After the mildly comedic incident, Meru successfully took a bath, feeling refreshed but the embarrassment she felt currently was immense. To think that at her age someone had to drag her to the bathroom to take a bath; it was, for all sense of the word, an utterly disgraceful moment of her life.

Getting out of her bathroom, she swiftly took out some clothes, slightly appealing ones, and changed her clothes. Putting on the clothes, she shyly exited her room going towards the living room, where Kyle was patiently waiting for her. ??

As soon as she arrived, Kyle turned his head towards her. He had already noticed her arrival even before she entered the room, mainly because she wasn't even trying to hide her presence or hush her steps as she approached the room. This hinted that she wasn't trying to hide from him anymore even subconsciously, if she did she would've hid her presence, it would've been done unintentionally, which would've made noticing her a bit harder for Kyle.

His gaze was fixed at Meru whose hair was wet and untied. This was the first time he had seen her long hair flowing freely like that. Her long slightly messy yet beautiful blonde hair was far longer than he had first estimated. It prolonged to the end of her butt covering it fully. With her hair undone and slightly flushed cheeks due to the recent bath, he had to admit, she looked far more attractive than she ever did before, it was enough to mesmerize one's eyes.

"Done bathing?"

"Mhm.." She nodded, her eyes however were positioned downwards, not daring to meet with Kyle's gaze; it was mostly because she was too embarrassed, underlying that however was the cocktail of happiness, despair, sadness and shame that she felt toward the owner of said gaze.

"Okay, then now sit down and tell me why are you avoiding me? Tell me a valid reason why? No more bulshits, only the absolute truth." He spoke sternly, directing towards her a gaze that expected to be met with its demands.

She could feel his intense gaze locking on her, she still didn't dare to look at him, currently she looked like a meek child being scolded by their guardian for doing something wrong.

Seeing her meek, fragile posture made him leak out a tired sigh. "Meru, I'm not angry with you.. what the hell happened to you, you're unlike your usual self the Meru I know is a confident, strong, prideful woman, but now.. look at you? Why are you looking down like that?"

"N-no..t-this just...." She bit her lips, stuttering, too emotionally compromised to even coherently form a single sentence. She knew that he was right, she wasn't her usual self, though the reason for said situation was Kyle himself, she couldn't deny that blame lay solely on her.

"Alright, alright I won't force you okay? Geez you don't need to be so tense.. anyway for starters wanna play a game?" He suggested, said suggestion was made carefully, he knew Meru, knew of her passion and love for gaming and from that knowledge hoped that playing with him, the boy she liked will let her calm down enough so that she could at least hold some meaningful conversations with him, it would be able to break the ice and absolve this sunken atmosphere, he hoped it could, because he was running out of ideas if it didn't work.

Astonished by the unexpected and abrupt invitation, she finally drifted her gaze onto Kyle, he was smiling, ever so gently at her, like he always did whenever they conversed, a single, slightly embarrassing, thought riddled her mind. 'Ah.. this man.. was he always this handsome?'

Unknowingly her cheeks flushed and dyed itself in a pinkish hue, she agreed to his suggestion. "Okay.. let's play."

Kyle smiled, relieved that his plan was a success, Meru was able to gain some of her confidence back. She slowly moved and sat just beside him as she asked in an expectant tone. "What game are we going to play?"

He pondered for a moment before responding. "Then let's play street war."

"Okay..then let-" Kyle cut her off and added before she could finish.

"If I lose, I will do anything as long as it's within reason and my capabilities."

"H-huh?" She was bewildered, she couldn't understand why Kyle proposed that condition.. but...for some reason she was sure that now, her desire and drive to win had shot through the roof. A burning drive to win started revolving in her eyes.

"Now, let's start, pick a character."

"O-oh! W-wait a moment." She immediately picked a character.

[ Ready Fight! ]

Kyle's character rushed toward Meru's immediately attacking her, not giving her any space to dodge, as expected it caught her off guard! It was too late for her to mitigate this situation, Kyle wasn't holding back, he immediately followed by doing a rapid attack combo, his attacks were connected, flowing from one to the other smoothly increasing the combo at a swift rate.

2

5

20

25

35 Hits!

Meru didn't even have the chance to counter attack and her character was already K.O'd!

Instead of being happy that he won, Kyle frowned. 'This...to think even her gaming skills have decreased so drastically.. if it was the usual her, she would've dodged and counter..'

He decided to tease her, taunting her by telling that she became weak. "Hoho~ is your hand freezing? Look! You can't even hit me once! Ahahaha, so it seems I'm stronger than you now!"

His words were effective, as Meru made a pissed of expression and growled in annoyance. "H-huh?! I wasn't even taking it seriously, it's just a handicap! You'll see in the next round I'll definitely beat you, I'm going to let you eat your words!"

Without her even noticing, she had begun to calm down, the constant tensed state she was experiencing had now lessened by a great margin.

Kyle grinned, provoking her in a playful yet challenging tone. "Is that so~? Let's see, if the great Hatenko Meru-sama is telling the truth or she's just bluffing all along.."

