HER PAST

When I got back to my apartment after walking Erika back to her place, I cleared the contents of my pocket and immediately took a shower.

Once I’m all dried up, I went into the room with my computer in it.

The real estate agent that worked on the place got the furniture according to my needs, which I communicated through Alan as a mediator. Since I was living alone even before I moved here, only one room has a bed, and the other room only has a chair and a desk which now has my computer on top.

I took a seat behind my computer and took a quick glance around. There’s nothing here. Just white bleak walls all around.

Hana did say I should get some new furniture, but I already have everything I need in this room.

Instead of dwelling further on it, I shifted my focus to my computer. I turned it on, and after it boots up, I run a game I've been playing these past few days.

But when I’m at the menu, about to load my save file, I hesitated to play, as I didn’t feel much drive to do so.

I ended up closing the game, and went online to watch videos instead.

Some time into mindlessly browsing through videos, I closed the browser as I didn’t feel much drive to do that either.

Now on my desktop, I leaned back against my chair, and spun it around. I don’t really feel like doing anything

Since it’s almost midnight, I could just call it a night and sleep. But I don’t really feel like doing that either.

As I stare blankly into my screen, my eyes wander towards a chatting application I have installed. It’s the same one as the one on my phone, and I use it when my phone is too far away to check for messages.

After I opened it, I looked through some of the new messages I got. I already opened the application on my phone earlier, but I immediately went into Erika’s chat from the notification so I hadn’t checked the other messages I’ve got.

The messages I have are loan offer, loan offer, a discount on the supermarket I frequent, loan offer, and my monthly internet bill. That just reminded me that I haven’t paid it yet.

I opened the internet banking page on my computer, quickly paid the bill, and went back to the chatting application.

Erika’s chat was in between the few messages I haven’t read, so my sight went past her name earlier. Now that I have no unread message, my sight focused on her name.

I did say we would talk about when and where we were going to go out, and now might not be a bad time.

Completely ignoring the fact that it’s only a few minutes until midnight, I opened her chat, and sent her a message.

“Still up?”

About a minute later, my message went from sent to read. A moment later, she sent me a sticker of a cartoon grasshopper nodding its head, with a ‘YES’ in the corner.

“When are you free?”

“I don’t have classes 3 days from now.”

“No plans for that day?”

She sent me a sticker of a cartoon grasshopper shaking its head, with a ‘NO’ in the corner.

Why a grasshopper? “Want to go out that day?”

Some considerable time later after she read my message, she sent the ‘YES’ grasshopper sticker.

“Do you have anywhere you want to go?”

She sent me the ‘NO’ grasshopper sticker.

She kept sending grasshopper stickers, but I guess it’s my fault for asking her only yes or no questions. I always only ask that kind of question because it’s easier for her to respond, but I don’t need to do that in a chat room.

“Do you have anywhere you want to go?” She followed up after the grasshopper sticker.

I came to this country a few times already, and I have maybe a couple weeks spent in this town. During that time, I already went to the tourist spots that intrigued me, and I don’t feel like revisiting those places.

There are some good foods that I like to eat every now and then when I feel like eating out, but I’m not craving anything at the moment.

Then again, although I have visited the tourist attraction, I haven’t really ever looked into the places that locals would go to.

“Are there any good places to go? One that tourists don’t usually go to.” I asked Erika.

She left me on read for a while, before sending a link after another.

She stopped after gaving me a total of six recommendations, and I went through them one by one.

More than half of them are tourist spots that I’ve visited before, but a couple I haven’t heard of before.

One of them is a clubhouse of sorts. It has a bowling alley, a few billiards tables, and a bar.

I hadn’t thought Erika would be into this kind of place. Then again, she might be just showing me what popular places are around the area.

The other one is an aquarium. This town has a large aquarium not far from the sea, but the one she recommended to me was a smaller one in the outskirts of town.

I don’t know why she’d recommend this one to me, as the other one has some larger tanks with more species.

“Do you like fish?” I replied to the link of the aquarium she sent me earlier.

“They are cute. The penguins are.”

“Why not go to the aquarium by the sea? Don’t they have more penguins?”

“You can feed the penguins here. But you can’t touch them. The caretaker says they will bite you.”

