A "House"

"As you seem fine now, sir, you're free to go."

"Uh, yeah, thanks!"

After the checkup, I dressed in casual clothes. The medical gown I wore was... let's say too thin.

When I finished, I walked out of the hospital. It didn't even pass a moment before I heard someone calling out to me.

"Hey! You're already free to go?"

"Ko?! What are you doing here?!"

She was standing by what seemed to be a limousine.

"I'm here to remind you. Don't forget about our promise!"

Her hands hovered over the limousine.

"Don't worry. How could I even forget about that?"

"Hmm, true. I didn't know whether you'd be let out, so I had to ensure you 100% come!"

A smile adorned her face.

"Do you have that little faith in me?"

She immediately panicked.

"No! I do trust you! I'm sorry you thought of it that way!"

I just sighed.

"No need to get worked over something simple. I wouldn't even blame you if you don't trust me as much as before."

That seemed to calm her down,

"Good... Because I'm a little scared for you..."

Her tone turned serious...

"Huh? Why?"

Just as I said that, she jumped back to her normal self.

"Nothing! I was getting myself worked up over nothing! Shall we go now?"

Something's obviously off...

"Okay."

We got in the limousine. This was my first time in a thing like this...

"Why does your family own a flying limousine anyway? That's just wasting money."

"Hey!"

She pouted.

"You never know when transport points would stop working! They could stop any minute!"

Is she for real? She really doesn't know how they work?

"Do you know how transport points even work?"

"No. Too confusing for my head!"

I mentally facepalm myself.

"You see, simply said, they work like tunnels. They're connected to one another through a complicated line Insergen."

"Huh? What is Insergen?"

"You didn't learn that in school?!"

Her shaking her head made me facepalm mentally again.

How will she go through life?

"Insergen is a new gas that scientists discovered in 2053. Simply said, Insergen searches for other Insergen around itself, before transporting every molecule to the other Insergen. With the advanced technology we have, transportation points were easily made."

"But I don't see any gas when I use them."

"That's because it isn't visible to the human eye. You could only know it's Insergen by its smell of melted plastic."

"Ah! So that's why transport points stink!"

"And that's why they'll never stop working."

Having won my point, Ko changes the subject.

"Ah! We're here!"

She looks through the window excited. When I looked at where she was looking, my jaw dropped.

"Welcome, to my house!"

"This is a house for you?!"

Her "house" had at least 1 square kilometer radius with the yard.

"Yeah! My dad said that houses below 100 square meter radius were tiny. Below 1 square kilometer are small houses."

How could someone think like this?!

"How big is your house?"

Sweat dripped off my forehead.

"Um... Look! The car stopped! We should get out and look around!"

"Yeah!"

Good thing she's easy to persuade.

When we reached the front door, Ko paused for a moment.

"Ohm... MOM! DAD! I'M HOME!"

"Why are you screaming?!"

A few seconds later, the door opened. Through the door, a woman walked out to greet us. She had red hair as Ko, but her eyes were blue.

"Welcome back dear! You returned pretty fast."

Ah! It's obvious that that's her mom.

"Yeah, I brought over a friend."

Both of them look at me.

"A friend, huh?"

I immediately knew what she meant when I saw her grin.

"Mom! It's not like that!"

This was the first time I saw Ko get worked up over me being a guy friend.

"I know! I just love to tease you."

Her mom moved out of the way, and we finally get in.

"Woah..."

The main hall of the "house" had a 20-meter ceiling and was all decorated with technological artifacts. As soon as I saw the I100 model jetpack, my vision started to haze.

Why...why do they have that model?!

"Something wrong?"

"No... Not really."

Getting past the hall, there was a large living room, with a cinema next to it, and when I say cinema, I mean like normal-sized cinema. The only other relevant rooms were kitchen and bathroom. Every other room was made for different kinds of activities. There was a staircase in the hall that lead to bedrooms, more bathrooms and a lot more "fun" rooms. The only thing that bothered me is that every room had a jetpack decoration on the wall.

"Oi, Sera!"

Someone yelled as we were going through the second floor.

"Oh, what do you want, Rei?"

Ko seemed annoyed.

"Why are you brining strangers to the house?! And a boy as well?!"

I immediately guessed that was her brother, as the guy looked around 18/19.

"Oh, come on! He's my close friend!"

Rei's eyes widened.

"Close?!"

He glared at me.

"A wimp like you is close with my sister?!"

"Enough, Rei."

Ko stood in front of me.

"Just so you know."

Her brother cracked his knuckles.

"If you try anything funny... I swear I'll beat you to a pulp of blood!"

As he said that, he walked towards, what I assumed was his room, and shut his door.

"Don't worry about him. He's overprotective about me."

"Alright..."

"Let's go to my room!"

When I got in Ko's room, I immediately noticed how many holographic posters were hanging on her walls. The walls were pink, something I thought was obvious, and she had a giant, metallic framed bed, with pink blanket. She even had her HPA device colored pink. There was a desk in the corner of the room with a slideshow picture frame that shuffled through her pictures.

Ko jumped onto her bed.

"Finally, we can talk about it!"

Her tone turned serious again.

"What are we talking about?"

"I wanted to know what happened to your parents..."

My heart sped up.

Should I tell her? She knows what happened to my parents, so there's no hiding their cause of death...

"Em..."

"Please! I want to help!"

I remembered my dream from the last night.

She reminds me of Minori...

"...fine. But you're not going to like it."

I say that as I sit down, preparing myself.