B2 Ch 86 - How Have You Been?

Bob immediately grimaced when Toma's grip tightened around his wrist, and he clearly struggled to pull his arm free, twisting it several times without success.

“Damn it, let go, you idiot! What the hell are you doing? Let go of me, or I swear I'll make you regret it!” Bob snapped, his face twisting in obvious pain.

Toma lowered his gaze to the hand gripping Bob's wrist. Only then did he seem to realize that his fingernails had dug deeply into Bob's skin. The pressure had been enough to break the skin, and thin streaks of blood were already running down Bob's hand.

“Bob, what happened to your hand? Why is it bleeding like that?” one of the others asked.

“Damn it, Toma! How dare you hurt him? Let him go! You're only making things worse for yourself!” another one shouted angrily.

Toma did not think he had been using that much strength, so why had Bob's hand been injured so badly? He stared at the blood for a moment, visibly confused by what had happened. He then immediately released his grip. As soon as he did, Bob pulled his arm back and clutched his injured wrist, his expression still twisted with pain.

“You bastard. I'll make you pay for this, Toma. Just wait. You stupid bastard, you're going to regret putting your hands on me,” Bob said afterward,

His other friends quickly moved closer to him. “Bob, what happened? He only grabbed your wrist. You're bigger than him, and you've got more muscle. How did he manage to hurt you that badly?”

“Yeah. Should we beat the hell out of him right now?”

“Shut up. We're leaving.” Bob looked irritated as he pushed past them, but before walking away, he turned his head and stared at Toma with a threatening look. “Just wait, Toma. This isn't over. I'll deal with you later.”

Toma remained standing there afterward, still trying to process what had just happened. This was the first time he had ever felt as though he had somehow lost control of himself. Was there something wrong with him? He slowly clenched his hand into a fist, still puzzled by the strange sensation.

Maybe it was because he had spent so much time focusing on the game lately that he had started to lose his sense of his own strength. Perhaps he simply had not controlled the force behind his grip properly, causing him to hold Bob's wrist much harder than he should have.

After all, Bob had a bigger body than him and was clearly more muscular. Under normal circumstances, there was no way Toma should have been able to keep Bob's wrist trapped with nothing more than the strength of one hand. Yet Bob had genuinely been in pain, and Toma had seen for himself exactly what his grip had done to Bob's wrist.

Well, whatever. It was too early in the morning to worry about something he could not understand anyway. At least the problem was over now. It was time to put it aside and focus on what he actually needed to do next.

The rest of the day passed faster than he expected. There was a welcome address he barely paid attention to, a tour through labs filled with equipment more advanced than anything he'd ever used in his life, a stack of forms that needed his signature, and finally, a student ID card placed in his hand.

Before he knew it, everything was finally over. Not bad, all things considered. Toma crossed the courtyard, retrieved his bicycle, and was just about to head straight home when he noticed someone standing directly in his path.

Toma slowed his steps before coming to a complete stop when he realized who it was.

Laura stood there with her bag held tightly against her chest, her glasses slightly crooked as though she'd pushed them up in a hurry. For a brief moment, their eyes met.

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They really did just stand there facing each other without saying anything for several awkward seconds, until Toma finally decided to speak first.

“How have you been?”

She seemed to snap out of her thoughts at once and hurried toward him, nearly losing her grip on the bag pressed against her chest.

“Toma, hi. I saw you this morning, over there, but I thought I had the wrong person. I actually wanted to come over and talk to you a few times, but it never seemed like the right moment, and I wasn't sure if you'd even saw me.”

“I, um...” Laura seemed hesitant. “I didn't know you were still in the city. Honestly, I thought... Well, it doesn't matter what I thought. How have you been? You look... I mean, you look really different. Good different. Healthy. Are you doing okay? And I heard you're in Biomedical Engineering too. That's... that's actually really impressive. I wouldn't have...”

Toma remained silent, giving her no response for several moments. Laura seemed to notice the awkward silence at last, along with the fact that she was still standing directly in his way.

“Oh, sorry. I'm blocking you.”

She quickly stepped aside. When Toma started walking again with his bicycle beside him, Laura fell into step next to him, still holding her bag close to her chest.

“Everything's fine. And yeah, I'm here. Who would've guessed?” Toma said casually. “What about you? I thought you'd already left the city for good.”

“Yeah, I did. But something happened, and things changed, so I ended up coming back.” Laura adjusted her glasses as she walked. “And, well, this is one of the best academies in the city, so I thought I might as well try. I was lucky enough to get accepted too, especially since I applied pretty late.”

“You probably wouldn't have had much trouble getting into a place like this anyway. You've always been smart.”

Laura lowered her gaze at his words, suddenly becoming much quieter. She continued walking beside him without saying anything for the next few moments.

“Um, how's Lina? I never got the chance to say goodbye to her back then, before I left.”

“She’s doing fine. Still as much of a workaholic as you probably remember.”

“That definitely sounds like her.”

By then, Toma had already reached the edge of the courtyard and stepped out onto the sidewalk. He was about to get on his bicycle when he turned back toward Laura one last time.

“I, umh... it was nice seeing you again,” Laura said. “Maybe next time we can... Well, I'll see you around, Toma.”

A small, somewhat awkward smile appeared on her face. She gave him a quick bow before turning around and walking away.

Toma watched her leave for a few moments.

She seemed different.

At least, this wasn't quite the Laura he remembered. The Laura he knew had always been confident, and rarely seemed unsure of what she wanted to say. The girl he'd just spoken to seemed much more reserved, stumbling over her words and hesitating over almost everything.

Or maybe the version of Laura he remembered had simply become different in his head after all this time.

Whatever. Toma pushed the thought aside, got onto his bicycle, and started making his way home.

The ride home passed almost on autopilot, Toma's mind crowded with everything that had happened. Bob, the academy, Laura. Too many things had happened in a single day, leaving him with more to think about than he wanted.

By the time Toma reached his front door, it was already well into the afternoon. He let himself inside, dropped his bag by the entrance, and found Zetia sitting on the sofa in the front room.

She glanced up as soon as the door clicked shut and was already on her feet before he'd even finished taking off his shoes.

She crossed the room and stopped in front of him. For a moment, she simply studied his face as if trying to read something from his expression.

"Toma?"

He didn't answer right away. Instead, he leaned forward and rested his forehead against her shoulder.

Zetia froze for a moment, caught off guard, but soon wrapped her arms around him without asking.

“How was your first day?”

“Good,” he murmured. “Really good.”

He had hoped his first day at the academy would be the beginning of some kind of training arc. Instead, he'd gotten the kind of bullying that should have happened in chapter one, followed by an unexpected reunion with someone he hadn't seen in a long time.

Toma lifted his head and turned toward the girl in front of him.

“You need something more comfortable than my shoulder. Something warmer, softer....”

Toma tilted his head slightly. “That... sounded kind of weird. Who taught you to joke like that?”

“Joke?” Zetia tilted her head as well. “I meant the sofa. It's warm, soft, and comfortable. What did you think I meant?”

Toma stared at her for a moment before a smile slowly crept across his face.

Yeah. If his life was going to turn into some kind of story, he preferred this kind of slice-of-life anyway. Just him, living quietly with the girl who had suddenly appeared one day, claiming she'd come from the world inside a game.