Seems like she wants to see the penguins there. “Want to go there?”

She sent the ‘YES’ grasshopper sticker.

“What time do you want to go?”

“Can we go in the morning?”

The website says that the aquarium is open from 9.30 to 16.00. I guess she wants to go in as soon as it opens.

“Sure. I’ll wait for you in the station like usual. Is 9 okay?”

She then sends a sticker of the same grasshopper saluting, with a ‘ROGER’ in the corner.

“Okay. See you then. Good night.”

“Good night.”

After she replied, I closed the application and shut my computer down. I grab my phone and leave the room while it shuts down, headed towards the other room, shut the lights and laid down in bed.

After turning on the bedside lamp on my nightstand, I looked at the aquarium’s website again, browsing through everything that they offer that are available on the website. Once I’ve seen everything, I shut the lamp off, And went to sleep.

Three days later, I’m at the station, waiting for Erika like usual.

Our planned meeting time was still a few minutes away when she walked through the station gate, and I noticed her. When she saw me, I waved at her, and she waved back before approaching me.

“Good morning, Erika.”

She signed something to me, which I remembered a second later as the sign for ‘good morning’.

While waiting for the train, I asked her about some of the things I saw on the aquarium’s website. The penguin seems to be the main attraction for the place as other than the feeding event, they also have a few shows throughout the day.

It seems like Erika is fond of this particular aquarium exactly for that reason. She also likes the fishes, and the touch pool, but she’s most fond of the penguins there.

We continued our conversation for the half hour of the train ride to the aquarium, and her excitement is really rubbing onto me. As a result, I’m starting to raise my expectations for the aquarium.

One thing on the website that Erika didn’t know about was that there was a part of the aquarium where you could get married. But that seems to be relatively new, and Erika doesn’t visit the aquarium every other day to know everything about it.

Once we arrived at the station closest to the aquarium, it was about a ten minute walk to the aquarium itself.

We walked side by side in silence after exiting the station gate. Once the aquarium was in sight, Erika pointed at it excitedly, beaming at me.

The tickets were sold using a machine at the front entrance. I have a banking app on my phone that can pay using a QR code, and it seems like the machine supports said method of payment.

I ordered two adult tickets, and a QR code popped on the machine’s screen, which I scanned. Once the payment came through, the machine spit the tickets out, and I grabbed both of them before handing one to Erika. Who seems to be pouting at me.

I decided to just ignore her pout, and we both walked inside the aquarium.

As far as the first few tanks go, it’s just a regular aquarium. There’s a wide variety of marine life displayed, and Erika approaches one after another, looking at the fish inside.

I follow her to every tank she approaches, and read the plates under the tank, trying to identify each fish, matching names and pictures.

Even though I follow Erika to every tank she approaches, she moves faster than me, and she would sometimes move to another tank while I’m still busy trying to identify the fishes in the tank in front of me.

While I’m trying to find a name for a particularly stripey fish among the few plates under the tank, Erika tugged on the hem of my shirt from behind me. I turned around to look at her and saw her pointing at a tank further down

After following her to the tank, she points towards the specimens inside the tank.

I know what these are. They are very unique looking after all.

It’s garden eels. There’s a few varieties in the tank. Some have coloured stripes on them, some are spotted, and some are plain. But when I saw the picture for the plain ones, apparently they also have spots on them, albeit much more subtle.

While I was reading the plate under their tank, I felt Erika tugged on my sleeve from the side. I looked at her, and she showed me her phone screen, with something typed in. “These are cute.”

Garden eels are cute?

I looked at the garden eels for a while, and back at Erika, and back at the garden eels again.

They are very unique, as I don’t think any other fish share their behaviour of burrowing into the sand the way that they do. But I don’t quite share her sentiment in thinking they are cute.

“Cuteness aside, I like the eels on sushi.”

Erika stared blankly at me before forming a large X with both her arms while pouting.

I guess these are a little too thin to be eaten.

Erika then made her way to another tank, and I followed behind her.

Going from tank to tank, we reached a cafe inside the aquarium.

I didn’t want to get anything in particular, but I had noticed a sign with an image of a couple penguins on it by the cafe.

It’s the schedule for the shows on the penguin section of the aquarium, and it seems like the feeding event will be held in about ten minutes.

