While walking around town, we decided to discuss how we’ll be spending tomorrow celebrating. In the end, we decided to celebrate Nelly’s birthday in an unconventional way – that being at the beach. Hold on, now I know how that sounds, but hear me out! It wasn’t my idea to celebrate it like this, but rather Nelly’s, surprisingly.

When asked where she wants to go for her birthday, she suddenly mentioned that she recalled how much I was praising the beaches of Umoris, so she wanted to check it out with us for herself. While Cecily stood confused, Nelly tried giving me a sneaky wink, but she doesn’t know how to wink yet, so she ended up just blinking with both her eyes. That’s my girl, the best wingman I could ask for!

“Alright, but then we’ll need to stop by the clothes store and buy ourselves some swimwear.” Cecily shrugged, “Oh, speak of the devil, that place looks promising.”

Walking in, I immediately noticed something about this place. The clerks were pretty busy with helping everyone find their perfect fit, and the customers were all young couples. That being said, I at least felt a bit more at ease after realizing that I wasn’t the only guy that was mindlessly following his female companion all the while asking himself if he should really be here.

“Nelly, what about this one?” Cecily did the thing where she placed the outfit over Nelly’s torso as if to see if it’s the right size, “It’s pretty cute!”

“Hmm, I dunno…” Nelly disliked the idea, “It’s too childish. I want something like that!”

“That’s too inappropriate, even for me!” Cecily scolded her daughter’s boldness, “Besides, why the hell would you want something as skimpy as that?”

Well, I think everyone here knows the answer to that question all too well. If you still haven’t figured it out, I’ll give you a hint – the answer lies in the phrase “Too childish”. In short, she just wants to grow up faster to catch up to Meil, but I don’t think that wearing such… distasteful swimwear is the proper way to go about it.

“Y’know, this kind of reminds me of a conversation I had with Meil once.” I fabricated a story on the spot, “The topic was about clothes, and was pretty mundane all in all. That being said, he did mention that he preferred for girls to show less skin, since it’s actually cuter that way.”

“Weally!?” Nelly’s eyes lit up.

Heh, oldest trick in the book. That wasn’t so hard, now was it? Although, I do kind of feel bad for lying to Nelly about Meil. Who knows, this lie might escalate into something incredible, so she might get disillusioned by the true Meil if he turns out to differ too much from what I told her about him.

Eh, then again, I think it’ll be fine. Meil’s an honest kid (oh, he’s actually around the same age as me), to the point where he’s never even been in a relationship before. When I asked him about why that is though, he just replied “The girls here are all ugly. Besides, I have more important things to do than look for love. Don’t worry though, I’ll use your failure as an additional reason to stray from relationships.”

Yeah, actually, I kinda want Nelly to get disillusioned by him, now that I think about it… That guy’s brutally honest in the worst possible moments. Well, not brutally honest, per se, rather once he gets provoked, he just won’t stop retaliating until you’re practically begging him to stop.

“Nelly, quit squirming around and get dressed.” Cecily could be heard scolding Nelly from the other side of the changing booth, “H-Hey, stop staring!”

“Mom’s boobs awe huge…” Nelly was at a loss for words.

Goddammit, if it wasn’t for Nelly being in there, I would’ve peeked ages ago! Nelly, you’re my daughter and I love you, but for the love of Prylos, please shut the hell up. It’s already difficult enough to spend all this time with Cecily without being able to do anything, but you’re really not helping me with these descriptions!

“Dad! Am I cute?” Nelly pulled the curtains aside, showing me a glimpse of heaven.

“A-Ah, Nelly!” Cecily blushed, “S-So… are we?”

“Y-Yeah…” I gazed at the beauty of the female body, each curve on Cecily’s body perfectly emphasizing her best parts, “You’re cute.”

“…” Nelly switched between looking at my expression and Cecily’s, before finally asking with a deadpan face, “Awe you talking about me ow mom?”

And so, the preparations were complete, and we had a real field day at the beach. Though, Nelly and I spent too much time playing in the sea, so we got one hell of a sunburn the day after. Happy birthday, Nelly?

***

It’s been a month since that day. We’ve since checked out of the inn at the capital of Umoris, and left for Occidence. Actually, when all was said and done, we all felt a bit lonely about leaving the place. Neither Nelly nor Cecily could understand any Cardinic though, so it’s not like we knew that many people here. But even still, the staff at the inn was pretty nice, and we’ve all made some happy memories in this place.

But come on, we’re on a journey across the continent! We can’t just get too attached to one place because we cower under the fear of change. That being said, we’re right now in the transport wagon that’s leading us to Occidence, the western country of Cardina. Granted, I’ve learned from my past mistakes and have brought a bag to throw up into if I get sick again…

Occidence is an amazing place though, since it’s the place where Cardina and the Four Cardinal Countries got their names. You see, lot of sailors from Simpleton would wash up on the shores of Occidence, but they wouldn’t know where they’re at, so the locals would point them in the right direction. Eventually, the locals got fed up of constantly saying “East!”, “West!”, “North!” and “South!”, so they just named the Four Cardinal Countries after the four cardinal directions.

