The wonderful adventures of the amazing, brave, and beautiful warrior Mika Ume; Part 1: Stuck inside a dungeon

‘Day 1
Me and family defeated a dungeon, but a chest with our reward didn’t appear. That means we can’t go home right now. I am scared to think about how long we are going to be locked here. We already started running out of food and water. I’m really bored, so I started writing this diary to have fun. I miss the bathroom with a real toilet. Kengo is going crazy, Mom is cooking (her food is delicious) and Tamashi is trying to fix everything. Nobody can spend time with me so I’m really bored. Wait I wrote that already. I will just cover up this part after.’

“Mika, sweetie, food is ready. Come eat!”

“Okay, Mom!”

Himawari called Mika, who put down the historic-looking book with a real leather cover and ran over.

Kengo was already there, pacing around nervously and mumbling something to himself under his breath.

Tamashi and Awayuki were nowhere to be seen, though.

“Mom, where is big brother?” Mika questioned whilst looking around, standing on her toes to see better.

“Tamashi said he needed some time to figure things out, so he’ll come eat later,” Himawari replied, then flipped a burger on the grill, causing it to sizzle.

“There are some finished already, so help yourself,” Himawari added, gesturing to a small foldable table to her right. On it were four paper plates, two of which were adorned with a wonderful-looking burger, its pleasant aroma instantly permeating Mika’s nostrils.

If she were living inside a cartoon, she would have floated up in the air, following a beckoning hand made out of the burger’s smell, guiding her towards it.

Saliva almost dripping from her mouth, Mika swallowed loudly.

“Mom,” Mika spoke up, “I’m going to bring big brother his burger so he has enough energy for thinking hard. Where is he?”

“He headed that way,” Himawari replied while pointing in a certain direction. She had a warm smile on her lips, moved by Mika’s kindness. “I think he’ll be very happy.”

“Yeah!” Mika nodded cheerfully, grabbing the two plates and running off.

“Be careful not to trip!” Himawari warned, but Mika had already stopped paying attention, instead focused on bringing food to her hard-working big brother.

Mika found Tamashi staring into the distance with a tense expression with Awayuki perched on the top of his head.

Seeing him look so serious, and in a bad way on top of that, she hesitated, unsure of how to approach him.

Tamashi, however, noticed her soon after, his frown turning into a bright smile, yet a hint of anger remained in his azure eyes.

“Mika, did you bring me food? Thank you, I really needed a break.”

Tamashi took one of the plates and sat down on the ground, biting into the burger hungrily.

“Come on, let’s eat,” Tamashi beckoned his sister. “Or is it a problem for the princess to eat on the ground?” he added teasingly.

Mika stood still, her adorable little face creased by a deep frown, her beautiful azure eyes watering.

Seeing this, Tamashi once again grew tense. He put the plate on the ground and inched over, patting the ground next to him.

“Come on, sit down,” Tamashi invited Mika with a gentle voice.

After a short moment, Mika finally sat down. They stayed silent for a few minutes, Tamashi staying quiet on purpose to let Mika gather her courage and sort out her feelings.

Eventually, Mika looked Tamashi in the eyes with a gaze so hurt, he almost started crying, as well.

“Big brother,” she squeezed out in a weak voice, “are you angry at us?”

“Of course I’m not,” answered Tamashi almost on instinct. “While it is true I am angry, you, Kengo, or Mom are not at fault for that. At all.”

“But,” Mika continued, tears slowly begging to roll down her slightly pink cheeks, “aren’t we... just a burden?”

Tamashi immediately wanted to deny such an outrageous statement, but Mika kept talking.

“All this time, you and Awayuki could have handled everything on your own just fine. You spend so much time just training us, but you still got hurt in the end. And even then, Awayuki still had to step in, or else you... you would have...”

By that point, there was no stopping Mika’s bitter tears. Tamashi carefully stroked his sister’s hair, letting her lean on his shoulder. The crying only got worse after that, so he just stayed quiet, comforting Mika with just his presence.

When she calmed down a little, Tamashi began: “You like to sing, Mika, right?”

She turned to her brother, confused, but just nodded in the end.

Tamashi smiled and looked into the distance.

“I, on the other hand, suck at singing.”

Mika giggled a little through her tears and Tamashi chuckled.

“Let’s say you and I enter a sibling singing competition. As we’re training, I always mess up, so you always end up correcting me.”

Tamashi turned to Mika again and asked: “Do you give up the competition, or try your hardest to teach me, despite how bad I was at the start?”

Mika avoided his eyes, looking at the soft grass below. After a few seconds, she whispered with a hiccup: “I would try teaching you, since you would be sad if I gave up on you.”

“Exactly,” Tamashi agreed. “Not to mention you don’t have much of a choice, since there aren’t any other singing competitions, and Kengo is even more of a terrible singer than I am.”

Tamashi got up and offered Mika his hand, helping her stand up as well.

“So you see, it’s similar here.”

“Really?” Mika questioned, unsure of what he meant.

“Really,” Tamashi confirmed. “I don’t really care whether I end up winning by being the fastest and most efficient. What truly matters to me is winning with you all by my side. What fun would it be if I left you all behind, becoming the strongest in the world by myself?”

Tamashi leaned forward and kissed Mika on her silky black hair, then started wiping her tears with a tissue that seemed to appear in his hand out of nowhere.

“What good is power and wealth when you end up losing the ones you love because of it?”

Tamashi pulled Mika in close and hugged her gently, caressing her small head with one hand and rubbing her back with the other.

“Let’s go eat with the others, okay?” Tamashi suggested after a while.

Mika just let out a quiet “Mmm,” expressing her agreement.

They both grabbed their plates, and when Mika noticed their burgers had already gotten cold, her shoulders drooped, a soft sigh escaping her lips.

Tamashi chuckled, patting Mika on the head, purposefully messing up her neatly styled hair.

“Don’t worry about it,” he reassured her. “We’ll just heat it up on the grill. We can even make new ones if you want.”

Mika slowly shook her head.

“No, it’s alright. I don’t want to waste the food Mom worked so hard on.”

“You’re such a good girl, Mika.”

Tamashi's face was beaming with the biggest smile of a proud big brother. He took his sister’s hand, and they went back to their tent, both quite hungry.

Then, out of nowhere, Mika’s stomach rumbled—Tamashi laughed loudly while Mika tried to free her hand from Tamashi’s grasp, desperate to cover her beet-red face.