“Erika, the sign says the penguin feeding will start in ten minutes.” I said, pointing at the sign.

Erika immediately turned her head to look at me, looked at the sign I’m pointing at, and panicked a little.

I couldn’t help but let out a chuckle when I saw her panicking cutely.

I ran towards her, grabbed her arm, and pulled her along in a slight jog, following the signs attached to the ceiling to the penguin section of the aquarium.

When we arrived, the announcer had already started gathering people to invite them to feed the penguins.

We were told to stand behind a glass fence when they gave us a fish.

Kids were told to go to a balcony-like spot hanging above the penguin enclosure instead of behind a glass fence like the adults.

Adults can hand the fish directly to the penguin, but they didn’t want the kids to feed the penguins directly, so they were meant to throw the fish to a penguin’s mouth or near a penguin from a higher ground.

From behind the glass fence, we were instructed on how to properly hold the fish when giving it to the penguins. That was when the penguins started to rush towards us.

Erika is already excitedly holding the fish by the tail, letting it hang down before the caretaker instructed us to do so.

Everyone was reminded several times not to try to touch the penguins, as while they might look harmless at a glance, the inside of their beak is a nightmare, and they will rip the flesh off the bones of your finger. The caretaker said that.

There’re kids here, man.

Erika got more and more excited as more and more penguins gathered by the glass fence.

Once they were all there, we were allowed to start feeding the penguins. Erika immediately brought her fish over to the other side of the fence, and lowered it enough for the penguin to grab it with their beak. After the penguin had taken her fish, she then happily watched it swallow it down.

I hadn’t fed the penguin my fish yet, so I handed it to Erika so she could have another go. But Erika shook her head, and reached for her phone inside her bag with the hand that didn’t touch her fish earlier, and started typing.

She showed me her screen after a little while. “You should feed them too.”

I smiled in response and took her hand with my free hand. I positioned her hand to the side, and held the fish in front of the palm of her hand, still holding it. I then grabbed her hand, so that the both of us would be holding unto the fish’s tail.

“Then we’ll do this.” I said while moving to stand behind her to make things easier.

She looked back at me, before then turning to look at the penguins again when I started moving our hands. I extended both Erika’s and my hand over the glass fence, and lowered the fish just enough for a penguin to grab the fish with its beak, just as Erika had done.

We then watched the penguin greedily swallow its fish, and after a while, the penguins were led away so that the staff could feed them more. A fish for each penguin was obviously not enough to sate them.

Once all the penguins had left, Erika turned to look at me, and I gave her a smile, and let go of her hand.

Everyone then went towards a few sinks to wash our hands. After Erika put her phone back inside her bag, we followed the small crowd to wash our hands.

Once we finished washing our hands, we went back to the glass fence to look at the penguins being fed by the staff.

Some would fight each other for a single fish, and some would swim away right after getting their share.

After a while, Erika tugged at the sleeve of my shirt from the side, and showed me her phone screen. “You don’t like this place?”

I gave the question a little thought before answering it. “I guess it’s not really a place where I’d go by myself.”

Erika looked disappointed and started typing something on her phone.

“But it’s really fun being here with you.” I said before she could finish typing.

She stopped typing on her phone, and looked up at me.

“Look. That one’s stealing all the other’s fish from their mouth.” I said while pointing to a specific penguin currently fighting for fish with another penguin.

Erika looked towards the penguin I’m pointing at when the caretaker feeding the penguin scolded it for fighting. She let out a silent chuckle at the sight, and I smiled beside her.

The next event on the penguin section would be a show held after lunch. Before then, we decided to walk around some more, and have lunch a little early before going back to the penguin section to watch the show.

We were hopping from one tank to another as we had done before. This time at a faster pace compared to what we had done before the penguin feeding event.

While going from tank to tank, we found a restaurant close to the penguin section. Eating now would be too early, and we would most likely finish eating way before the show starts, but since we’re here already, we might as well.

Once seated at a table, we took a look at the menu. Most of the dishes served in the restaurant were seafood. These guys are pretty brutal. Or maybe that’s just how restaurants in aquariums are. I don’t really know.

While waiting for the food, we talked about some of the fishes we’ve seen so far.

