Editing City Series:Volume8a Chapter1 (section)

===Aoe’s Sight Mode: At DT Yard===

'''<Aoe’s Over Reload>

A small woman stood in front of Aoe. The blonde-haired green-eyed woman was Fooblicky.

The large plate of fries in her left hand was tilting. The tiny girl who was hanging from Fooblicky’s right hand pushed up on the edge of the plate with her head.

Aoe’s reflexes responded to the falling plate.

He reached toward it.

But he failed to reach it. The sub program moving his hands couldn’t keep up.

<Uh, oh.>

Aoe recalled what Telyb said about Downloading.

'''“I have superb hands.”

Black light briefly surrounded his right hand and a sound like shattering glass echoed out.

The black light formed an emblem on the back of his hand. An emblem bearing a black spear symbol.

Aoe felt a light impact on his hand as he accurately caught the plate.

“Hm.”

He nodded and looked around in his crouching pose.

Telyb behind the desk and Fooblicky were both staring wide eyed.

“You’re a talented guy. Most people can’t Download so soon after arriving.”

“This was nothing special.”

He downplayed the accomplishment, but then felt a tug at the plate he was holding near the floor.

<What was that?>

His vision answered his visible question.

Below the plate, tiny Yuo was holding onto it with her little, round hands. She looked sleepy, but she started grabbing at the fries.

She ate one, two, three of them before looking up.

Their eyes met with Aoe still crouching.

She blinked her large eyes twice, thrice.

“Senpai?”

But before she recovered from her confusion, she looked back down toward the fries, reached out, and resumed eating.

Her little hands grabbed at the three flavors of fries and consumed them.

<Does she care more about food than me?>

Aoe’s thought appeared in a window above his head, but Yuo didn’t even notice. She was too focused on the fries.

He sighed. He had demanded this reunion after 6 years, so he had been concerned she might not be happy about it. Even if she had come to terms with her anger and confusion, it didn’t just go away. But at the same time…

<nowiki><I</nowiki> wasn’t exactly happy either when you left without saying a word.>

When he saw that tiny version of her still focused on the fries, his thoughts strayed.

She was still ignoring him to eat.

He suddenly remembered when he had brought her to a ramen place the day they first met.

<They gave her a fork since she didn’t know how to use chopsticks and then she absolutely devoured that bowl of ramen.>

He smiled bitterly.

His right hand wasn’t forming a fist since it was holding the plate.

''Giving up on that will have to come later,'' he felt rather than thought.

He noticed Yuo was reaching for another fry.

He yanked the plate back so her hand missed the fry.

After her hand found only air, she swayed a few times below Fooblicky’s hand, but then she clenched her empty hands and looked to Aoe.

“Uh,” she began before bursting into tears.

She cries out loud and Fooblicky hid her behind her back.

“Wh-what is wrong with you!? You made her cry!”

“I was only doing what I used to do back in the cafeteria. She didn’t cry back then though.”

“High-performance mode removes so many programs you can’t control your reactions!”

Fooblicky lowered Yuo to the floor.

Yuo resumed crying next to Fooblicky.

She opened her mouth wide and bawled, so Fooblicky pulled out a handkerchief and died off the girl’s cheeks.

“There, there. It must have been rough having him constantly psychologically abusing you like that. Don’t cry, okay? Try to forget about that cruel man.”

“Hold on. You’re acting like I’m some kind of criminal.”

“You are technically a criminal right now.”

Aoe ignored Telyb’s comment and looked to Yuo.

After staring at her for a bit, her bawling subsided to simple sobs.

After an equal amount of time, those sobs settled down to irregular breathing.

When Aoe grabbed the fries and crouched down, the crying had stropped altogether.

Tiny Yuo was looking up at him with her shoulders shaking.

She wasn’t crying. The shaking was just from wiping the tears away with her round hands.

She viewed him with her blue eyes.

Her gaze was direct but trembled just a bit.

<Here. You’re supposed to be an adult now, so don’t cry so much.>

He held out the plate of fries, grabbed one himself, and ate it. The vinegar flavor was pretty strong.

Seeing that, Yuo hesitated a bit but finally reached out her hands and grabbed some fries too.

She held one of each flavor together, opened her mouth wide, and stuffed them in her mouth like she was going to eat her fingers off too.

She chewed and swallowed with her fingers still in her mouth.

A few seconds later, she sighed in a way that wasn’t quite childish but not quite adult either.

“Senpai?” she said.

At the same time, she wiped her hands off on her clothes and approached. He followed her with his eyes as she trotted over to him.

She arrived next to him and patted his crouching thigh like she was confirming he was really there.

He smiled bitterly as her small hand lightly slapped him.

<Ha ha ha. It’s like she’s brainless.>

“You could at least describe her as like a cat or a dog.”

Whether she heard Fooblicky’s comment or not, Yuo moved her patting hands from his thigh to his side and then his back.

“It’s really him. It’s really Senpai.”

She sounded surprised and then she ran around behind him.

“Hey, you idiot! Don’t cling to my back!”

He reached around behind him, but she was too small.

He missed her and she scampered up his back. Once at the top, she clung to the back of his neck.

She ignored how the dog on his shoulder moved out of her way in surprise.

“Outside! Let’s go outside!”

“Really?” Aoe turned his head to get a look at the small girl and stood up. “What am I supposed to do about this?”

“Whatever you want,” said Telyb. “But I see your relationship was exactly as Yuo described it.”

Aoe looked away from Yuo on his back and gave Telyb a dejected look.

Telyb looked up at him with a toothy grin.

“When you first met her, she says you flipped up her skirt, making her scream, and then took her outside the school to witness a fight. A fight between you and a group of 50 people.”

“If she had shown any interest in going to class, I would have let her, but she was staring into the distance behind the school building. She was the new overseas exchange student and a princess, so I decided it would be best to show her the Japanese student way of life sooner rather than later.”

“She was certainly influenced by that way of life when she returned 3 years later,” snidely noted Fooblicky.

Aoe calmly nodded.

“Yes, she grew strong enough to not cry when someone flipped up her skirt.”

He pointed to Yuo on his shoulder and she reached her hands out toward his finger.

He moved his finger around to avoid her hands, looking unsure what to do about this.

<She used to hang her head and not say much. And she would tease her hair when she was anxious.>

“I finally got her to tell me her name and why she was in Japan when we stopped for ramen on the way back.”

He sighed and pulled his finger away. He ignored how she cried out in disappointment.

“So what do I do now?”

“Why not visit the Royal Library like I suggested? Oh, and you should switch out of Sight Mode soon. You’ll waste the energy from those fries.”

“Can we go outside? Stop talking so much, Telyb! Prove that fat belly of yours is worth something!”

Yuo’s comment led Aoe to look at Telyb’s stomach.

'''<Aoe’s Over Zoom>

He did have quite a belly.

“It’s true, but you can still get after her for pointing it out.”

'''<Aoe’s Sight Mode has ended>

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