Affection.

Aku sat on a chair at a restaurant in the mall, she invited Nana there but she didn’t come yet.

“She is already five minutes late” Aku whispered to herself, staring in boardom on the dust on the table.

Through the door of the restaurant a little girl came in, she wore a long fancy sleeveless dark red dress, her hair was tied back in a ponytail, the ponytail was supported by two big golden pins in the shape of leaves.

She went in the restaurant and sat near Aku.

“You dressed up quite fancy” Aku didn’t know Nana wore that kind of stuff.

“I’ve never been to a restaurant before so I still need to learn the dress code” Nana closed her eyes “so, what did you invite me for?”

“A break from the boys will not be a bad thing once in a while” this is not the actual reason Aku invited Nana.

“I assume so” Nana played with her hair.

“Would you like to have a menu?” a short waitress appeared near the table.

“Thank you a lot” Nana said and took one of the menus from the waitress's hands.

“Click this when you are ready” the waitress pointed at a bell that sat on the table.

“We will” Aku smiled sweetly and the waitress went away.

“Nana, there is a question I wanted to ask you for a while” Aku leaned forward.

“And the question is….” Nana crossed her hands and closed her eyes waiting for the question.

“Do you have any kind of affection for me?” Aku said quickly and closed her eyes strongly “I can’t understand your face and this question drives me crazy, am I here just to be with Takashiam or you have some affection for me too?”

“Affection level for you, nine, affection level for Yui Takashima, four” Nana said as if she was a robot.

“You count affection levels with numbers?” Aku looked confused.

“Humans are hard” Nana leaned her head on her hand “I’m not like other gods, affection and emotions are not natural for me, I chose to be happy, I chose to be sad. If I won’t give anyone I see an affection level the way I act near them will be inconsistent.”

“Maybe I can help you with emotions” Aku said, she thought being unable to feel emotions naturally probably feels really bad.

“I choose to feel glad about it” Nana said with a flat face, she looked at the menu for a quick second “I chose my meal already, choose yours too.”

“Ok then” Aku looked at the menu “I will just take a salad or something.”

Nana clicked on the bell five times.

“You don’t have to click so many times...” Aku looked at the bell and then at Nana.

“If I press more it makes the waiters faster” Nana said with a very flat confident face.

“It does not” Aku sighed.

“It is” Nana said, her eyebrows looked slightly angrier than usual “except your fate, you are the wrong one.”

Aku closed her eyes and sighed.

“Are you ready to take your order?” the same waitress from before appeared.

“I will take the cheese and mushrooms combo salad” Aku said sweetly.

“And what for the child?” the waitress wrote Aku’s order in her little notebook.

“Child?!” Nana didn’t like being called a child but there is no choice, she is on earth surrounded with loads of humans, she needs to act the way she looks.

“I will take the American kids meal, the one with the french fries and hamburger.”

“The kids meal comes with a drink” the waitress said “what drink would you like?”

“The grape juice please” it didn’t take a second until Nana answered.

“Coming right up” the waitress smiled and went to the kitchen.

“A kids meal and grape juice?” Aku was a little surprised by Nana’s order.

“I might be a god” Nana looked at Aku with a serious face “but it doesn’t change the fact that my taste buds and stomach resemble that of a child.”

“If you will stay hungry after I can give you a little of my salad, they serve big salads here” Aku was almost sure it would not be enough for Nana.

“The meal will come faster if I click the bell?” Nana asked.

“If it was, why is no one here doing it?” Aku rolled her eyes.

“So we need to spend a little time before we eat?” Nana asked like it was not obvious.

“Yes” Aku looked in boredom at the dust on the table, the same way she did before Nana arrived.

“So I will ask you a question” Nana looked at Aku “do you have any kind of affection for me?”

“Um… it's a bit of a tough question” Aku looked at Nana back “we don’t spend a lot of time together, at least not without the boys.”

“Would you want to spend more time together?” Nana looked at the weak lightbulb that lit the restaurant softly.

“Raising our friendship can be nice” Aku said with a flat face, she was not enjoying it a lot.

“We can play my favorite game” Nana forced a big smile, ``biggest as she can “it’s called “who falls first”, I used to play it with Fuyuki a lot.”

“We can play it, sure” Aku said, she forced a smile too.

The waitress approached Nana’s and Aku’s table with a tray with the two’s orders “we ran out of grape juice so we replaced it with lemonade, International Food Time’s management are sincerely apologizing.”

“Wha.. what?” Nana started to sob “there is.. there is no grape juice?”

“Nana, it’s only juice” Aku said, she was a bit annoyed, it’s not the time to act like a little child “we can get over it.”

The waitress started to look nervous, she never dealt with a little kid crying before “may we give you compensation? the next time you return to International Food Time we will give you a free grape juice, is it fine?”

“Thank you a lot” Nana kept crying.

The waitress put the order on the table and went away quickly.

“My affection to you just increased” Nana smiled while enjoying her tiny burger “I got a free grape juice because of you!”

Aku didn’t look very confident “glad to hear so….”