Multiversal: The Shop

A/N: It's having a typhoon here. I'm not sure when the electricity will be back, but I'm hoping it won't take long, not to mention my phobia of strong wind isn't helping either.

I feel like I'm going nuts hearing the strong gusts outside; my phobia is seriously getting worse fr.

—

"Curious?" I asked the younger version of Frieren as she was listening to her older counterpart's conversation with her teacher.

Frieren shifted her attention to me and nodded. "...yes, I'm interested in how my older self is feeling; I want to know what it feels to 'love' someone as it's a foreign concept to me."

I made a thoughtful look, before answering. "While I certainly could give you an example through verbal explanation, it would be better if you experience it yourself."

"...but how? I don't exactly know where to begin with, and I don't think this Himmel guy existed in my world yet, or perhaps would never exist because we already interfered with what was yet to happen." Frieren stated the possibility of the future changing.

She isn't exactly wrong with her assumption; the butterfly effect is a thing, and knowing about the future is bound to change things.

I think that she already accepted the fact that her future would be completely different from her older counterpart, as she categorized her older self as her parallel counterpart rather than what she would become in the future.

Anyway, as for her question? I replied. "That's for you to find out, half of the fun is the unpredictability of it, and if you're worried you'll never be able to find 'love' which is exactly almost impossible for your case since you literally have all the time in the world due to your long lifespan, but if it ever comes to that point. Find me and I'll help you experience what 'love' is."

Which is buying someone 100% compatible with her in the shop, since everything exists in this little establishment of mine.

Frieren eyes widened for a bit, before smiling a little. "I'll certainly remember that."

Good, which means Frieren pre-ordered something from my shop, even though it's not official; however, anything that came out of Frieren's mouth, especially an agreement, is good as a guarantee.

I'm happy knowing that I'll get more profits in the future.

—

It's been a week since the arrival of Miyu, who is technically my brother-in-law's sister; if you ignore that parallel world part, that is.

Ever since her arrival, my brother-in-law stayed in my house so that he could spend time with his 'sister'.

To him, it doesn't matter if she came from another reality; the fact that she's related to him is enough.

Their relationship was quite rocky for the first few days, mostly thanks to Miyu who was still reeling from the fact that she wasn't in her world anymore or with her real 'brother'.

And being with my brother-in-law didn't exactly help her cope, as he was a constant reminder that she was in a world completely different from her own.

But thankfully, she started opening herself to Shirou, mostly because of how similar he is to her 'real' brother.

It wasn't really surprising, considering they're literally the same person. Different worlds aside, they have the same origin of that cursed fire.

Both are broken, an empty shell of a person who he was once, a being pretending to be a human, their true nature is more of a weapon rather than a human being.

A sword, ready to be used when the time is right.

My brother-in-law is considered lucky compared to the other versions of him, as he found a sheath to hold him and a resting place, essentially stopping him from becoming another Archer.

Either way, I should leave him on his own devices because whatever he's doing is working and I don't want to ruin that.

—

The school was the same as always; it's boring for one, and sometimes it makes me wonder why I even bothered going to start with..oh right!

For fun!

It's been almost a month since we transferred to this school. A lot of things have happened, maybe little or big.

Regardless of that, most things frankly don't matter to me, as I'm only interested in a few things that this school could offer, mainly the people.

The prime examples of such 'people' are precisely Shiro and Sora; they're interesting for one, not because I know them in the form of animated series, but because they genuinely are interesting sort of people.

I can't say the same for the majority of the students, though; ever since becoming friends with them, both siblings became relatively open with me.

I wasn't as wary and cautious as before, knowing that I didn't really have any malicious intentions toward them and genuinely wanted to befriend them, only because they were both interesting and not for anything harmful.

Sora let his guard down. However, he wasn't completely taking it down either, which isn't really surprising considering their history of being bullied, and he isn't stupid either.

A good amount of caution is good; after all, not everyone is good; his previous school history taught him that.

Anyway, as I stated before, the siblings became open to me, and for example, this is what Sora is doing now.

"Hey, Alex! There's this new game that just came out, wanna play it together with me?" Sora put his arm behind my back while grinning as he announced the news.

After the previous caution was thrown, it's like personal space doesn't exist in this guy's dictionary, but I don't mind that he's more fun and amusing this way.

With him acting like this, was more refreshing compared to those snobs who wanted to suck me up.

Bootlickers, frankly, hate those types of people, and whoever has them as their friend is someone whose ego is the same size as the planet.

