44 Something Greater
The next morning Masashi wakes up with Mai in his arms as he somehow feels a much more profound and deeper connection between the two of them which he thought wasn't really possible.
It's not like he feels more of Mai's emotions or anything, it feels like something much deeper than that.
'As if a part of my soul has merged into Mai's.'
Masashi is confused before thinking that maybe the [Soul Connection] had some kind of level up.
'Status.'
{ [1/4]
<Status>
Name: Masashi
Age: 17
Class: The Gamer
Titles: N/A
Level: 155 (EXP 26%)
Race: [High Human]
HP: 675/675
SP: 672/672
MP: N/A (Current world does not have mana)
STR: 442
END: 454
DEX: 436
INT: 478
WIS: 430
CHA: 500
LUK: ???
Regen Rate: 2270 (Per Min)
Stat Points: 775
}
'I don't see any change here'
Then Masashi thinks about the [Soul Connection].
Masashi checks his notifications.
'I don't see any changes relating to this either.'
'And this feels much firmer than the connection that I had with her before.'
'Previously I didn't have anything to compare against but now I can tell. The connection we have now is much stronger than before.'
Before Masashi can think deeper about this he decides, 'Forget it. I'll make breakfast in bed for Mai. We'll discuss this together.'
Masashi was about to do exactly that before he realized something.
'On second thought…'
Masashi just brought out a cart from his inventory as he placed it beside the bed without moving from Mai's arms that were tightly wrapped around his torso.
Then he brought out one of his pre-prepared breakfast meals and places it on the cart.
'This is real fucking instant food bitches.'
After he's done, he wakes up Mai.
"Hey, birthday girl. Wakey wakey." He says in a light voice, shaking her a little.
"Masashi?" Mai questions a little without opening her eyes as she rubs her face on his bare chest like a kitten.
"Wake up, baby. I got you breakfast-in-bed. Your favorite."
"Really? I love you so much." Mai said and instantly got up.
"Slow down. Here," Masashi said and passed her the tray with the food placed on a bed table.
Mai just started munching on the food without care for anything else.
"Hey, Masashi?" Mai says, still focused on her food.
"Yeah Mai, what is it?"
"I'm just wondering. Did the soul connection get stronger?"
"It seems to have but I have no idea how. I also saw nothing from the system, as if it's separate from the system."
"How does that even happen? Puberty Syndrome?"
"Why do you think it's Puberty Syndrome? It's only ever caused us problems."
"I think it has to do with the circumstances. You've been spouting out all kinds of shit about the 'will' being the main cause of Puberty Syndrome.
"I think that our 'will' just passed some kind of threshold that made the so-called <Will of the Universe> connect us to each other on a deeper level than the system," Mai said in an elaborate way.
"That makes sense. We were already connected to each other's soul through the system and the connection was made much stronger."
"I have a bigger question though. Why does the connection that we had before feel like it was paper-thin in front of our current connection? I got a good amount of meta-knowledge about these systems after getting one for myself and in all those, the system is a much bigger deal than a single universe." Mai helped further the exposition.
"Well, I never really trusted the system in the first place. This thing is a crutch and nothing more. I've always had the feeling that one day someone will snatch the system and all its abilities away from me.
"After this soul connection thing, I can completely confirm that there's a whole lot of deep shit that's going on with the systems."
Mai gets solemn, thinking about the problems that they might face in the future.
"Alright enough depressing talk. We can't really do much about these things at this point in time. I can only thank the <Will of the Universe> for the real bonding of our souls because now we can finally try to develop things beyond the system. I think that this is a much better birthday present than the one that I got you."
"Nonsense. I love the one you got me. You engraved those diamonds yourself."
"I just manually operated the laser, nothing more."
…
Then Masashi picks up Mai and brings her to the shower.
"Where's all this steam coming from?"
"The hot spring." Masahi says nonchalantly as Mai just looks at him with a, 'Are you serious?' look.
Masashi rubs his nose on hers as he says, "I'm serious. My folks kept this place as their vacation home for that reason majorly."
At this point, Mai is pretty used to Masashi pulling this kind of stuff out of his ass so she accepts it quite easily.
Masashi takes a light shower with Mai and brings her to the spring.
While lowering Mai to the spring he notices something above her crotch.
"No way!" Masashi looks at Mai's crotch and says.
"You've done that before already," Mai says with a deadpan look.
"No, I'm not doing a bit. Look," Masashi says pointing to the spot right above her shaved pelvis.
Mai looks at the spot and sees a really faint outline of a heart that's a bit redder than the skin around it.