I also thought back on how Erika had found the garden eels cute, and wondered if they have axolotls here. Those I think are actually cute. Erika was apparently also very interested in axolotls so we decided to look for one after the penguin show.

When our meal finally arrived, we started digging into it.

While we were eating, I noticed some people walking about with a camera, and some other stuff like softboxes being carted around. It looks as if they are having a photoshoot of something. Might be a wedding ceremony. The website did say they offer such service here.

After we’re done eating, I asked a waitress for our bill, and she came back not long after with it. Erika quickly went through the bill, and when she handed it back to the waitress, and started reaching inside her bag, I gave the waitress my card that I had taken out while Erika was going through the bill.

When the waitress walked away with my card, Erika gave me a pout, which I replied to with a smile.

The waitress then came back after a little while with the bill, my card, and the machine to use for payment.

I put my pin into the machine after confirming the total, and the waitress handed me my card back along with the bill.

After paying for our meals, we stepped outside the restaurant, and found a small crowd gathering a little distance away. We hadn’t noticed them before as the restaurant walls had blocked our vision.

They were towards the direction me and Erika would be going through as we still have some time before the start of the penguin show.

“Is there a show going on over there?” I asked Erika.

She replied with a slight shrug.

We then walked towards the crowd out of curiosity, and I noticed that they were all huddling in front of the entrance to a tunnel of sorts.

When we joined the crowd, we took a peek inside the tunnel and saw that a photoshoot was being held on the other side of the tunnel. This must be where all the things that were carted were brought to.

Seeing the photoshoot, I noticed Erika had tensed up a little.

Knowing how she had panicked upon seeing a certain person during the show the other day, this was understandable. A photoshoot with models must not be the most comfortable place for her to be. Idols were often asked to model for photoshoots afterall.

As I was about to take her away, I noticed that the one currently modelling is someone I’m very familiar with.

“Erika.” I called out to her. And when she looked at me, I pointed towards the model currently being photographed. “It’s Alan.”

She turned to look at the model, and when she confirmed that it was indeed Alan, she seemed to have loosened up a little.

That said, this still must not be a comfortable place for her to be at. I also wouldn’t want to bother Alan while he’s on the job. So I called out to Erika and led her away from the photoshoot to check out some other fish tanks.

But just as we were about to leave, someone called out to Erika from behind us.

Erika was a little behind me as I was leading her away from the photoshoot, and I could only see her when I turned around a little.

The look on her face is the exact same one that she has when we were watching the idol group perform the other day.

I turned further to look at the one that had called out to Erika, and sure enough, it’s the centre girl from the idol group the other day.

I moved to stand between her and Erika. Once I’m right behind Erika, I moved both my hands back to hold her, and she turned around to face my back, and grabbed one of my arms.

The girl from the idol group then moves closer and closer towards us, with an attendant of sorts following closely behind her.

“You’re Erika aren’t you?” She asked while leaning a little to the side to look at Erika behind me.

I raised my arm a little to block her vision of Erika. “Do you need something?”

“What? Who are you?”

“If you don’t need anything, we’ll be leaving now”

“Excuse you. What are you, her guard dog or something? I guess you can walk away now, doggie. I would like to have a talk with the little duckling, if you will.”

Okay. I can clearly see why Erika doesn’t like this girl, to say the least.

Following her remarks, her attendant immediately tried to stop her, whispering something to her. I can’t really make out what her attendant is saying, but I’m somewhat used to this from seeing Hana talking with Erika, so I make out the conversation with just what the girl is replying with.

“Uhm, no. I want to talk to the little duckling.”

Erika grabbed my arm tighter every time the girl said the word ‘little duckling’ so I could tell that she’s referring to Erika.

Her hand is shivering while she’s grabbing my arm, and as she started to press against my back little by little, I could feel her whole body tremble behind me.

I looked back at Erika slightly, and glared back at the girl.

“What, doggie? Don’t tell me you’ve been fooled by her looks or something?”

The girl keeps on spitting insults, and harsh remarks as if she’s superior, but she just seems somewhat small to me. I don’t just mean small in a literal way. Sure, she is a little shorter than my shoulder, but even more than that, she seems small figuratively.

My father was really harsh, and his words always hurt as he was saying what he really thought to be true. Each word was also so filled with hatred that it scared me to my very core.