Those who are friends with bootlickers are narcissists of the highest level and have a high possibility of having a holier-than-thou attitude.

Either way, the day I become similar to that kind of 'thing' as refusing to categorize that type of person, basically a 'person' to me is a human being with a working brain and that 'thing' isn't one.

If I were to become like that type, is the day I'd commit suicide.

Answering Sora's earlier question. "Depends on what type of game it is; what's the title, by the way?"

"I'm glad you asked! It's a fantasy sci-fi RPG game that is rather popular nowadays, thanks to its smooth graphics and the amount of content it has. As for the title, the game is called No Game No Life, or NGNL for short." Sora happily grinned at my face.

Hearing that familiar title I couldn't help but remember that particular game from the first episode of their series.

If I recall correctly, angels from another world are playing that game too for some reason, either way I already decided to try it myself as I'm curious if I would be able to encounter those angels in the game, plus playing the same game with the siblings would create an opportunity for us to be closer.

With a smile, I replied. "Sounds pretty fun; I'm going to try playing that game only because you asked, right, which device should I use to play this game?"

"Oh, it's available for both Android and console, although I highly recommend playing it on PC because of a higher quality of gaming performance, but take your pick to which you're comfortable." He said as he sat right back at his table, noticing that people were entering the classroom who weren't our classmates or the teachers.

"I'll keep that in mind," I replied as I looked at the students who entered our class and one of them was someone I'm pretty familiar with.

Then, one of the students clapped their hands, making the rest of our classmates pay attention to what was in front of them.

"Alright, I'm sure some of you are wondering why we're here. I'd get straight to the point, to those who haven't joined any club yet, especially those students who transferred in this semester, we strongly recommend you to join our club! The swimming club!"

The student who did the speech continued, but I wasn't listening after knowing their intention, but it did get my interest. "A club huh…"

"Interested?" I flinched at the unexpected voice behind me and then stared at the culprit with a deadpan look.

"What do you want?" The only being on the planet that could catch me off guard with ease as she's completely immune to all of my skills, even the passive state of observation haki.

I didn't even know she was there until she let me know of her presence.

"Oh, what's with that look? Is that how you treat your girlfriend? How cruel of you~"

I wasn't taking the bait and repeated my question. "What do you want?" 

"Ahh~ you're no fun at all; anyway, I'm interested in creating my club for the fun of it since the existing clubs in this school don't really catch my attention; they're all so generic and boring to me," D said with a bored tone.

"So? That's completely unrelated to what I'm asking you unless you want me to join that club of yours. However, I'd have to decline." I wasn't interested in joining any club that had to do with her or a situation that would make me spend more time with her; the fact that she terrorized me every day was enough; adding more of it would drain me mentally.

"I'm making a gaming club! Imagine playing games in class time! Wouldn't that be great?" D said a bit loudly, even though she screamed in front of me there was no way I'd be joining the same club as her-

My eyes widened upon realizing her intentions. 

'Oh, this bitch-'

"A game club? Now that's interesting! If that exists, then my sister and I would gladly join it because it certainly beats any existing clubs of this school." Her target wasn't me; it was the siblings, and she knew that whatever club they were joining, I would join too because of my friendship with the two of them.

Even Shiro agreed with D, not knowing that they were being manipulated.

Well played. It's so natural that it almost flew out of my head if it wasn't for our earlier conversation.

"Great! I already have 2 members in my club! However, we need 2 more people to make it official, anyone in mind who might be interested in joining?" With a sly smile, D and the step-siblings stared in my direction with expectations in their eyes.

Frankly, I couldn't care less about D's, but it's different for Sora and Shiro; with a resigned sigh, I replied. "Alright, you got me."

Hearing my answer, they cheered, and then I continued and reminded them. "We still need 1 more to make it official, you know?"

D smiled and answered. "I already have someone in mind."

"Don't tell me it's Hitori?"

"Nah, it's someone else."

"Who?" 

—

"W-w-what do you want?!" A scared black-haired girl said to D.

Oh, it's Mitsuha. I've completely forgotten about her as she lacks even more presence compared to Bocchi nowadays.

"This person is our 5th member! Now we can register our club!" D declared, completely ignoring Mitsuha, who was traumatized by her.

—

A/N: To be completely honest, I almost forgot Mitsuha Yamano, too; either way, she's going to be back in the scene.

Support me on [email protected], even if it's just for a month I'd be grateful.

[email protected]/charlottes143

3 chapters ahead.