Ryosuke’s crowd of fangirls hadn’t left him alone since the beginning of this week, and it had gotten to where he missed hanging and eating with his friends with the freedom of chewing and swallowing what and when he pleased, not what or when tons of girls wanted him to. Not being able to handle the obsessed fandom, for the first time, he blurted out, “I’m dating someone, so I’d like to be with her.”

The scene of the girls whimpering and making a ruckus in response almost caused him to be suspended for being the so-called “starter” of everything, and within a week, rumors had passed around that the girl he was dating was in the same school, and everyone knew who that girl was.

And that was why today’s atmosphere during lunch was in turmoil.

Ryosuke and Mirai were eating at opposite sides, not looking at each other. They hadn’t spoken to each other since that day. They even walked to school alone.

“Maa, maa, Mirai,” Shintaro said. “Didn’t you always say that as long as we know you two aren’t going out, then it’s fine?” He was trying to lessen the silent, heated confrontation between his two friends.

Juri nodded. “That’s right. So, I don’t see why you two are making a big deal out of this.”

“I am not,” butted Ryosuke. “She is.”

An invisible vein popped at Mirai’s head, and she angrily put her chopsticks down. To her friends, she said, “If this baka hadn’t said anything like that in front of the entire school—no, if he hadn’t said anything at all about this “fake” girl of his, I wouldn’t have to be in this mess.”

“I didn’t say your name, and it is them who are assuming it is you, so I didn’t bring it upon you. I don’t know why you’re so mad at me.” He quietly added, “You should be glad they think you’re dating me. It’s an honor.”

“Honor, my ! Because of what you had stupidly said, everyone’s now saying we’re dating when we’re not!”

Haruka tried to calm Mirai down by putting a hand to stop the two friends from going at each other. “He does have a point, Mi-chan, and he already explained to us why he said it. It was to get the girls off him.”

“See,” sang Ryosuke with his mouth full. “Even she understands, so why can’t you?”

Mirai frowned and grabbed a nearby tissue to wipe his mouth for him. “I just… I just feel that, now, whenever we say we aren’t, they won’t believe us anymore.”

He shrugged. “So? We’re graduating this year. It’s not like they can torture us with it either. If you think about it, it’s quite useful to us.”

“Useful?” the friends asked.

Arching his brows up and down twice, he cheekily answered, “I’m aiming to get crowned as the best couple of the year!”

Haruka gasped and stood up. “You can’t!” She pointed to Shintaro and then back at herself. “We’re aiming for that this year!”

“You/We are?” Juri and Shintaro utter at the same time.

Juri stared at Shintaro, and Shintaro stared back. Juri meant to comment to himself but accidentally said out loud, “Yeah, you are the submissive one in the relationship. No wonder you didn’t know about what she plans to do.”

“Damare, Juri,” said Haruka, not happy that Juri had implied her dominance as something bad. She looked back at Ryosuke, put her hands on her hips, and demanded, “You and Mi-chan must back out.”

Mirai put out her hands defensively. “Hold up. I didn’t say I’m going to be in this because that’ll mean I’m dating him.”

Ryosuke rolled his eyes to Mirai and pursed his lips. “Baka, you won’t. It’s only for that day.”

This time, Mirai arched her brow, showing interest.

“We can normally hang out like we usually do. It’s only for that event that we have to ‘act’ like a couple or ‘be’ a couple.”

“Ah, I see.”

Haruka feared that Mirai was being persuaded, so she pulled her to the side and said, “Mi-chan, even if it’s only for a day, you’ll be known in history as one of his girls!”

“But she isn’t, and she won’t,” Juri uttered as he unwrapped a lollipop from out of his pockets.

“Damare!” Haruka knew Juri’s comment wouldn’t help her at all.

Mirai faced Ryosuke and asked, “I can understand why Haruka wants to win the crown, but why do you?”

Everyone looked at him, also curious. He didn’t need to be crowned as a couple with someone since he didn’t have a girl to begin with, so why was he even planning on participating?

With a hint of seriousness in his eyes, he answered, “I’m going to leave my legacy of Rolling Ryosuke in the past.”

