Summer

"We're cowards,"

'We're cowards,'

both Magnuses stated at the same time.

Magnus was currently standing in the descending elevator, the creepy creaking it was making sounding more like a distant echo. He was pacing about anxiously, the only thing on his mind being the series of endless possibilities of what might happen once he was face to face with Alana. He was well aware she wouldn't be able to even recognize him, given that she was now a completely different person even though she had the very same soul as his wife. It wasn't as if could just reveal to her that they had once been husband and wife.

'Dude, how are we gonna find her now?' asked Magnus 2.0. 'We haven't even seen how she looked like. The HUD has also disappeared.'

"We'll just wait at the entrance," replied Magnus as the elevator dinged and the doors slid open. He walked in long steps out of the building and stood a few meters away from the front doors. 'We'll camp here,' he said in his mind, not wanting to attract attention.

Magnus 2.0 didn't say anything, though he knew they had no other option. Well, he did have one thing in mind he could try out…

ʳ Due to his cowardly action, Magnus lost track of Alana's soul. While he knew someone was coming out through the entrance of the building, he wasn't sure if it was going to be the same person he was looking for. There were so many uncertainties.

As he cursed himself for his stupidity, out of his view, an exclamation mark appeared above the girl who carried Alana's soul. This mark would later serve as a way to confirm if the person coming out was really her or not. ʴ

"Fuck me," Magnus cursed at himself. He immediately realized it was the result of his copy's narration. 'An exclamation mark? Really? What, do you think she's an NPC offering a quest?'

'First of all, you're welcome. Second, don't tell me the same thing never crossed your mind,' Magnus 2.0 retorted.

The idea truly had crossed Magnus' mind earlier, albeit for a brief second. Both of them really were on the same wavelength.

While waiting, he checked his Status Window to see how many AP had been deducted. It was hard to tell since his AP had not fully recovered from the initial deduction after creating the HUD, but he guessed it was somewhere around twenty to thirty points. 'I guess this means that the mark wouldn't cause much change to the current situation,' he thought.

'Oh, someone's coming out of the elevator!' Magnus 2.0 exclaimed, snapping his original out of his thoughts.

The elevator itself wasn't visible from their viewpoint, but they could hear the familiar grating sound of its doors sliding open. Someone's footsteps were then heard approaching the main entrance. Magnus then moved back even further from the entrance, intending to observe the person from a distance.

Once the person appeared from around the corner, both Magnuses' attention was immediately drawn onto the green glowing exclamation mark hovering just above her head.

At that moment, time seemed to slow down.

Long curly brown hair that seemed as soft as feathers, tied into a ponytail. Heart-shaped face that accentuated her feminine air, and smooth skin with a tone as dark as sweet brown caramel. Neither tall nor short, she stood approximately 160 cm in height.

She was wearing an orange T-shirt and light-colored jeans with ripped knees. She was holding a skateboard in her left hand and a smartphone in her right. A headset wire was plugged into the phone, connected to a pair of earbuds that was stuck in her ears. She was wearing a pair of low-top sneakers, her steps as light as a fairy.

The most striking feature of hers, though, was her eyes. Those almond-shaped eyes with dark brown irises opened a floodgate in Magnus' heart. After all, eyes were said to be the window to one's soul. It was as if Magnus was staring right through her light emotion expressed on the surface, and into the soul of someone he loved so very much.

His heart began to race, his ever-sensitive nature could tell even without that stupid exclamation mark, that the person walking toward the entrance was exactly whom he was looking for. She might be a copied version of the one he'd lost in the original universe, and even though it pained him greatly to have to leave the original behind, he couldn't help but feel the deepest longing in his heart for the person in front of him. Wrapped together with that longing, however, was pure joy that he felt for being able to see her again.

Even with a completely different appearance, he could feel it, as clear as day. There was no mistaking it; she was his one and only. At that moment, Magnus fell in love all over again.

Suddenly, as if a part of his mind pressed an invisible 'Play' button, time returned to normal speed for Magnus. The teenage girl in question, unaware of a pair of teary eyes looking at her from a distance, exited the building and set her skateboard down on the pavement. She put one foot on the black-and-pink board and then rolled away.

Waking up from his stupor, Magnus shook his head and quickly followed her from behind.

'Her name isn't Alana anymore,' Magnus 2.0 started, 'she's just a sixteen-year-old girl living a life we know nothing about. But you know what? That doesn't matter 'cause our two minds could feel this one heart in this one body racing when looking at her.'

'I know,' replied Magnus. 'Anyway, I'm gonna try to keep my eyes on her. She's on her skateboard so she's moving a little faster than walking speed, but we can't lose her now.'