This girl’s words on the other hand are just as if she’s trying to bring Erika down to make herself seem higher on the podium.

I see no reason to stay here any longer with the girl clearly only here to antagonise Erika.

Slowly, I eased Erika’s grip on my arms, and turned around before turning her around. I grab both her shoulders and stars to push her away from the girl.

“HEY! Don’t you walk away from me.” I just ignored her and continued walking. “I know you can hear me, you quacking bitch.” I stopped at her remark, and turned around to glare at her. “Doggie, you might be fooled by her looks, but when you hear the quacking sounds she makes out of that mouth, you will just be as disgusted as I am.”

Something inside me had snapped when she said that. I let go of both of Erika's shoulders and started storming towards the girl.

“Wh-What?!” She asked me when I was only a few steps away from her.

“Sir, please-” Her attendant tried to interrupt my stride, but once I was close enough, I grabbed the collar of her shirt, pulled her towards me, and pulled my other arm back for a swing.

Just before I could take a swing, someone pulled back on my arm. Stopping me from taking a swing at the girl.

I looked back and saw that it was Erika holding my arm back with both her hands. She’s looking at me, now teary eyed and sobbing a little while shaking her head slowly.

I loosened my fist, and once she felt this, Erika immediately let go of my arm, and pressed herself against my back.

As she did so, I heard someone call out my name.

I looked back forward, and saw Alan coming out of the tunnel with some people behind him.

The crowd that was watching the photoshoot had all shifted their focus to us.

I let go of the girl’s collar, pushing her backwards a little which caused her to stumble and fall backwards.

“What’s going on?” Alan asked before making his way towards us.

“Alan, help me! This crazy guy is assaulting me!” The girl said, still on the ground with her attendant trying to help her.

Alan picked up his pace, and started jogging towards us.

He pushed through the small crowd of onlookers, and when he was nearing the girl, “Alan, help me!” The girl said while extending her hand towards Alan.

But Alan didn’t even spare her so much as a glance while he approaches me, which honestly surprises me.

I had thought that the girl would be his co-worker this time around, and he would be worried about her.

“Oliver, what happened?” He asked once he came to a stop right in front of me.

I can now hear Erika’s choked sobs behind me, so I don’t know if it’s the right time to explain.

I moved both my hands back to hold her somewhat. Seeing this, Alan is now looking conflicted about what to do, and the people behind him all have the same confused expression.

They saw me trying to take a swing at a model, so they must have been sure that I was assaulting her. But the sobbing girl shows another side of the picture.

“Could you get the two of them somewhere more private for now?” Alan asked an aquarium staff behind him.

After he did so, I could hear a loud smack coming from behind Alan, and everyone immediately turned their attention towards the source of the sound.

The girl that was antagonising Erika earlier is now on the ground, in a different position than when I had pushed her back earlier. She has one hand on her cheek, and the other is supporting her body as she’s now leaning to the side towards the ground, as if she had fallen sideways.

There’s a familiar lady standing in front of her, rubbing her hands slightly with her other hand.

“You come to a scheduled photoshoot almost an hour late.” The lady started saying. “You start a commotion with a bystander around the photoshoot. You even treat your manager like some servant.”

The girl I had previously thought was the girl’s attendant was apparently her manager.

“You’ve been a problem in the industry for a long time now.” The lady continued. “Everytime I work with you, everyone on set would always complain about you. Do you have any idea about just a little of all the problems you’ve been causing everyone?” she hardened her glare, and walked closer to the girl’s face. “No more.”

The lady walked towards a man standing further away from us, and talked about something with him, which caused him to go pale. Some other staff for the photoshoot seemed to have overheard their conversation, and went to talk to the man. He seemed to be getting paler and paler with every person that walked up to him. Eventually, he’s circled by staff and I can no longer make him out.

“Sir.” The aquarium staff from earlier called out to me. “If you would come this way.” he said, gesturing towards a door.

I grabbed Erika’s hand behind me, and followed the aquarium staff, pulling Erika along slowly.

We were led behind a staff only door, and brought to a meeting room of sorts. I guided Erika towards a seat, and she sat slowly, still holding my hand.

