Debuffed Farmer

“Did you actually have anything planned for what we were going to do here?”

“Well, aside from just looking around, I was thinking of buying some farming tools. However, after seeing the price of those apples, I feel like the chance of us affording any farming equipment is quite unlikely.”

“So what are we going to do then?”

“I don’t know. Nothing, I suppose. Unless you want to help me sell these beans.”

“They sold for like nothing last time! Can’t you grow something better?”

Considering the fact that my failure of a system has not notified me of anything for the last several hours, I’m guessing that there’s not exactly much I could do. We’d just have to waste some time until the beans I planted grew up.

I suppose I could go back and plant the rest of them now.

Suddenly, Yuki turned to me.

“You, are you dating Seria?”

“No.”

“It certainly looks like it.”

“I promise you there are extenuating circumstances.”

“Well, that’s actually perfect. You’re decently hot and seem like Clara’s type.”

“Who’s Clara? Your friend?”

“Yep. She’s cold and prickly to every boy she’s met. I’m worried she’ll be alone forever, especially since I’ve recently got a boyfriend of my own.”

To be honest, I wasn’t too familiar with romantic relationships anyway, but this definitely didn’t sound like the best match to me.

“I’m not sure how I feel about that.”

“Oh come on! At least meet her.”

“If you let me meet your boyfriend then I’ll consider it.”

“What?”

What. Also why exactly did I want to meet her boyfriend again? In the chaotic conversation which feels like a sitcom mixed with ADHD, lots of details apparently got lost in translation (or lack thereof).

But still, I didn’t once even consider Seria as possibly being a romantic partner, thus I’m not sure how I would feel about meeting a random cold and prickly girl. From the way Yuki explained it, it doesn’t even sound like she’s on the market for a boyfriend. Meeting her would be closer to participating in an S&M meetup than anything else.

However, it wasn’t necessarily like I had anything else to do.

“Oh yeah, she’s also really smart. Like really really smart. Like top of our class, no study, no effort. She’s got two of the three criteria for attractiveness: intelligence and beauty. We don’t need to talk about her personality though.”

“I feel like that’s definitely something we need to talk about. 2/3 is still only a 66%, that’s barely a pass.”

“You talk like you’re some stud. I’m only introducing her to you because a) she hasn’t met you and thus not developed a patronising view, yet, and b) your snarky tongue and disillusioned mind might just be enough to woo her.”

Yuki sounded like she had a complete personality change. Regardless, I guess people are just better at articulating things that they were more knowledgeable on. In this case, it’s her friend’s love life. Even her vocabulary sounded like it’d improved several levels.

“I’m doing this for her, not for you.”

“Is that really how you’re meant to ask someone for a favour?”

“It’s not a favour. If anything, you should be paying me back for this.”

“I don’t think that adds up.”

Suddenly, Seria interrupted us.

Thank goodness, Seria was going to be the voice of reason for once—

“If you’re setting him up with your friend, is there a gentlemanly boy, preferably surfer-type that you could set me up with? Not like this dickhead that I’m forced to stay with.”

“Ah, well I’ll look around for you. There might be some kids from our school that meet that description.”

“Yay! Be sure to let me know if you find one, Yuki~”

“Of course, I’m happy to help out a fellow girlie~”

Hold on, aren’t you guys getting along a little too well?

“Anyways, what’s your name, boy?”

I guess she finally got around to asking. Although I assumed that Seria had surely called me by my name at some point, so she could’ve just eavesdropped. Well, it didn’t matter that much, I guess.

“Rin.”

“Alright, Rin. I’m going to go grab Clara. First impressions matter a lot so I don’t think you should meet her straight up.”

“That sounds like a hidden insult.”

“Whatever, go wait for us at a cafe or something.”

“Wait, but I don’t have that much money.”

“Ah, that is a bit of a problem. Just go to the park instead then. That one over there, Fourier’s Park. It’s nice for dates.”

Before I knew it, it seemed that I was already too deep down this rabbit hole. I guess I have no one to blame but my own lack of backbone as to this conundrum. Oh well, she did sound pretty similar to me when I was younger, so maybe we have more in common than I might think.

Still, relationship-wise I was still pretty pessimistic.

Hold on, it’s only been a bit more than a day in this new world. Aren’t things moving a bit too fast? I haven’t even done much grinding yet.

On the other hand, I did have to wait for the beans to grow.

Sigh.

*

In a bid to ‘not disturb me’, Seria had gone off alone to the city. I asked her to carry the beans on her, just in case, but she simply said that that was a ‘stupid idea’.

Regardless, I guess I was now to meet face-to-face with some girl who was already proclaimed to be toxic. I’m sure this is a great idea.

Looking off into the distance as I rested on the park bench, I noticed a black-haired girl walking toward me. For a moment I thought she was the girl, but Yuki wasn’t beside her so it couldn’t be the case.

Wow, this grass sure is nice and green. And the footpath, it’s clean and n—

“Aren’t you going to greet me. You playing hard-to-get?”

“Huh.”