I'm real, so who are you?

An unpredictable outcome.

Mirena incorporated herself and continued yelling at him.

—You are so mean! At least you could have tried, don’t you think?! Aww, my head hurts. —Well, he did predict the last part. But Ken was shocked. As an introvert, he always wants to avoid the conflict with others. He hated yelling and being yelled at. Say yes to everyone, or evade the question, or lie. Never say no. That was his philosophy, and it worked so far.

—And what is this place? Did you kidnap me?! I’m in the middle of a very important fight! I don’t have time to deal with you!

Unconsciously, Ken crawled backwards, intimidated by Mirena’s fury. “You find yourself in an unknown place and the first thing you do is yelling at a stranger?! What is wrong with you?!” he thought, but couldn’t say.

Ken put his hands on the floor, and started to tilt the back forward. Suddenly, he stopped.

The reason of why he always pretends to have another personality is because he hates being the focus of attention. And if you change, people is going to talk about you.

“Hey, Ken has changed, right?”

“Yeah, now he does things he usually didn’t do.”

It wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, but he hated it. That’s why he always acts like if nothing has changed. To his mother, he was the same energetic and funny kid he was as a child. To the classmates, the kind and shy guy from elementary and high school. And for the coworkers, the serious and uninterested-in-everything man.

The first impression makes it. If he adopted the apology pose, if his head touched the floor, he would have to be submissive in front of Mirena forever. And she didn’t like men like that, he knew it. She was in love of Mask, the protagonist, because of his enigmatic, confrontational and confident aura.

But it was impossible for him to be like that. The idea of argue with someone was so scary. And if it was Mirena, it was absolutely impossible. He was too nervous because of her presence. Even if she was screaming and insulting, she was still the Mirena he always loved.

—Take me back immediately where I should be or…! —Ken stood up and gave her the back. He was shaking, but somehow managed to control the nerves a little bit—. Hey, what are you doing?! I’m talking to you!

“I can’t act aggressive and brave against you. But I’m not going to be submissive either! I don’t know what happened, but one thing is for sure: right in front of me, the dream of every single otaku has been accomplished. For all my fellow partners that live in the lonely, I’m not going to waste this one on 7.7 billion opportunity! So if I can’t be brave, my mask in front of you is going to be disinterested. That’s what I decided!”

—Tough hit, huh… —he said casually, while opening the window. Cooling down the temperature of the apartment would be great to undercover his tremors from nerves.

—Yeah, thanks to you.

—Hey, don’t blame me. You can’t expect me to suddenly catch a girl that appears out a nowhere. I don’t have such good reflexes.

—What do you mean? Isn’t your fault that I’m here? You are not a kidnaper?

—If I were, would I open the window?

—I don’t know, you tell me. You are the kidnaper.

While talking, Ken kept the distance and watched her waist. The waifu thing was funny and all, but that didn’t change the fact that she could easily kill him with her sword, even if the blessing of the gods didn’t work in the real world. Luckily, she was unarmed. The sword was lost with the last attack of the Witch.

He tried to look covertly, for her to not think he was some kind of perv. But he failed. She noticed, and even if didn’t think he was a perv, she realized that she didn’t have her sword. Immediately adopted a fighting posture.

—Don’t think that you can beat me even if I’m unarmed —said menacingly.

—It’s ok, I don’t pretend to hurt you.

—Then answer all my question.

—I will if I can.

—Where am I? —A strong and difficult first question. Ken thought about it for a second, looking the celling.

—We call it the real world.

—Real world? Are you kidding me? —Her posture became even more aggressive than before.

—It’s as hard for you to understand as it is for me to say it. —Ken pointed the book next to her feet—. You came from there.

—What’s this? —She kicked the book, expecting some kind of reaction. But, of course, the book didn’t do anything.

—There are no books in your world? There is no fiction?

—Fiction? I don’t think I ever heard that word before. So you are lying or…

—I’m completely serious. —Slowly during the conversation, Ken was getting used to his new character. His hearth still raced as fast as ever, but the shaking on the voice was almost gone. Even he was surprised by the security on his words, and it seemed that Mirena was too, because her posture became more relaxed.

—What kind of magic is this “fiction”?

—Magic, yeah, I guess you can say the fiction is magic… —murmured to himself.

—What are you saying?

—Fiction refers to a story that someone creates using the imagination. It’s a story that never happened, and never is going to happen, because all exist only in the mind of the author.

—What? Are you saying that I don’t exist? Do you realize how stupid that sounds?

—And that’s why I’m so confused too. You shouldn’t be real, but you are. You’re here, right in front of me, and I can’t understand why. — “And I’m really happy about it” he thought.