She gritted her teeth in annoyance, she didn't like getting provoked using her title, so she bellowed out to Kyle. "You! I'm going to beat you, stinky delivery boy! Let's start round 2!"

He smirked, and replied. "Alright."

The game resumed, in the second round Kyle used the same attack pattern from before, Meru wasn't going to make the same blunder twice and as expected flawlessly dodged every single of his attacks.

"Ahahaha! See that! I'm going to defeat you this round!" Meru, in her excitement, failed to realize that her lost confidence was slowly coming back, she was finally having fun.

Regrettably, she lost yet again. The second round victor was again Kyle and with it he had now one the first match. Meru was greatly angered at this outcome and vowed to definitely win the second match!

Alas! On the 2nd match she still lost.

3rd match, another loss.

..

..

..

The 10th match; Meru was finally able to win by fully converting back to her past self, the one hailed to be the God of Games. Her smile was beaming, glad that she was finally able to win a match; she was extremely happy, smiling and laughing cheerfully, a contrasting sight to the one she had been donning for the past few days. "Hahaha! See?! I won against you now you shall eat your own words!"

While Meru was laughing merrily at her victory she unknowingly glanced towards Kyle, she noticed that Kyle was smiling at her; it wasn't a smile of self deprecation at losing, nor a mocking or sarcastic smile, it was a gentle smile showing happiness at seeing her happy.

And at that moment she perceived that all of this was Kyle's plan. From the start, that provocation, those hateful words, that derision he showed to her was to help her regain her passion for gaming, she had angered her so that in the midst of said anger she would let loose her inhibitions and get her confidence back, to regain herself that she was slowly losing. She had understood that..

...that It was all for her..

'Ah...this man...why? Why is he like this? It's unfair.. why do you have to be so nice and gentle to me? Why do you have to be so perfect?'

Her thoughts ran amok in her mind, thoughts revolving solely around Kyle, of how he was all she could ever ask for and in the midst of all those thoughts the thoughts regarding her own feelings became clear.. just one thought mattered, she loved him.. she loved this man with all her being.. every cell in her body was screaming at her these words.. that she was in love with the boy named Kyle

'I see.. so that's how it is.. the reason.. the reason why I was acting like that before.. the reason why I was so jealous.. I love him..'

She clenched onto this wonderful feeling, gathering it and in one sweep poured them into words which her whole being wanted to convey to him, she confessed. "I love you.."

"Huh?" Kyle was astonished by this out of the blue confession by Meru, he clearly heard her but he decided to play dumb.

"What did you say again? I couldn't hear you properly. " Kyle hoped, he hoped that Meru had uttered those words unknowingly, he wasn't ready for this, no boy could ever be ready for those words, not with the circumstances that revolved around Kyle. historical

Meru didn't want to avoid her own feelings anymore, she had by going through excruciating pain and the nigh loss of her sense of self finally encountered the answer to all her questions and she didn't want to hide these feelings, hide her resolve so she confessed again, loudly and clearly. "I said, I love you!"

Kyle lost hope, he couldn't deny it again, he would be hurting Meru if he did that. It was out of his expectations, this confession, it caught him off guard. Nevertheless, he needed to answer her, otherwise he would be a scum to leave her hanging like this when she so clearly and with conviction confessed to him, surely for a girl it was an extremely difficult thing to do.

"Meru...I-"

"Stop right there! Don't say it okay?! I definitely won't let you say it! I'm telling you I won't accept rejection, you hear me?! I won't give up until you say yes! I'm aware of the fact that you like that Tohru woman, for the most part I'm aware... I'm aware that I'm nothing compared to her, in terms of appearance or appeal or even power, but you can't blame me for falling in love with you! It's your fault! I will definitely make you take responsibility for this! Why do you need to be so perfect, it's your fault, okay, deal with it!" She boldly uttered those shameless worse equally shamelessly. She didn't feel bad, she knew her words were genuine and real and love was war, to earn Kyle's affection she will do everything, because she realized, she won't be able to leave without him, these few days was proof enough.

Kyle was utterly flabbergasted, too speechless to say a thing, this was definitely a first for him, a cute competent girl confessing her feelings for him, he cursed himself, he hated himself so much, but he had to admit, this felt hella good.

( Esdeath "Am I a joke to you?" )

(A/N : Okay for real, he doesn't really treat Esdeath's confession as 'real'. He merely thought that it was just a childish mistake.)

He was about to respond, but a humongous shadow had dimmed all the lights of the room, a huge form appeared outside the apartment and breathed a torrent of red plasmic beams that instantly destroyed half of the entire 69th floor, making the sky visible from their room. Dust scattered everywhere blocking their vision, still the terrorizing form was still visible, its red eyes gleaming with murderous rage.

Meru was too shocked to move her body, no damage happened to her however, all of her attention now lay onto the fantasmic sight of a huge green tinted creature above her.

It was a Green Dragon! A real fucking dragon! It's deep, oddly feminine voice, boomed with a cataclysmic roar, the tone of its voice emitting murderous desires. "Bitch! I'll fucking annihilate you from existence!"

It was none other than Tohru, the true dragon of chaos. And she was out for blood...

( `END` )

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