[Music Recommendation: "A Sweet Smile" by Yu-Peng Chen (Genshin Impact OST)-available in Youtube or Spotify] ~ Please listen to it in a loop while you read this part to experience the utmost beauty of this chapter ~

[Please note: We're back to Senara's POV]

~recap from Chapter 18~

"It's the meaning of your name," I explained. "In Hawaii, it means ocean. And remember we were making ocean-related analogies last time we spoke? So I just found it funny because you said it, too—that… since we're having problems with big whales, we'll need the help of the ocean."

And once again, there was silence…

~end of recap~

"Right." Took him a while to agree. "I'm no ocean, though. I'm just a teenager, too."

"Oh really? How old are you? I thought you're much older than me since you seemed mature." I didn't expect that, for real!

"Sixteen."

"Woah! We're almost the same age. I'm turning sixteen this September."

"I thought you're born in Oct—" he said but he halted after for some reason. But I could guess he was about to say October. Why did he stop though?

"Ugh… stupid pumpkin." I heard him mutter—almost inaudible.

"Ohh… were you going to say October because of the pumpkin juice that spilled over?" Yeah, either that or in their country, there's some relation with October and my personality? Maybe mood swings? I laughed at the thought of it. Oh wait! It's because of my avatar! I made it look like me.

"That's… right. Because of the juice. Hmm… why don't you change your username to Lady Pumpkin?"

"Ha-ha-ha-ha! That's so random!" I laughed so hard. "I see you're not good at naming, too. You just spilled your juice and you're suggesting a pumpkin-related username to me. How very original." My hands clapped themselves.

I heard him chuckle on the other line—or probably smirked, it sounded more like it.

"So? Lady Pumpkin, sounds good to you?"

"What? No way!"

"I think it's perfect. Two of my friends are named Scarecrow and Casper."

"What is this? Are we completing Halloween? Ha-ha-ha! Then, I should be a witch, or a ghost, or a fairy—not a pumpkin! I'm not even a person."

"Hm, too bad." He sounded disappointed.

"Haah…," I sighed. "Fine. If you want to name me Lady Pumpkin that much. I do have ginger orange hair and green eyes—just the color of pumpkins. At least that's better than ginger, I don't want to be called ginger. I hate gingers."

"Then it's settled. Hi there, Lady Pumpkin."

I surrender. "Yes? Mr. Grim Reaper?"

"Change your username now on the settings."

"Yes, yes, I'm doing it now." Good thing I still remembered where the 'settings' were. Only took me a few seconds to change my username. "There, happy?"

"Ha-ha!" He seemed very amused. "Perfect. Will you be up for a while?"

"Hm? I think so, yes."

"Then join me in boss hunting."

"What? Boss hunting? I'm still at a low level!"

"You have a Sacred Weapon. You'd do more damage than Scarecrow and Casper."

"Ohhh… right. I do have it. I'm really lucky to find it."

"Uh-huh."

"In that case, sure, I'll join you. But be warned, I'm still a complete noob so you have to teach me. Don't worry I'm a fast learner so I shouldn't be much of a burden."

"If you say so."

Hmf! So skeptical.

"By the way, why aren't you playing with Scarecrow and Casper?"

"They're under punishment. I had them clean the mess they did at the guild."

"Aww… that's sad. What did they do?"

"They invited players to one of our new guilds and a bunch of them were girls, or pretending to be girls. I wouldn't mind it if they actually played and did their best to be stronger and level up. But all they did was flirt all day, chatting and calling. Ugh. Irritating."

I blinked my eyes in surprise.

"I see. That means Scarecrow and Casper are pretty popular, huh? How did they manage to invite that many."

"Hmm… they have decent faces, I guess. They invited people from school personally and they all flocked like birds to them."

"Ha-ha! You saw it?"

"Yes."

"And what were you doing?"

"Sitting."

"You didn't help them invite?"

"Why should I? I don't want to be drowned in a sea of people. I hate touching. Everyone knows that so they don't dare approach me."

Wow. That's new. I never met anyone who hated touching that much. Was he mysophobic? I wondered if I could ask that? Would it be rude? Hmm… nope, I shouldn't ask.

"Poor Scarecrow and Casper. I hope they finish it soon so we could all play together. It's more fun playing with many people, right?"

"...Yes, that's correct."

"Next time, I'll invite Ken and Hora, too. They're my childhood friends. Ken will definitely come since he's your biggest fan. I still remember him getting jealous when I said we're friends. Oh yeah, he mentioned to me that you're a top player in this game. Congratulations on being top! That means you're really good at it."

"Thanks," he sounded shy. "And yeah, you can invite them next time."

"I sure will. Maybe I should ask them to change their usernames into something Halloween related."

"Ha-ha-ha-ha!" we ended up laughing at ourselves.

"We should start thinking what to name them."

"Yeah!" I agreed so enthusiastically. "How about… Werewolf for Ken since he has those brown hair and his personality is like a dog. Then for Hora, hmmm… she's such a cute little hamster but I can't name her that. She should have a cute name."

"Let her be the witch. Little Witch will do, if she's so little."

"Ha-ha-ha! That doesn't sound so bad. She does like reading Henry Potter. Wait a minute! I'm really the only one who's not even a person."

"Lady Pumpkin sounds like a person."

"No, it doesn't! You just put Lady that's why it seemed like a person."

And so on, we squabbled. Kai was really nice, and funny too. I never thought I'd enjoy having simple conversations with him. I always failed with talking to Ken but with him, I found it quite comfortable. I'm looking forward to playing with him more, along with the others. Ken was right. Playing games was really fun—especially if you're playing it with friends. I never would have known if he didn't lend me this game. Speaking of lending, I should return this to him and buy my own. Maybe there's a way to transfer saved files from one console to another? I'd have to ask Ken tomorrow. But for now, I'll enjoy playing.

That night… as I basked myself in the feeling of happiness since our greatest burden had been resolved… I never expected the repercussions it would bring. Things that weren't supposed to happen—they all happened because of me. Just as any law of nature—everything was supposed to exist in balance. But I… disrupted that balance.