"Don't tell me…"
"I guess this confirms it. The soul bond is the real deal."
"You know that from a tattoo?"
"I just said it to sound like I know stuff. You don't have to call me out on these things."
"Do you have one too?" Mai changes the topic.
"Let's see." Masashi lowers Mai into the spring and takes a look at his own crotch to see the same tattoo above his dick.
Mai pays a bit more attention to it as she says, "I think that there's the letter M written in the middle of the red heart in black."
"Cool!"
"You have any idea why it's so faint?" Mai says looking up at him with her face close to his dick since she was observing the tattoo.
"I don't know, it probably needs mana to charge up some ability or something," Masashi says as he looks at Mai's face so close to his dick looking up at him.
"Let's talk about that later," Masashi says as he puts his hand on Mai's head, pulling her closer to his already hardening dick.
"To think you don't even let me go on my birthday."
"I know you love it," Masashi smirks at her as he brings his dick into her mouth.
This time he feels Mai's emotions much more clearly than before.
Now that he has something to compare, he feels like the connection with the system had a film preventing their souls from truly connecting.
As he sees Mai sucking his cock with fervor he feels her happiness at being connected on a deeper level with him.
"You like the taste of my cock don't you? You can't get enough of it."
'No!' Mai tries to deny it telepathically but Masashi can feel her actual thoughts which are the complete opposite.
"Sure," Masashi says as she looks into his eyes with a blush on her cheeks.
As she keeps on sucking his cock he feels a profound but fleeting sensation going through his body for an instant but before he could do anything about it, it disappeared.
In some more time, he feels close to cumming as that sensation comes back but is too light and fleeting to actually do anything about.
"I'm about to cum Mai," He says as Mai speeds up a little and cums into her mouth which she eagerly laps up.
Masashi thinks about that sensation that disappeared the instant he came as Mai drinks his cum and brings her hands up to him, inviting him into the hot spring.
He just forgets the sensation as he goes in and hugs Mai, pulling her into his lap.
"Did you feel something just now?" Masashi asked Mai.
"No, I didn't feel a thing," Mai said to him.
"I see. I felt something, but it was just too vague for me to completely grasp."
"Something related to the tattoo?"
"Yeah, I guess. I'm not sure."
"I see… maybe it has to do with the tattoo being weakened." Mai speculates.
"That's probably it." Masashi agrees and promptly forgets about it, focusing on enjoying Mai's birthday.
…
Masashi and Mai spend the rest of the day hanging out and exploring the mountains.
Masashi took Mai to all kinds of hidden spots that he found when he used to come here with his parents for the holidays.
"We had a tradition of coming to this place every year at least once," Masashi says to her as Mai sees the place after some hiking.
It was a cliff with the most beautiful view of the mountains as the sun was just about to set, giving the mountains an indescribable look.
The cliff has a large tree covering the entire area as if protecting the place in its embrace.
That tree was where his parents had made markings of their names' initials enclosed within a heart.
Masashi's initial was added later on below that heart.
"The first time they came to this place, they added their initials to this tree."
Masashi lightly touches the initials, feeling the texture.
Mai holds his hand, comforting him. Masashi smiles at her gratefully before continuing.
"The first memory that I have of coming here is the time when I was 5. They both held my little hands as they helped me to carve my initial into the tree." Masashi points to his initial as he said.
"I brought you here to add your name here too. I want you to add your name to this tree." Masashi gives her a loving smile tightening her hold on her hand.
Mai gets a little stunned at Masashi's words for a while and then jumps into Masashi's chest.
"Really? Are you sure, it's fine?" Mai says while rubbing her cheek on his chest like a kitten.
Masashi can feel the happiness radiating from Mai as he says, "Of course bunny! I love you and I want my parents to know that I've found someone whom I can spend my life with."
"I love you so much."
"So do I, bunny," Masashi says, rubbing Mai's back.
"Wanna do it together?" Mai says as she pulls back from Masashi.
"Sure." Masashi and Mai hold hands and carve out Mai's initials alongside Masashi's name with another heart around both their initials.
Now the tree had two pairs of names, Masashi's parents' names above and Masashi's and Mai's names below.
They spend some of the time enjoying the sunset, leaning into each other.
At night Masashi drives back to their hotel where Mai's crew members throw her a little birthday party, at Masashi's prompt of course.
…
At night, in the hotel room.
"This was the best birthday I could ever have imagined." Mai happily says to Masashi as they're cuddling in bed.
"Really? I'm happy that you liked everything that we did."
"My shoot's basically over after tomorrow. We can go back after that."
"Yeah, You haven't met Kaede since she got all her memories either."
