The Absolute (Chapter 8)

“Blergh” Noarin stifled a gag. Turns out she was airsick, even though she’s fine floating on Kai’s power.

“Alright there, easy now. We’re already on the ground, take a deep breath” Rishia rubs her back.

We’ve arrived at our destination. As expected for a tourist island, it’s full of people from different countries.

“So how’s your first flight experience?” I tease Noarin, she gives me an annoyed look.

“Do you really have to ask…” Noarin drinks her water.

We decided to let Noarin calm down for a while. Then we called a taxi and go to the beach. Somehow there aren’t many people on the beach, it's almost as If we were on a private beach.

“Kai, where are we going to stay tonight?” I ask Kai while stretching.

“In the villa behind us of course,” Kai points behind us. I turn around and find a huge house right behind the beach. Looks like an expensive place to stay, so that’s why there aren’t many people around.

“Sometimes I forget that you’re filthy rich,” I stare at the building.

“It’s our celebration for you, finally getting out of that cramped apartment and tasting the sun. It’s not that expensive anyway,” Kai shrugs.

“I wonder how much is expensive for you,” I sit down on the ground.

“Hey guys, sorry for the wait!” Rishia’s voice comes from far away, the girls have finished changing. I turn around and see Noarin in her swimsuit. She’s cute! My heart starts to race when I see her. She walks shyly, following Rishia’s footsteps.

“Welcome back, you look great!” Kai gives Rishia a thumbs up, she grins. Noarin and I just stare at them, admiring their interaction.

“Uh-uh…” Noarin suddenly makes a small noise and looks at me timidly. Does she want some praise as well?

“Ahh… Y-yeah, you look c-cute,” I praise her nervously. God, I envy Kai’s confidence to say embarrassing things.

“Ooooh” Kai and Rishia clap. Noarin and I blush and turn away.

“Finally, after living long enough, I can see Aruta’s bash – Ouch!” Kai squeals, I threw an empty bottle at him. Rishia giggles.

We have some fun on the beach while we wait for the check-in time of our villa. It’s quite fun, usually I don’t really enjoy this kind of thing, not even on the high school excursion. Back then, I didn’t really have any friends to have fun with, but now I know that spending time with friends is pretty fun.

“Ahhh, that was fun,” Rishia lies down on the mat.

“Now that we had fun, I’m pretty hungry,” Kai sits down next to Rishia.

“I’ll go find something to eat then, I’m hungry too” I take my purse out of my pocket.

“I’ll join you” Noarin takes her jacket and puts it on her shoulders, then follows me.

“If you can find other things than seafood, I prefer those,” Kai said.

“That’s hard to find on a beach, you know,” I replied and started walking.

***

“That looks delicious,” Noarin points to a fried noodle stand. I turn to her.

“I thought you were against noodles.”

“The instant ones, regular noodles are good” Noarin goes to the stand and orders, I follow.

“Look, they also have non seafood fried rice” Noarin points to one of the menus.

“That one for Kai then” I order the fried rice.

“What about you?” Noarin asks.

“Hmmm, I don’t know. What about you?”

“I ordered Seafood Yakisoba”

“I think I’ll have that too” I ordered the Seafood Yakisoba.

“You don’t have a preference?” Noarin asks again.

“Nah. Since I’ve been eating your food, any other food just looks normal to me,” I replied flatly.

Suddenly she became silent, I turned to Noarin and found her covering her face. Oh man, I did it again huh.

“Is my cooking really that good?” Noarin spoke in a low voice.

“Ah… um… yes, very good,” I said nervously.

“Glad to hear that,” she replies in an even lower voice. Aghhh, my heart!

We go back to our place after getting our food, then we eat until Saria suddenly shows up.

“Hi guys, having fun?” Saria appears as usual on Noarin’s shoulder.

“Yeah, what’s up?” I ask while chewing my food.

“Sorry to break the mood, but I just found some magical traces all over the island,” Saria answers.

“So there’s a Holder on this island?” Kai sipped his juice.

“Not just any Holder,” Saria jumps down and sits down in front of us. Her face is set.

“The tracks I found are spatial magic tracks.”

We all pause for a moment.

“Wait, there’s a space attribute Holder here!?” I jumped in surprise.

“That’s good if that’s the case. But there’s a chance that this is the mastermind’s work,” Saria replied. I gulped. That’s right, if the Mastermind can create breaches between worlds, then they should be a Holder who can manipulate space.

“In any case, we must remain vigilant. I’ll report as soon as a spatial disorientation occurs,” Saria continued.

“Understood. If we find the Holder, we’ll approach them in a friendly manner. But if there’s even the slightest hostile movement, be ready to engage,” I suggest, everyone nods.