*

“You’re stupid,” Mirai said to Ryosuke as they walked to the daycare center to pick Natsu up. “I can’t believe you’re going to partake in that event simply because you want to leave a legacy of your middle school days.” She made a face. “It’s not even a legacy anyway.”

He ignored the latter part and nudged her. “You’re stupid too then, for agreeing to do it with me.”

Although she was against it at lunch—she found his reason to be childish and stupid—she decided to join the party when Juri volunteered himself with Mayu since he didn’t want to be left out. She felt bad that Mayu didn’t have the choice to decide on her own, but that flew out the window when Mayu confessed to the friends that she would look forward to a great competition among them, making the friends believe Mayu was a much stronger person than they had thought. Thanks to that, Mirai had no choice but to participate with Ryosuke because she knew he would annoy her at home. What the friends didn’t know was that she had also decided to participate because she had never been allowed to be involved in these kinds of non-academic festivals and celebrations. Now that she was on her own, she could choose without restraint.

“I think it’ll be fun,” said Mirai. “Like Mayu-chan had said, it’s not every day that we get to go against our friends in a friendly and fun competition.”

“Hmm, so all three of us challenging each other.” Ryosuke rubbed his hands excitedly together. “I can’t wait for the year to end now!” He froze and instantly slipped his backpack off his back, slung it to his front, zipped it opened, and rummaged through it.

“What you looking for?”

“Umm…nothing.” But his actions showed otherwise.

“Nothing?”

He found what he was looking for and then zipped the bag closed. “They’re there.”

“You sure?” she asked, curious.

He nodded and said, “Yep. Let’s go.”

Upon entering the daycare, he hurried inside without her and headed to the back room of the daycare center. Although she wanted to question what he was doing, she had other needs that grabbed her attention. After greeting Natsu, who was sitting on the floor with a cube block in each hand, she went to his cubby to gather his stuff.

An attendant came over and said, “Here’s his bottle. He ate an hour ago and had a two-hour long nap. He was a good boy like always.”

“Thanks for all the hard work you’ve done today.” She glanced back and forth between the room Ryosuke was in and Natsu. To the attendant, she asked, “Do you perhaps, know what Ryosuke’s doing in there? I thought only employees are allowed.”

“He’s been working with our director about something.”

“Do you know what it’s about?”

“Umm…” Her long pause hinted to Mirai that she knew but had been asked to keep shut about it.

“It’s okay, thanks.” She changed the subject. “Is there anything I may have forgotten?”

“I believe there isn’t.”

“Jaa, I’ll be getting Natsu.”

“Hai.”

As Mirai turned away to pick Natsu up and dress him, she tried her best to peek into the room Ryosuke had entered from at the distance where she was. It wasn’t successful as she was too far and was unable to even see a shadow. What does he have to talk to her about?

*

Ryosuke bowed to the daycare director. “Jaa, I hope everyone can make it on that day.” He stood up straight. “Please continue to keep this a secret from her.”

“I’d love to, but she’s such a sweet girl for me to do so,” the elder said with an embarrassed smile. She looked down at the invitation she had received from him. “Isn’t it better if you two did this together? It’s for him after all.”

“It’s not just for the brat. It’s also for her.” He looked at the envelope with a baby-blue, laced bow stamped on it. “I also feel bad for keeping this from her, but I want to show her that I’m happy with them in my life.” The biggest grin slapped on his face as he walked backward and out the door to his virtual family.

*

“What were you talking about in there?” Mirai asked Ryosuke at the dinner table. She was referring to what had happened at the daycare center. She put Natsu’s messy plate far from him since he was full and was playing with his sticky fingers. “Does it have something to do with Natsu?”

“Not really,” Ryosuke answered. Although he answered her question, his mind was off somewhere.

“What do you mean?

“Hmm?” He turned his head to her in a questionable manner. “What you say?”

She sighed. He wasn’t listening at all. “Never mind.” She scooped up a spoonful of rice and took a bite. I’m sure if it’s something important related to Natsu, that baka will tell me. She gave one last good look at Ryosuke, who didn’t catch her staring at him. Or will he not tell me?

*

Mirai got out of the shower and wore her blue, silky pajama, a pajama of almost four years which she hadn’t grown out of. When she wore it on the first few nights she was living with Ryosuke and Natsu, it made her depressed because it was the pajama Mariko and her husband had bought for her as a birthday present.

