Dilemma and Reunion

"B-but, that's not the main reason I like him in the first place. H-he once saved me from being hit by a truck when I was about to cross the road."

..Eh?

"Wait... what?! When?!" She is so shocked that even her question becomes shorter. She said that this event occurred three years ago when her family moved in, a few days before they met at school. At that time, she was walking around the city with her mother and they wanted to cross the road to visit a certain store on the other side of the road, they were waiting for the pedestrian traffic light to change into green light; the pedestrian light turned to cross, but just as it changed, and she starts to move forward to cross but one truck didn't stop and kept moving. She didn't notice the truck, kept walking, her mother tried to reach, so close yet so far, she called her but with all the noise people around make, it didn't really help. Out of nowhere, a man slipped through the crowd, went for her hood since she wore a hoodie, grab her in as soon as her just an inch away from the truck.

People gasp and then cheer on his acts as a hero. He looks at the crowd with disgust like he sees a bunch of ignorance and hypocrite. Ignoring them, he asked her if she was okay, she nodded her head even though it was clearly traumatizing her. Her mother ran to her, kneel and check if she was hurt. Rina trembling asked his name and with a gentle smile, he told her. She thanked him and scold her. The event past just like that. Since then, she has been crushing hard on him. That's the story of how it happened.

... ... Erika is unable to come out with any words after hearing the story as if she has lost any words she knows, vanishing into the thin air. Even her mind is blank, can't think of anything other than the story itself, empty with only an object with the size of a tower, standing there without moving. Her heart, on the other hand, is full of feelings of guilt, confusion, worries, and anger. Anger to her.

She is in conflict, on one hand, she wants to help her brother, and on the other hand, she feels guilty because she tries to destroy her dream. She can't make a choice, not without someone's help and she thinks she can ask someone who is really close to Rina. Yeah, that person.

"Ney ney, Rina-chan. Can you give me your big sister's phone number? I want to add her to my contact. Hehehe~." She has another plan, that involves someone she's met once. She is sure that person gonna help her since it is regarding who she is close to.

"...Yeah, you can. Here it is, but why so sudden? You never meet her before ...or did you?" She feels suspicious of Erika when all of sudden asked for her big sister's number, but she doesn't want to break their friendship if she investigates this matter.

"Hehehe, doesn't matter. Let me help you with the homework, which one is the hardest?" She gets out of bed and goes to the study table and then calls her with hand movement.

"Really? Yeah~!" She jumps for joy out of the bed, too.

Rina-chan, please don't hate me. I'm doing this for your own good, too. You just need someone to knock over a few realities into your mind. I hope we can still be friends after I'm done. I really do.

Tomorrow morning...

"Erika, please take care of the house while I'm gone. The food is on the table in the cover dish and there's also a box of milk, too. I want to meet my friends at a nearby cafe, so you can come over if you ever feel alone, or scared." He standing in front of the door, wearing a hoodie with a logo behind it. She doesn't recognize the logo, in fact, she didn't even know he has that hoodie, but she just ignores it. "Mhm, yeah. Go already, I wanna go to sleep again." *Yawn* He then waves at her and goes to the cafe that he just mention.

As soon as he enters the cafe, a group of men calls out to him at the back corner, they are his friends, his old buddies. He looks at them with a smile and walks toward them, greeting each of them.

From the end of the seat is Ye fan, a Chinese guy who is a master at coding and programming, he often acts as the hacker in the group, feared by some big companies as they are unable to capture him because he currently keeps all the company's darkest secrets.

Next to him is Korbachev, a Russian guy from a poor family who lives in an excluded village. Like Russian tradition, they rarely get to see him smiling, always with that cold face. He has the biggest body among them, making him the wall of the group. With his appearance, people are often scared of him and try to avoid him as far as they can. But, as people say, 'don't judge a book by its cover' because he is actually very nice towards people, especially his fiancee. Yes, he has a fiancee, and they are planning to get married by the end of the year.

Opposite them is a British twin, Jackson and Joseph, or Jack and Joe. These two gain the nickname 'Duo Prankster' since 10 years old. They had pranked a lot of people, you list the name, their parents, other siblings, teachers, lecturers, friends, and strangers. But, Kai is the only one they failed to prank. He has such a high awareness of what happens surrounding him. They tried so many things, but they all end up meeting with failure. They won't give up, though. Kai sees this and invites them to become friends with his group so that they can keep trying to prank him, also he can use their ability for his own good.

Beside them is an American guy, Benjamin. With a height of 6'8, he became the tallest among them, and has a big body too but not as big as Korbachev. He has dark skin. He first came to Japan to further his study but along the way, he met Kai and felt something weird about him yet he cannot get grasp anything wrong with Kai. Kai approached him and they became friends after that. Not to mention, he also has a black belt in Tae Kwon Do, so be careful not to get on his nerves. Making him the fighter of the group.

Last but not least, Jake, a mix American-Japanese who was first shown up in the previous chapter. Even though he looks like a lazy-ass person, he actually quite a businessman himself. They don't actually know what kind of business he does, but he said that whatever he doing is not illegal. He is also a playboy that had slept with many women in his entire life. A few of them were actually pregnant with his child and surprisingly he does take care of all of them. His business makes him a 'bank' of the group.

Six of them have gathered here to see their 'leader' after three years he left. Jake has ordered a lot of food for this, Kai sits on one of the chairs and they keep asking him a bunch of questions like 'how are you?', 'Did you find a girlfriend?' 'How was your sister?' and so on. Korbachev has been silent the entire time until he dominates the situation with one question, "Kai, do you still want to continue 'the project' after three years left untouched?" Every single one of them looks at Kai with curiosity.