“Since there is a lot of spatial activity on this island, depending on who is doing it, an ornament could be scattered around this island. I suggest you explore the island, you can do it while having fun,” Saria stands up.

“Well, that’s all I have to say. Enjoy your vacation”, Saria disappears.

“Oh yeah, we’ll certainly enjoy our vacation after this huge amount of information,” I say sarcastically.

“I mean, we can enjoy our vacation normally. We just have to be on our guard when Saria tells us something,” Noarin shrugs and continues to eat.

“Alright”, I sit down again.

After we eat, we go to the villa to check in. I had to say, it’s way too big for four people.

“This place is huge…” Noarin looks around the villa.

“The view from up here is greaaaat!” A shout comes from upstairs, it’s Rishia.

“You guys go ahead and pick a room,” Kai sits down on the couch and turns on the TV.

There are exactly 4 bedrooms upstairs, 2 of them have a balcony to the sea, the other 2 to the city. Downstairs we have living room, family room, kitchen and bathroom. This really looks like a luxury house.

We didn’t do much that evening. Kai fell asleep on the couch. Rishia accompany him. I didn’t see Noarin around the villa, so I decided to go for a walk on the beach. I found her sitting on the sand looking at the sky.

“What are you doing?” I sit next to her.

“Just looking at the sky, you?” Noarin asks back.

“I have nothing to do, so I decided to go for a walk”.

“I see,” she nods slightly.

Awkwardly we stare at the stars for a few minutes.

“I never thought I could experience this,” Noarin speaks up.

“Hmm?”

“A vacation with friends”

“Ooh, I get it. For a loner like us, hanging out with friends is a myth,” I put my hands behind my head and lie down.

“Us?” Noarin tilted her head.

“Don’t say you’re not a loner.”

“Hehe, right” she giggled. We look at the sky again.

“I wonder how you guys met?” Noarin asks again.

“Kai and Rishia?”

“Yeah”

“Ahh, Kai is the one who talks to me first. He wants to join me as a group for a school assignment. Then we get to talk more often, eventually we became friends. There was also a day when he asked for my support to confess his feelings to Rishia. The two of them were rivals in the school rankings. Maybe they fell in love after a few competitions. After they started dating, that’s when I get to know Rishia through Kai” I tell her about my past.

“So you’re the only dumb one who can somehow be friends with the smart ones?” Noarin grins.

“That’s mean, but yeah, you’re right,” I giggles.

“Say, did you really never touch another living being after you moved to the city?” I ask her. She shakes her head.

“I was afraid of my power when I first got it, because I don’t understand anything about it. But after I met Saria, I learned about my power and how to control it. For 3 years, Saria has always been there for me, teaching me new things, listening to my rants and stories, and cheering me up when I’m down. She became my only friend for those 3 years,” says Noarin.

“Anyway, I forgot to ask this for a long time. Why didn’t you leave me in the alley back then?” Noarin turns to me.

“Ahh…….” I pause.

“To be honest, I have no idea. But my heart keeps telling me that I can’t leave you alone, otherwise I’ll regret it for the rest of my life. Also, looking at your weak, dying body makes me want to save you. I don’t want anyone to die on my watch,” I get up and sit down again.

“Knowing that I have the power to save someone, there’s no way I wouldn’t do it,” I continue.

“I understand,” Noarin smiles at me. My heart is warm when I see her.

“And I’m glad I did save you, I’ve experienced a lot right now”.

“Like my homemade cooking?” Noarin stares at me.

“Especially that,” I grin. Noarin’s face turns red, she hugs her knees.

“When you said… you want to eat my cooking every day until you die… did you mean it?” Noarin speaks in a very low voice, almost whispering.

“Eh?” I feel a blow to my heart. She buries her face in her knees.

I know, I have thought about it, I want to tell her how I feel, how much I like her cooking, her sweet smile and her shy side.

“Noarin…” I look at her, then she turns to me. I want to tell her something. We stare at each other for a moment. Our faces get even more red.

“Noarin, I…”

“Aruta! Noarin!” Saria suddenly appears in front of us. She stares at the sea.

“I’m really sorry to disturb you, but we have a problem here. There’s spatial activity right in front of us!” Saria yells. We quickly stand up and go on high alert. The timing couldn’t be worse, huh?

“Hey! What’s going on?” Kai and Rishia run towards us.

Suddenly, a spatial rift appears not far ahead of us. It’s a portal. After a few seconds, someone steps out of the portal. Someone we have met and fought before. And there’s someone else coming out of the portal.

“Hey kids, how are you?” The one with the scythe speaks. Iron Tempest!

“Sorry to bother you in your most beautiful moment.” The other one also speaks. His hair is purple. He wears a white robe and an eye patch.

“No

… way…” Saria shakes after seeing the figure.

“Saria? What’s wrong?” Noarin asks worriedly.

“Brother…?”