—–
And after comforting my daughter, I decided to move to the gym and meet with Rita. In there, I had to explain it everything that happened yesterday because she was actually dead worried about me and had wanted to come to my house to check me for a while, but I always told her I was alright. However, as always, after she calmed down, her usual cocky nature resurfaced.
“Ohohoho~ So Mark came to your house and began cooking and taking care of you?! Oh my! Oh my, oh my~!” Rita began giggling devilishly. “He even cooked for you and attended you as if he were your boyfriend or something…”
“R-Rita! Stop saying that…!” I cried. I couldn’t help but feel flustered the more she remarked how shameless I was to ask Mark for all of those things. It really felt as if he was my boyfriend taking care of me now! Uwah… Why did I even asked for his help so shamelessly?
“You can’t deny it Elayne.” Rita said. “I bet it felt nice to be taken care by him, right? I’ve seen him sometimes, he’s handsome, tall, and good looking, and even gentle and soft like a feather, isn’t he?”
“W-Well, he’s gentler than other guys… yeah.” I sighed.
“Ufufu… I know you love cute guys.” Said Rita.
“Ugh… Just shut up… I am a married woman, you know?” I said, looking into the window and admiring the city outside. “I feel bad each time I begin thinking stuff like you said… It just… doesn’t feel right to me.”
“Hmm…” Rita sighed, falling silent for a bit. “Okay, sorry… I was a bit careless there.”
“Huh, yeah…” I said while feeling a bit angered.
“I know you loved him a lot…” Said Rita. “But it has been a while, dear. Don’t you think its time to move on? It’s already obvious based in your reactions and how you talk about that guy… You like him a bit, right?”
“W-Wha…?! S-Shut up…” I sighed. “I… This is not something you can understand, Rita…”
“…”
Rita remained in silence as she seemed to not want to talk anymore.
“I’ve been thinking about it for a while but I can’t really do it.” I sighed. “I can’t really… move on. It’s hard to even wake up every morning knowing he’s gone. Do you think I could even dare betray him now?”
“But he’s…”
“I know!” I cried. “I just… It doesn’t sit right to me. I feel like if I do something like that, I would simply be someone horrible.”
“Elayne, I’m sure your husband would want you to move on. He always loved you and wanted your happiness.” Said Rita.
“What do you even know about him?!”
“E-Elayne…”
Ah…
I just realized I ended screaming a bit too much. People in the gym were looking at me weirdly.
I felt so embarrassed…
Without thinking any further, I ended running to the bathroom, washing my face.
“Sigh…”
I looked into the mirror and saw a very tired woman.
I guess this is me…
“Elayne…”
I suddenly heard Rita’s voice behind me.
“R-Rita… I’m sorry, I didn’t wanted to scream at you like that…” I apologized, I felt quite bad for what I did.
“Ah, it’s fine. I was being an asshole.” Sighed Rita. “I know I shouldn’t be forcing you to do… things you don’t want to. Sorry for teasing you so much. Sometimes I forget you’re so soft deep down.”
“Geez, saying that doesn’t really help, you know?” I asked.
“Ahaha… Okay, sorry again…” Rita said. “I don’t want you to get mad, so let’s go back to the gym!”
“Okay…” I sighed. “Let’s go.”
After that, Rita didn’t brought the topic again and we spoke about the game instead, as it had become a big topic of conversation. Apparently she had logged into the game last night and only found Titan, but without me, they were not able to advance the quest, so they stayed a few hours with the fairies helping them reconstruct the city and reinforce the magic barriers.
“Some people was super interested in my dark magic in that fairy town.” Said Rita. “I guess it is rare for them, huh? I heard they often thought dark magic was only wielded by evil people or monsters. So they were surprised when I was just a nice person~”
“I’m sure they just said that because they had not really explored the outside world… I’m sure there might be tribes of dark elves, or other people that can wield dark magic as well. After all it’s a game, you can’t just make a type of element as rare, especially because most young players love the dark element for… well, a lot of young players are edgy.”
“Yeah, I guess that’s right.”
“What about your oldest son? Wasn’t he playing the game?”
“Yeah! I told him I was playing but he said he got cringe and didn’t wanted to play with me…”
Rita seemed slightly sad about it. I guess she really wanted to enjoy the game with her son as well. I suppose this might be a normal response if I said the same thing to my daughter… This is why I am trying to be careful I guess.
“Maybe you shouldn’t had told your son beforehand and surprise him in-game!” I said.
“Yeah but he might had fallen in love with his mother’s avatar then! There’s no way I would do that.” Laughed Rita.
“Ah… Rita I think you’re imagining too many things.” I sighed. “Maybe you should keep insisting, you’re good at that.”
“H-Hey! What sort of compliment is that?” Rita laughed.
After the gym, we decided to go to a nearby mini market, and we bought a lot of stuff we needed to get back home to refill the food reserves and other things.
“Damn, wouldn’t it be convenient if we had the Inventory Ability from the game? Instead of having to carry all of this…” Rita sighed.
“Well, we could always order things to our house I suppose.” I said. .
“Nah, that’s too expensive!”
Rita has always been quite stingy, actually.
——