main goal in going out today was absolutely to get Noitte by herself, but I hadn’t been completely lying when I said I’d wanted to get back into exercising. Feeling tired just from walking around the mall or going to a convenience store was just too mortifying for me to let it keep happening, and the park was as good a place as any to start jogging again.

I didn’t have a treadmill or anything at home, so it would be hard to do any running, and I didn’t want to run around the neighborhood or anything because, well, I hated the thought of people seeing me running when I was this out of shape. Fortunately on both counts, the park had a solution: it had a path that ran through a large forested area that most people didn’t go through. There would still be the occasional person, sure, but it was still a lot better than going through a crowded neighborhood or the main track in the park.

As an added bonus, the forest had plenty of secluded places to go to with Noitte, meaning getting her alone would be easy. After that, well…

I brought my plate to the sink as I continued to plan out the day, only to be interrupted by my phone buzzing. 

Buzzing?

I didn’t hear the garage, so everyone should still be home, right? Who’s texting me?

I opened up the phone to find a message from Luce with a file attached. While feeling equal parts concerned and curious, I clicked on it, only to be greeted by the sight of Luce in her underwear, taking a picture of herself in her bathroom mirror. 

For a moment, I was stunned as I looked at my screen. It took me a second to puzzle together why I would receive something like this from Luce, of all people.

So I assume this was the “plan” she mentioned yesterday to motivate me while she isn’t around? Not that I’m complaining, mind you, but I do have to wonder how she thinks this is better than me taking pictures of her myself. Also, the sight of her standing plainly in front of the mirror and taking a straight-faced picture with no attempt whatsoever to be sexy was… well it was actually kind of hot in its own way, I guess, but maybe I should add more to the category of “motivation” than just undressing. 

Also, the caption on the picture was “Keep working harder, asshole” which kind of took away from the charm. Just another thing to fix when I get the chance.

Well, it’s a free pic of Luce mostly naked, so I can’t exactly complain. Maybe I can do something with this? Other than jerk off, I guess…

“Hey Conor! You’re up!”

I was interrupted by Noitte’s cheerful voice and quickly closed my phone screen as she excitedly entered the kitchen. It would definitely be hard for me to explain the picture if she saw it. 

“M-Morning Noitte.”

“Mornin’! Whatcha up to?” she asked, fortunately seeming to miss my moment of panic. 

“Er… Just finishing breakfast.”

Noitte smiled brightly as she made her way over to the sink and into my personal space once again as she checked out the crumbs sticking to my plate

“Oh, Cool beans. You had toast too, huh? Oh, but first: What time do you want to take off?”

Right, the park… Well, I guess I can just get dressed and go, right? 

As I thought, a tiny indignant voice rang out in my head.

“Don’t you dare, Conor! You haven’t showered in like a week! Even as your skill I’m starting to get nauseous! Shower before you go or you’re going to make her sick!”

…

Rude, but… well… I guess I’m taking a shower before I go.

“I… guess I should take a quick shower before we go, so it’ll still be a bit, Noitte.”

A brief look of confusion brushed past Noitte’s face before she cheerfully replied”

“Yeah, no rush or anything!”

Sigh. Why was she confused at me taking a shower? Am I really that bad?

Despite saying there was no rush, she was obviously excited for our trip to the park today. She couldn’t seem to stop smiling as she went to sit on the couch, continuously looking back at me with wide eyes as she waited for me to hurry up and get ready to go.

It… Seemed like a bit much for just going to the park.

Even so, I’d feel bad if I kept her waiting too long, so I quickly grabbed my clothes and rushed upstairs to shower. I made quick work of it, only pausing for a moment to take note of the fact that the soap I used was slightly stuck to the part of the shower rack it was set on last time… Yeah, let’s add hygiene habits to the list of things to fix. 

Once I was satisfied that I was clean enough for now, I hopped out, dried off, and began putting on the clothes I had chosen for today: my old track uniform. I couldn’t help but think as I put on my old running shorts that it had been a while since I had actually worn clothes meant for athletics.

As I finished getting dressed, I looked at myself in the mirror. It was both a familiar sight and a foreign one. I was wearing the track uniform I’d worn back in college, sporting the same eye-catching dark orange Noitte always had on. It was a uniform I’d spent years putting on basically every day, but hadn’t touched in around five years. 

I continued to look at myself in the mirror for a moment. For the most part, I felt like I looked just like I did when I was actively running. I hadn’t gained much weight or anything, I hadn’t got any shorter or taller, my hair was a little messier, but nothing extreme. Despite all of that, for some reason something felt different.

As I stared in the mirror, I was interrupted by a squeaky and slightly annoyed voice from behind me.

“Hey Conor! Noitte’s still waiting on you, you know?” Fig said, tapping the back of her wrist despite its lack of a watch.

Right. Let’s not go too far down memory lane here. I still have stuff I want to do today. 

With that, I adjusted my clothing one last time, and made my way out of the bathroom and down the stairs, only to find Noitte staring at me with an even bigger grin than before. Her eyes were almost sparkling as she quickly walked up to me and looked me up and down.

“Wow! Looking good, Conor! It’s been a while since you’ve worn these, right? Do they still fit the same? Wait, did you just have them with your regular clothes or what? They look all wrinkled. Did you-”

Noitte immediately bombarded me with everything on her mind at the moment, immediately overwhelming me as I tried to process her questions one at a time.