After ten minutes skating on the sidewalk, the girl spotted a taco stand on the side of the street. She then stopped, picked up her board and then stood at the back of the short queue line. There was only one person waiting between her and the person being served right now.

Magnus used that time to think up an excuse he could give her to be around the area not only today, but for the days after. He needed to design a series of coincidences. They said coincidences could lead to Fate, after all.

He then spotted a runner zooming across the intersection up ahead. That gave him an idea. He looked down at his dark green hoodie and grey sweatpants. Along with a pair of white sneakers he was wearing, he looked just the part.

'We just chose a new running route today. Yeah, that scenario sounds pretty believable, right?' thought Magnus.

'I think the same,' Magnus 2.0 agreed.

A few minutes later, he saw the girl receiving her ordered taco from the seller and walking to the side of the stand. She stood there and started eating, one foot resting on the skateboard and her earbuds hanging from her left shoulder.

'We need to get her to drop that taco,' Magnus 2.0 suggested.

Agreeing to the idea, Magnus tried to look like he was typing on his phone while preparing to use the skill [Wind Bullet]. He made a tiny bullet out of air, and then using as little force as possible, shot it toward the taco held in the girl's hands. He made sure the bullet would land on the paper holder when she wasn't in the middle of biting the food.

Even though he tried to be as subtle as possible, the bullet still made a faint 'swoosh' when traveling through the air, causing wind to churn up the dust on the ground and flutter some passersby's' clothes.

But it served its purpose, alright. The girl's taco was knocked out of her hand and was about to go splat onto the pavement. Magnus, however, was ready to catch it before that happened.

---

The girl blinked a few times, her mind a bit late to realize what just happened. All she knew was that she had dropped her taco, and then she saw a blur, and next thing she knew her food was already in a teenage boy's hand. Sadly, it was now crushed within his grip. Apparently the boy couldn't control his strength and accidentally squished the taco.

"Ah, sorry," he said, staring at the now-flattened taco, its fillings leaking out of the tortilla wrapping.

The girl failed to respond for a few awkward seconds. She was looking at the boy with a dazed expression. The boy's face looked pretty average, with his messy blond undercut and soft facial features. His brown-and-blue eyes gave his look a subtle charm, though.

However, the girl could feel some type of familiarity from his presence. It was not just his looks; it was something beyond that. She couldn't really explain it, but somehow he gave her a friendly, comfortable feeling.

"I'll buy you one as an apology," he said while smiling apologetically.

'It's probably that smile,' the girl thought to herself. 'Yeah, that's it. I don't know why I'm feeling like this, but I guess he just has one of those smiles. That gentle, sweet smile—'

"Hello? Miss? Are you okay?" the boy asked with a slightly worried expression on his face.

The girl snapped out of her thoughts and realized she had been staring at him for an uncomfortably long minute. "Hmm? Yeah, okay," she finally said, not really knowing what she just agreed to.

The boy's smile was back, and he was about to turn around before asking, "By the way, is this good?"

The girl knew he was referring to the squished taco in his hand. "Yeah it's…pretty okay," she answered absent-mindedly.

"Then I'll have one, too. I haven't had lunch, anyway. Got a bit hungry after all that running, you know," the boy said, still smiling. He then walked away before the girl could say anything.

She could see him making his way toward a garbage can and then throwing the flattened taco into it. He then casually approached the taco seller, cutting in line like he owned the place. Strangely, nobody seemed to mind or even notice his action in the slightest. Talking to the seller, his fingers made a sign for number 2. She couldn't hear him but knew he was making an order for two tacos.

It was then that her mind finally caught up to the present situation. She scratched her head and smiled wryly, feeling embarrassed and blaming herself for letting a stranger buy her food despite not being at fault that she'd dropped it.

After a few minutes, the boy received two tacos from the seller before walking back toward the girl. "Here you go," he said while handing one of the tacos to the girl.

"Ah, thanks," the girl said, picking the food from his hand. "You didn't have to, though. I kinda feel bad now."

The boy waved his hand. "Nah, don't mind it. Let's eat together."

The next fifteen minutes were then started with the boy talking about how he had decided to pick the area as his new running route. He then proceeded to tell her that he enjoyed the low number of pedestrians in the neighborhood, and that he would probably keep coming back here to run for the next few days. Other than that, the time was spent mostly in silence, with the low sounds of their munching filling it. Strangely, the silence felt comfortable for the girl. No, it was more than comfortable. The boy's presence made her feel peaceful, for some unexplainable reason.

After they were done eating, the girl thanked him one more time and started to skate away. But before she got too far, the boy shouted, "Oh hey! I'm Magnus, by the way. What's your name?"

She stopped and turned her head to look at him. She gave him a light smile before answering, "It's Summer."