“I’m afraid we don’t have any fully enclosed room, but this room is soundproof, and no one can hear you from the outside.” The staff then went out and left us alone inside the room.

Erika was already sobbing outside, and she hasn’t calmed down by any means. I placed my free hand on her head, and started patting her gently. Erika then leaned her head on me, and I looked after her for a while.

It was just the other day I had seen her like this, and it hurts to see her like this. It hurts more knowing that she probably would have been fine had we just walk away from there, ignoring the girl. But I just had to cause trouble for her.

“Erika, do you want me to do anything?”

She shook her head a little in response.

I just continued holding her hand, and patting her head gently. Trying my best not to ruffle her hair as I do so. I looked out the glass window, and saw a lot of the aquarium staff going about doing what they do. They would slow down when they saw us inside the room, but still left as soon as they came.

Some time later, Alan was outside the meeting room, led by the aquarium staff that had led me and Erika in here.

I looked down at Erika. She’s no longer sobbing, but still sniffling. After I took note of this, I looked at Alan behind the glass window and gave him a slight shake of my head. He nodded and walked away.

It was a while longer before Erika had calmed down considerably until she’s no longer sniffling.

She’s still leaning against me and holding my hand tightly, but she seems to be no longer shivering.

I gave her a couple pats. “Erika, can I go talk to Alan for a moment?”

Erika replied with a slight nod, before moving her head back and looking up at me. I moved my hand away from her head, and she gave me the best smile she could muster at the moment.

I wiped the tears off her face with my now free hand, and let go of her hand. When I turned around to leave, Erika stood up.

“You can stay here if you want. I’ll go explain things to Alan.”

Erika shook her head slightly.

“Okay.” I said, while grabbing onto her hand again.

As I walked towards the glass door, I could see more and more of the hallway, and saw Alan standing just a little distance away from the meeting room with the lady from earlier and a few men in suits.

Just as I was about to open the door, Alan noticed me and started walking towards me. Behind him, the lady and a couple of the guys in a suit.

I opened the door just as Alan reached the door. “Let’s talk inside.” He said.

I stepped back, and the four of them walked inside. Once they did, Erika promptly moved to hide behind me.

“Could you explain to us what happened with one of my models?” one of the guys in a suit asked me.

“I apologise for my earlier behaviour. One of your models has a history with my friend here. Not a pleasant one from what I know, and-”

“Wait a minute.” The lady interrupted me. “Are you Erika?” She asked, which prompted Erika to jump a little behind me.

“Erika?!” The guy that asked me to explain what had happened earlier took a few steps forward to get a better look at Erika, and I immediately moved to block his path to Erika.

“I would appreciate it if you respect her personal space for now.”

Erika is clearly afraid right now, and I don’t want any of these people to cause her another panic attack.

“R-right. Sorry.”

“I had thought that it was just a rumour, just like everything else in the industry.” The lady added before letting out a sigh.

I looked at her quizzically.

She seemed to be surprised when she saw my looks, and went to explain. “You don’t know? Your girlfriend used to be part of a rising idol group, and the girl from earlier-”

“I’m sorry.” I interrupted her mid sentence. “I would appreciate it if you don’t talk about her past.”

I really want to know about what had happened to Erika in the past, but it’s unfair for Erika if we talk about it here and now in this condition. I don’t want to make her any more uncomfortable than she is now.

“I apologise.” The lady then said.

“Alright. That explains things enough.” The guy with a suit said.

He and the Lady seemed to have heard enough to know what was going on, but Alan was looking between the two of them, and me. I could almost see the question mark around his head as he looked quizzically between the three of us.

“This was before your time.” The lady then explains while she drags Alan out of the room.

One of the guys in a suit went out with them, leaving the other guy with us in the room. I stopped them before they could exit the glass door.

“Lady, thankyou for what you did earlier.”

She looked at me for a while. “I don’t know what you think happened, but I was not helping you. I was helping Alan. It would be bad for him to go to you instead of helping his coworker in that situation, so I had to make you to be the good guys instead.” She then walked out along with the other two.

The other guy left inside the room with me and Erika has a pin on his breast clipped onto the suit. The pin has the name of the aquarium on it.

Based on the way he’s dressed, he must be one of the higher ups in management working for the aquarium.

