Shelter

It took a while to calm the girl down, but fortunately she did calm down after a bit.

"S-sorry for suddenly crying.." The girl in red hair sniffed as she wiped the tears from her eyes with the handkerchief I lent her.

"No problem, it was just surprising that you suddenly started crying." I said and the others agreed.

"Why did you suddenly cry anyway?" Subaru bluntly mentioned.

Everyone stared at him with a blank look with the exception of Denji.

"Dude, do you seriously have no tact?"

"True, you don't have to be so blunt about it."

"No wonder you're a NEET."

The last sentence offended Subaru the most and it came from Kirito himself.

"Oi! That's a bit hypocritical of you don't you think..?!"

Instead of being offended, Kirito scoffed at it. "First of all, I'm not a NEET like you. Because I still go to school and lastly I still have a social life outside of my family, can't say the same about you huh?"

Like a knife twisted in his guts. Subaru had not come back from that comment and started sulking in the corner.

"That's a bit harsh don't you think..?" Suzuki couldn't help but say.

"Nah, he started it." Kirito disagrees.

"Well if you say so…" Suzuki was honestly unsure of that.

I shook my head ignoring them entirely, my attention shifted back to the girl.

"So, yeah aside from Subaru's tactless comment, if it doesn't offend you, might I ask why you suddenly started crying…?" I asked politely, because I'm not inconsiderate like Subaru.

I swear I could hear Kirito whispering at Subaru.

'That's how you ask you politely, not that tactless question like you did!'

Further adding some salt of his earlier wound, what a great friend he has.

Truly the best of friends.

The girl shook her head and replied. "No, it's fine, it doesn't offend me at all! In fact I'll gladly answer your question."

She smiled brightly, making the men of the room mesmerized by her smile. It was too bright and too pure for their sinful eyes.

I cough making the majority of the guys snap out of it, can't exactly blame them, there's just something unique with her smile.

"Anyway, mind tell us why?"

"Right!"

And so she started to explain why she suddenly started having a mental breakdown.

To be honest, it wasn't what we expected, like not at all.

—

After hearing her side of story, it was sufficient to say that everyone was affected, after all who would have thought a tragic life of this seemingly innocent girl living such an incredibly lonely life.

To summarize, she lived her life completely alone for 10 years without any human interaction, for a decade she believes that she's the only one from existence.

She lived in a simulated reality not too different from Kirito's own SAO, but instead of a multiplayer one, this one just a single player simulator, which also is completely different from SAO game mechanics.

While SAO is a generic sword and fantasy RPG, this girl who is called Rin (What a freaky coincidence) played a game that literally lets you do mostly anything.

Since there's hardly any restriction of her simulation, with a pen and her tablet she could draw anything and materialize everything into the simulation, not only that, the doodles she drew from the table would become extremely realistic along with its details.

In that world she's basically a god, but despite that, she's still alone and incredibly lonely because one of the flaws of the simulation is that she can't exactly create a human model with sentience.

Despite that flaw, it was still incredible to the point that all of us were fascinated by the simulation of which her father made.

Anyway, it wasn't until the fateful day which marked exactly 10 years of her living in the simulation.

The creator of the simulation, her father reminded her of his existence and memories that she had forgotten.

It was really a sweet, yet bitter memory to remember that made her realize how fortunate she was for having a family like her father. If she didn't have him it would unlikely she would survive in their dying world.

And because of those memories, she began to accept that in her life she would be alone, because of the fact that she's the only one who lived.

But despite that, the heartfelt last message that her beloved father gave her made the loneliness a bit bearable because he lives in her mind and heart.

A sentiment that she truly believes and is ready to accept that she would always be alone in this beautiful fantasy which is the simulation that her father made solely for her survival.

However, this happened making her joyful of the discovery that she isn't alone in the entire universe.

Although she's very confused about their existence, because it was given and it was clarified that she's the only surviving human in her world.

It didn't make her less happy though, it certainly beats that crippling solitude alone in that tiny world of dreams and fantasies.

Even though she's very excited about the discovery that she isn't alone anymore, the others not so much.

But not in a malicious way, in fact it's the opposite as they truly pity this girl and her life, true while she lived a life that was free from pain and hardship.

The crippling solitude that she experienced wasn't something anyone should have to live in, for example Denji's life was incredibly tragic however, at the very least he never felt alone thanks to his devil partner.

But that wasn't the same with Rin, she was alone for the majority of her life with no one to talk to.

While her life isn't filled with pain, her life was no less tragic than Denji.

No wonder she cried when she saw them, to her they were the proof that she wasn't alone anymore.

Subaru was once again reminded how fortunate he is compared to the likes of Denji and Rin.

Kirito on the other hand also pity Rin greatly, while he may be trapped in a simulation like she did.

That's where the similarities ends, at the very least he wasn't alone and had a choice, but her?

She doesn't have that luxury, despite hating Kayaba at the very least he's grateful that he wasn't trapped alone or else he'd go crazy.

No one should be alone, humans weren't meant to live alone.

—

Thanks to her story, their impression of her greatly changed from an innocent pure girl to a girl that needed friends because of how lonely her life is.

Either way, after knowing her story I also filled her in with the fact that this world is in fact not the same as hers.

Telling her that this was a completely different universe entirely and the majority of the guys are from another dimension away from her own.

Her reaction was unexpected honestly, I thought she'd be shocked or at least be surprised by this revelation but instead she accepted it quickly like it was nothing to be surprised of.

At first I thought she lacked knowledge about the implications about people from different dimensions.

But it seemed that she truly didn't find it a big deal, while she's alone, her knowledge wasn't lacking by any means.

After all, she had all of humanity's knowledge dating from thousands of years ago, dictionary, history, biology, science, fiction and every possible knowledge of humanity before it went extinct was stored in her tablet.

And being alone for an entire decade, she had all the free time to read some of those stored knowledge in the tablet.

While she's naive, not surprising considering her upbringing, she was by no means stupid.

Far from it actually, with the knowledge she accumulated from the tablet, she's as knowledgeable as a professor from a university with multiple PhDs despite being only 17 years old.

Because to her the most shocking thing is her finding out that she isn't alone, she couldn't care less about the existence of another universe, she just wanted company, a dream that she thought was unobtainable for her.

However life was unexpected and granted her wish, which means to say that she doesn't care where they came from as she just wanted company in her lonesome life.

Anyway thanks to her situation it would be quite obvious that she's going to be a regular, not because of the meals this restaurant provides but the company of other people.

But I will make her stay with my cooking and not because of the people, my own pride is on the line here.

—

At first I thought that she would be like Denji who doesn't have any money, honestly I don't mind too much if she eats for free, since it's not a big deal to feed another mouth.

Especially when I don't lack the money, however to my surprise she has money, thanks to the bank account that was tied to her tablet.

I don't know if her father predicted this or he just added it without a thought, but regardless she has money and is willing to pay.

After all, the amount she has could last her several lifetimes if used correctly, her father must be loaded for him to have 13 digits on his bank account.

—

A/N: She was actually put in the simulation when she was 10. Basically it's just 7 years for her. I just realized that when I saw the wikipedia but anyway since I put 'decade' already I'm kinda too lazy to change it, not like he'd overall time being in that simulation matters that much.

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