For the years she had babysat her nieces and nephews, she had always told herself to never complain because they’d gift her a present on her birthday and Christmas, and if she were to say something, she’d feel guilty about it. On the other side, another voice had echoed to her that even if she were bribed with gifts, it wasn’t enough for all the hard work she had to sacrifice as a virtual mother and that the longer she was a virtual mother, the real parents would never parent up.

She sat on the bedside and stared at her pajama pants. It had been a long time since she had been depressed about the families she had left behind.

The door swung opened, and in popped Ryosuke who cut off a call with someone as he entered. “Hey, I got it.”

“Got what?”

“We can use Juri’s parents’ mini-double burner.” He hopped up and down and ended it with his victory dance. “All that’s next is getting some tents. Juri and Shintaro don’t have tents, but Haruka’s father does, so you ask her.”

She crisscrossed her legs and frowned. “If you wanted to camp, why didn’t you go on that baseball training camp?”

The baseball training camp happened after graduation, and the virtual couple had decided to not go since they had other “obligations”—Natsu. Mirai told Ryosuke that he could go and she’d be fine staying home with Natsu, but he insisted on staying with his virtual family.

“I told you I didn’t want to go without you.” He pouted and went to sit on the opposite end of the bed and faced her. “Besides, this will be our first family night out.”

She scoffed and laughed. “Yeah, right. How is this a night out when we’re not even going anywhere?”

He crawled to his side of the bed and rested his head on the pillow. “Well, the brat’s still a baby, ya know.”

“But why camping all of a sudden?” She touched her hair and assessed that her hair was slightly damp and not completely dry yet, so she walked to a drawer to take out a towel. Folding it in half, she spread it over her pillow and then hopped onto the bed. “We can have a small picnic or something, you know.”

“I want something big—something fun and—and something out of our usual day.”

She her side and looked at the serious and compassionate Ryosuke. “Fine, fine. It’s indoors anyway.”

“When he grows up, we’ll camp outdoors.”

“When he grows up?” Her utter made the two friends pause.

They had already promised to leave this virtual life when Natsu turned five or if his biological parents were found—whichever came first—so what age would they be camping then? Four? Three? Natsu would still be too small to even camp in the wild, even if they were going to be safe about it.

But his age wasn’t what made them curious.

It was what would happen after they bade their virtual roles goodbye.

Could they still act like a parent to Natsu?

“We’re definitely camping,” he assured her with confidence and added, although much quieter, “Even if it’s the last thing we have to do.”

*

“What are you two doing?” Haruka asked as she sat on the couch in the virtual Yamada house. Another weekend had arrived, and she was here to drop off her tent for her friends, who had been bothering her for the entire week about it—well, mainly Ryosuke. “You guys going somewhere we don’t know?”

Ryosuke was directing Haruka’s men around the house about where to place the tent while Mirai joined Haruka on the couch. Later at night, the virtual couple would set up the tent, but for now, it’d be in the storage room to be out of the way.

Mirai answered Haruka, “The big brat wants to do an indoor camping kind of thing.”

“Why camping?” asked Haruka.

She shrugged. “He randomly said, ‘hey, let’s have a family night out.’”

“And you’re going along with it,” Haruka said as if Mirai was stupid to have done so.

“I see no problem.”

“But it’s not real camping.” Haruka snorted. “You shouldn’t follow too much of his desires.”

“Honestly, I find myself enjoying his absurd ideas,” she bashfully confessed.

“Really?”

“Yeah, he brings excitement to my life. He’s like the sweet to my bland.” She then laughed it off, finding her comment cheesy and stupid, and Haruka raised a brow, not understanding the comparison her friend made. “Well, my life before this was very typical, robotic, and repetitive, but living this somewhat virtual life with him, I’ve experienced many things I never thought I would. And it’s all because of him. That’s why he’s the sweetness to my monotonous life.”

Haruka puffed her cheeks. She couldn’t refute it because it was true. “But that’s because you were always chained to your babysitting duties.”

“True, and even though I hate how he acts on impulse and never thinks things through, I find myself following his pace because, together with him, noth