“I apologise for what happened today. The visitor of our aquarium is our highest priority, and we have troubled you over our failure in managing our activities. Please accept this lifetime pass to our aquarium as a token of our apology.” He said while extending his hand to hand me two cards with an image of the aquarium printed on them.

He said everything in a monotone that it’s so obvious he hadn’t actually meant anything of what he said.

His face also maintained a flat expression ever since he walked inside this room as he probably has no interest with what’s going on.

But I’m not about to look a gift horse in the mouth. And the guy is probably just doing his job.

I took the two cards he extended and he walked outside the glass door, and gestured for us to step outside along with him. “I’ll lead you back to the visitor area.”

I looked back at Erika and saw that she’s calmed down.

While pulling her along by the hand, I followed the guy in a suit outside back to the visitor area near the tunnel that was used as a photoshoot area.

Once we were outside, the guy bowed and stepped back inside the staff only door.

I turned around to face Erika, and she looked at me.

Her face is still a little blushed, and her eyes are a little swollen since she was crying not long ago. She’s also still looking down, understandably so.

Right after she finally calmed down a little after having a panic attack, I immediately shoved her into a stressful situation.

“Erika, what do you want to do now?” I asked her.

She looked down at the floor, and stayed silent after my question.

I fished my phone out of my pocket to look at the time. It’s a couple minutes before the penguin show.

I wonder if she wants to catch the show. It’s either that or going back home. I can’t really imagine what else she might want to do right now.

I opened my mouth to call out to her again, but stopped. Instead, I raised my hand that’s still holding my phone, brought it closer to her face, and gently poked her cheek. Doing that prompted her to look up to see me.

“Want to catch the penguin show?” I asked her, showing the time on my phone.

She took a look at the phone before looking back at me and nodding her head.

We then made our way back to the penguin section of the aquarium, following a line of barriers that was placed down after we went inside the staff room.

Erika still wasn’t as energetic as she was before we had lunch, so I pulled her along by her hand, and we reached the penguins not long after.

We were still some distance away from the penguin section, but apparently the penguin show was the penguins having a walk around the aquarium, and the barrier we were walking by was the route the penguin will be going through.

We joined the small crowd moving along with the penguin as they walked along the path set for them. When we did, I noticed Erika cheering up a little watching the penguins strut by.

We followed the penguins all the way around until they made their way back to the penguin section.

Most of the penguins were then led back inside their enclosure, but a couple stayed behind with a few caretakers. The two that were left behind are apparently the most well behaved out of all the penguins, and they are pretty docile even when touched by strangers.

Following the penguin’s tour of the aquarium, the caretakers invited the aquarium visitors to interact with the penguin. The caretakers would randomly pick a few visitors that get to interact with the two penguins. Only a few would be chosen because if all the visitors went to touch the penguin one by one, it would take a long time to finish, and the penguins might get stressed out and might start lashing out aggressively.

The caretakers would just randomly point towards some random people from among the crowd and call them forward to interact with the penguins. The moment I felt that one of the caretakers was looking in my direction, I quickly flashed the lifetime passes that the aquarium management gave me earlier.

It seems like the trick somehow worked as the caretaker immediately called me and Erika to come up to interact with the penguin.

I put the passes back inside my pocket and looked to my side towards Erika. She seems very surprised to have been chosen.

She then tapped the back of my hand repeatedly with her free hand, as if telling me to hurry up, and I chuckled at her gesture.

“Let’s go.” I said while pulling her along towards the penguin, but she quickly picked up her pace and broke into a small sprint, overtaking me in a flash.

I can see her positively beaming after the pleasant surprise of just being chosen. It’s as if the event earlier hadn’t happened at all. Which is a good thing. I love looking at her cheerily speeding into the things she loves like this.

When we were right in front of the penguin, I let go of her hand, and she looked at me and at the caretaker as if asking for permission. The caretaker smiled and gave her the go ahead, and I took a couple steps back.

Erika patted the penguin and held its fins gently while crouching down to bring her face close to the penguin’s.

She’s all smiles while doing so, and I relish the sigh that is Erika happily petting the penguin all over.

At some point, I took my phone out and snapped a picture of Erika as she’s beaming while patting the penguin’s head.