I appreciated her excitement and all, but she was going to have me completely exhausted before we even made it out the door.

As I tried to field her questions one at a time, I heard footsteps come down the stairs, followed shortly by Mile turning the corner and looking at me with an expression of shock which slowly faded into joy.

“Are you going for a run, honey?”

Noitte chimed in much faster than me.

“Yeah! We’re headed to the park! He wants to start exercising again, so we’re gonna head out together!”

“Oh? That’s wonderful! Just don’t overdo it, okay? You shouldn’t just jump right back in after all this time, or you’ll hurt yourself.”

“Don’t worry, mom. We know what we’re doing. Today’s just a warm up and-”

Somehow, the conversation just continued on without me, with Noitte acting as my spokesperson while Mile expressed her excitement and concern. This was actually a pretty common thing with them. I didn’t tend to keep up with their fast paced conversations, so they’d just sort of end up talking for and around me. It was slightly annoying, but it was the sort of thing I’d gotten used to with these two. As long as they didn’t say anything wildly ridiculous, there wouldn’t really be any reason for me to get in the middle of their talkathon.

It took a few minutes of listening to them ramble, but eventually they both seemed to get everything they wanted to say out of the way, and with one more round of “Goodbye”s and “Be safe”s, we were able to make it out the door and on our way to the park. 

The park itself was about a mile and a half away, so it would be a bit of a walk just to get there. On the bright side, the weather was pretty mild and there was a decent breeze going, so it wouldn’t be that bad of a walk.

As we strolled along the sidewalk, I noticed Noitte occasionally looking over at me with different expressions. First excited, then concerned, then confused, and then everywhere in between. Despite clearly having something to say, she just kept looking back and forth, opening and closing her mouth occasionally as she seemed to be unable to decide what, if anything, she wanted to say.

Seriously? How can someone so painfully talkative have so much trouble just saying what she wants to say sometimes? It would be one thing if she were like Season and just never said much in the first place, but she just finished having an entire book’s worth of conversation with Mile not five minutes ago!

Welp, guess it’s up to me.

“Something wrong, Noitte?”

"Huh!? Er, yeah, no, just… not really."

How convincing.

"Seriously. If you're just going to keep looking back and forth like that the whole time it's just going to be awkward for both of us."

"I… just… it’s really nothing! So just drop it for now, okay?”

Yeah, no.

Sympathize

I felt my heart start to speed up as I was quickly overwhelmed with a feeling of anxiety I never would have expected from someone like Noitte. It felt like I was waiting for an asteroid to hit the Earth or to hear that someone I loved had cancer. Just… where was this fear coming from?

I turned to her, trying to gauge what was going on, only to accidentally lock eyes with her and see the same expression of worry on her face once again.

Wait… Is she scared of me? Maybe Corruption isn’t working as well as I thought it was and she feels like I’m taking advantage of her?

Okay, wait, calm down. Let’s figure this out.

“Sorry Noitte” I continued, “you just seem really worried about something, and… er, is there anything I can do to help?”

“...No, not really… Just… Just don’t overdo it, okay? Nothing good’s gonna come from rushing things, you know?”

What? She’s worried about me running? No… that’s not the kind of anxiety you feel from not wanting someone to sprain something, right?

Sympathize

I reused the skill, hoping to get some more insight into what she was feeling. This time I got a slight sense of relief along with a little less anxiety. It was still way more than seemed healthy, but it was definitely a little less than before. I could also tell that the anxiety was directed specifically towards me, but not why.

She wouldn’t tell me what was going on when I asked her directly, so should I just use Active Corruption to try to get an answer out of her?

No. It’s one use per day between both Corruption skills, so I wouldn’t be able to use it at the park.

Should I use Sympathize again?

No. It seems to give a little more information if I use it repeatedly, but who knows how long it would take to get actual details on why she feels that way. It could be one more use or twenty, and after that terrible feeling of tiredness last night, I’m not sure how willing I am to gamble a bunch of mana on something that might not get results…

We continued our walk towards the park with a slight air of awkwardness as Noitte continued to be evasive about what was bothering her, and I struggled to figure out what exactly was wrong. After all, if it was a flaw with Corruption, I could be walking into a serious problem once we got there. 

“Hey Conor.”

Noitte’s softer than usual tone brought me out of my thoughts and back to reality.

“What’s up?”

“I know you said you didn’t really have any plans for how long you were going to stay at Richard’s or anything, but do you have any other plans for what you’re gonna be doing in the meantime other than that? I mean, like, going out places, working out, stuff like that?”

It seemed like kind of a weird question, but not a hard one to answer.

“Er, for now I’m just going to work on getting things together, you know? I don’t really have any long term plans or anything.”

Her expression dropped briefly as she listened to me. Wait, what? Did I answer wrong again or something?

She quickly recovered her usual look as we continued walking, but that dark expression, however brief, definitely meant something was wrong. 

We walked in silence for a moment as we each thought about what I had said until, finally, Noitte broke the silence.

“Well, whatever you want to do, Conor, I’ll be here to help… if you want.”

“Uh… right.”

I had no idea how to react to that, so I just continued awkwardly walking alongside Noitte. Neither of us said anything else as we made our way into the park.

I kept trying to figure out what the problem was and why she would say something like that, but I couldn’t settle on an answer. I thought I heard a small voice inside my head say “What an idiot”, but that must have been my imagination.