“Isn’t that interesting, Nelly?” I turned to her as I finished up my little presentation, “We’ve already been to Meridia, but we’ll soon visit Boreal and Orientalia after this place, you know?”

“Yeah, but I don’t undewstand one thing.” She asked, “Those names don’t weally make sense. Fow stawtews, they don’t even sound like the fouw diwections.”

“Ah, about that,” I raised her expectations before coming clean, “I haven’t a clue about that either. My best bet is that it comes from a dead language or something. It’d make sense too, since no one knows when exactly the continents were named, and Auros did say the world is really, REALLY old.”

Noting her father’s words, she decided to leave the lecture prematurely in favor of focusing on the fireworks up ahead.

“Whoaa! Look, look, the sky’s lighting up!” She was charmed by all the illuminating colors, “What’s going on?”

“Those are fireworks, I think.” Cecily explained, “I’ve heard of them before, but never got the chance to see them myself. People light them up and send them off far into the sky in times of celebration.”

“Is today a special day or something?” I asked, “I don’t remember anyone talking about today being fireworks-worthy.”

“Why are you looking at me?” The wagon driver peeked over his shoulder before turning back, “I haven’t a clue either. Just make sure not to leave any of your luggage behind when we get there, and don’t you DARE think about not paying up!”

Yeesh, who hurt you, guy? Seriously though, the transport wagon fares are one of the most affordable modes of transport all across the world, so I don’t see why anyone would think to skimp out on paying for it. I get that not everyone has the funds for it, but it’s not really that difficult to secure a couple silver coins worth of money for it, is it?

“Alright! Looks like I was right on the money with my guess!” I said as we walked through the busy streets of Oak Varia, the capital of Occidence, “This here’s a festival alright!”

“Let’s check out the stalls then.” Cecily chuckled, “I wanna try all the sweets and savories they’re selling there!”

“Dad, what awe those stalls ovew thewe?” Nelly seemed enamored by the mini-game type stalls, “And why awe all those toys hung up on the wall?”

“Wanna check them out? Cecily, would you mind if we…” I turned to a very hungry Cecily that was practically drooling at the sight of all the food, “Nevermind… Nelly, let’s first get something to eat, then we’ll check it out, okay?”

“But I wanna play!” Nelly puffed up her cheeks in protest. “Besides, I’m not hungwy!”

I understand, sweetie, but your mother’s gonna eat the prize if we do! We should probably get something to eat before that happens, but after that I promise we’ll visit every mini-game stall at this festival! Father’s promise!

“Sometimes it’s important to eat even if you’re not hungry.” I felt a piece of fatherly wisdom inspire me, “Sometimes you’re not eating for your sake, but the sake of the people around you.”

Turning to see the state of her mother, she finally understood what I meant and spared her mother from a hunger filled evening outing. Thus, I lightly tapped Cecily on the shoulder before shining her a bright grin.

“I’m feeling kind of hungry too, let’s see what these guys have to offer in terms of Occidental quisine!”

In an instant, I saw her face light up as she smiled, before hesitantly backing out. “Really!? Ah, but Nelly said she wanted to see the stalls with the games…”

“We can do that latew!” Nelly pushed her mother towards the food stalls, “We’ll play latew, now it’s time fow food!”

And so, in just about an hour, we had practically stuffed ourselves to the brim with all the sliced potatoes on sticks, cotton candy, ice creams and fruit salads. From our days back in Great Hiana, Nelly was always a prim and proper lady when it came to table manners, but I guess she didn’t have the time to keep up appearances this time, since she was all but devouring the aforementioned snacks in an instant. Honestly, I’d like to say that she’s just comfortable enough to let loose around us, but I doubt she could ever be okay with being herself around me, the person who hurt her the most.

Well, I’m not complaining. Cecily is cute, and I won’t ever back down on that stance. And not only that, but her happily munching down on all the stall snacks here just made me unreasonably happy. It’s like a tightening in the chest when you see something so cute that your brain just doesn’t know how else to react. It’s that type of feeling, I hope you can sort of understand.

“Ah, I don’t believe I’ve ever been fuller!” Cecily giggled.

“It’s fine if you wanna continue, though.” I walked next to her, “Arthur would always praise me for eating a lot, so you could say I’m sort of an expert when it comes to food intake.”

“I’d like to, honest to God.” She agreed before pinching her tummy, “But the way things are going, I might put on weight if I do.”

“You’re cute no matter how you look like!” I let out a laugh, “A-Ah, I didn’t mean to flirt, sorry.”

Given that she’s told me countless times before that I’m banned from flirting with her or calling her pet names and the sort, I had all but expected her to pout or get angry with me, but I was quite pleasantly surprised by her reaction. Instead of getting mad, she just quietly continued walking with flushed face, her walking pace increasing ever so slightly so that I couldn’t see her face.

Oddly enough though, she couldn’t go any further than an arm’s length away, probably because we were holding hands. Wait, why were we holding hands again? Weren’t the both of us holding on to Nelly?!

“Nelly!?” I yelled, prompting Cecily to look around as well, “Ah crap, we lost her in the crowd!”