It had been only a minute or so since Erika was given the go ahead to touch the penguin, and the caretaker said that our time was up. Each person doesn't get much time so that others could have a chance to interact with the penguin as well.

Erika was led towards a sink to wash her hand, and I waited for her in place.

While waiting for Erika, I looked towards the now free penguin, and it looked back at me. With our eyes locked onto each other, the penguin then honked at me.

Sometime later, my phone chimed inside of my pocket. I fished it out and looked at the notification. It was a message from Alan.

“You free tonight?” I tapped on the notification to open his chat.

The aquarium closes at 16.00, so I should be free at night. “Yeah. Why?”

“Can you meet me at the bar tonight?”

“What time?”

“I’ll be there around 10 to 11.”

“Sure.”

Erika had finished washing her hand when I sent my reply to Alan. I turned my phone’s screen off and put it back inside my pocket.

Once she’s right in front of me, she gave me a huge grin, and I smiled back at her. Glad that she’s cheered up considerably.

We then made our way away from the penguin, and back towards the crowd. When we joined the crowd again, Erika looked back at the people now interacting with the penguins.

She seemed shocked when she saw someone pick up the penguin. She must have wanted to do that, but didn’t know that she could.

While she’s watching others interact with the penguin, I take a look at a board detailing the shows held in the penguin enclosure. The next and last event is just the penguins being fed by the caretaker which we had already seen earlier.

After a few more people got to interact with the penguins, the caretakers concluded the event and led the two penguins back inside their enclosure.

Those who got chosen like Erika were all smiles, and those who didn’t get a chance sighed in disappointment. Some kids even began to cry saying they hadn’t gotten chosen, and the staff had to help calm them down.

I let out a smirk of superiority knowing that I had gotten Erika chosen with skulduggery.

Erika noticed me smirking, and I immediately turned away to hide my face from her.

She then tugged on my finger to get my attention, and I turned back to look at her. She showed me the screen on her phone.

“You didn’t pet the penguin.” She had typed in.

“I’m more into fluffy animals.”

“You don’t like penguins?”

I fished my phone out of my pocket again and opened the gallery. I turned the screen towards her to show her the photo I had taken earlier of her and the penguin. “I like seeing you with the penguin.”

Erika then blushed and looked down to hide her face.

“I’ll send it to you later.”

She replied with a slight nod.

“The next show is the caretaker feeding the penguins.” I said, pointing towards the sign I had read earlier.

Erika turned her head to look at the sign and nodded.

“We already saw it earlier. Want to see it again?”

Erika then turned to look at me quizzically. She typed something on her phone and showed me the screen. “It’s not the same.” She then continued typing again. “The penguins do tricks to eat.”

I guess the event in the morning was more focused to let the visitor feed the penguins, and they fill up the penguins afterwards. On the other hand, the event in the afternoon is to show the penguin’s tricks off to the customer.

Since we would be catching the show in the afternoon, we continued our walk in the aquarium. Hopping from one tank to another with a fast pace just as we did before grab lunch. We ultimately reached the end of the aquarium earlier than expected and immediately turned back towards the penguin section.

While waiting for the show to start in half an hour, we took a seat on a bench by the penguin enclosure and looked at the penguin going about doing penguin things.

When the show started, we went closer to the glass barrier to get a closer look.

The caretaker started feeding the penguins, throwing fishes, and leading some penguins with a fish before handing a bunch to them.

The penguins had to run, jump, and swim to get their food.

To me, it looks like they are just feeding the penguins with extra steps. Erika looked on cheerily despite the fact, though.

Once the event concluded, we stepped outside the aquarium as it started to close up for the day.

We walked back towards the station, and I handed Erika one of the lifetimes passes mid walk. Considering how she had an extremely unpleasant incident in the aquarium, I had thought she might not appreciate the lifetime pass.

But I think we ended the trip to the aquarium on a great note, so I decided to hand her one of the passes, which she happily accepted.

We took the train back to the station closest to Erika’s place and I walked her home from there. She went inside a little before dinner time, and I immediately headed home by train after that.

The evening rush hour had started when I got to the station, but I was only using the train for one stop, so it didn't bother me much.

Once I got back to my apartment, I washed up, ate and lounged around until It’s about time to leave to meet with Alan.