Mirena completely abandoned the fighting posture, and laid her eyes on the floor, meditatively. Ken had no idea how to continue. Should be kind or cold? Say something or stay in silence? During his indecisiveness, Mirena let out a small snort.

—Lier.

—I’m not lying, I promise.

—If you are not going to help me, then I’m gonna find the way home by myself.

She was so fast. Like a scarlet lightning, she ran to the window and jumped out.

—W-wait! —screamed Ken, losing his composure. But as fast as he pronounced those four letter, she already went down the emergency stairs. And when he peeked his head out of the window, she was running away from the alley.

Ken sighed. It was a predictable outcome, after all.

—What was I expecting? —said so the walls could hear, trying to disguise the sudden loneliness of his apartment—. That she would stay and live here with me? Of course not. This is ok. This is how it has to be.

But he failed at convincing himself. For an unknown reason, he had the best opportunity of his life, and just like that it was over.

—What can I do though? She’s not my problem. If I run behind her, she’ll think I’m a weirdo. I never had any chance, so there is no use in worrying. This is… ok.

Again, he failed.

The sidewalks were very crowded. So many people walking and talking created an astonishing atmosphere. Mirena felt a little bit dizzy with so many people around her.

The buildings were incredible tall, ever higher than the giants and colossus she had defeated in the past.

“Why would anyone need such big houses? Are they for monsters?”

She looked everywhere, and all the things she saw were humans. There were no elves, no goblins, no anthropomorphic beasts. It was a huge kingdom completely dominated by humans.

“How did they do that? Are they so strong? Was that guy from before also so strong?”

Desperately she walked, looking for a street with less people. She easily found one, were her thoughts could be a little clearer. Sighed of relief.

—This will be an amazing adventure to tell Mask when we meet again.

Right at that moment, a fast car passed near her, making her shudder.

—Eh? Was that a carriage? No, there was no animal pulling it.

There was another car parked in the front, so she went there and started to analyze the strange machine. From the front, the lights and the bumper looked like a smiling face. Because of that, she thought it was a living creature so she smiled back.

—Hello little boy. Do you understand the human language?

The car didn’t answer.

“Is he or she even breathing? I don’t see any movement. I think is a he, by the way.”

She crouched and inspected the bottom of the car. And when she saw the exhaust pipe, she said:

—Yep, is a he.

She walked from one side to the other, trying to make the creature follow her with its eyes. But there was no use. The creature was completely immobile.

“Maybe he’s sleeping… Did he fall asleep with a smile? That’s so cute! I wanna pet.”

Slowly, she approached her hand to the hood. And when her slim fingers touched the cold and red metal, the alarm sounded. She jumped away, frightened and panicking.

—Eh? Eh? I’m sorry! Did I hurt you? Or did I scare you? I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to!

—What’s going on? —asked a man behind her.

—I’m sorry! It was a mistake! I didn’t want to…

—Oh, is okay. —The young adult relaxed a little when she saw Mirena. A cute girl with a medieval armor couldn’t be a thief, and she seemed genuinely sorry. He was a little confused because of the armor thing, but didn’t question it. He took out the keys from his back pocket and, pushing a red button, the alarm was turned off—. Don’t worry.

—Ah, so you can calm it with that artefact.

—That’s it. You never saw a modern car like this, don’t you?

—Modern car? No, never. —She was processing all the new and shocking information. “Modern car, so that’s the species of this creature”—. And its name is…? —The question was formulated in an ambiguous way, and the man interpreted it as if she was asking the name of the model.

—It’s a T2000.

—T2000, I see… — “What a weird name, but it would be rude to say it out loud. Maybe in this kingdom that’s how names tend to be, at least when it comes to modern cars. Interesting.” While she was thinking all this things, the man opened the door of the car.

—Well, I gotta go. It was nice to meet you.

—Oh, goodbye. Nice to meet you too. — “Eh? So you just enter in his body? That’s weird…”

The modern car started with a fierce roar and left with an amusing speed.

Everything in that new place was so different. It was fortunate that the people were all normal humans, just like the ones she already met before in her life. Otherwise, she would be even more confused and lost. But, how could such a large city of humans exist without her knowing about it beforehand?

A few streets down, Ken was running in the sideways, looking desperately for Mirena. If he hadn’t been so stupid, if he had made the decision sooner, finding her would be way easier.

He wasted so much time thinking on futile things that he lost sight of the real important issue: there was a girl alone running on streets she didn’t know, in a whole new world for her. It wasn’t the time to be thinking about things like what would she think about him, possible relationships, love, waifus, and all that shit. Because he was always thinking that way is that he was so pathetic. It didn’t matter if she was a potential lover or not, the important thing was her to be safe.

He was convinced about it, and it sounded really good in his head but, how was he going to find a girl in such a big city?