By the time they walked out of the snack street, Shu's pace had noticeably slowed down.
He was overburdened; he couldn't walk.
He felt like he had made a very wrong decision.
Kiana had been telling the truth... She had genuinely spent the entire morning patronizing almost every single stall on the entire snack street, and she had ordered two portions at almost every one.
Shu felt like this was the first time in his life he had eaten so much. Various flavors were warring with each other in his mouth, stomach, and even esophagus, practically paralyzing his taste system.
I'm going to have diarrhea.
After carefully analyzing the sensation, Shu arrived at a definitive conclusion.
I am definitely going to have diarrhea.
Beside the utterly miserable Shu stood a completely satisfied Kiana. Still sporting a bit of snack sauce on her mouth, she turned to look at him and found him clutching his stomach with one hand, looking thoroughly defeated.
"What's wrong?" she asked Shu, pausing her savoring of the last snack's aftertaste.
"...I think I ate too much," Shu answered truthfully, his voice pained.
Kiana let out a highly unethical pfft of laughter.
"Are you an idiot? If you couldn't eat anymore, why did you keep eating?"
Shu turned his head woodenly and unleashed a death glare.
Don't you have any idea why I ate so much?
Under Shu's death glare, Kiana felt a bit guilty. She laughed sheepishly and scratched her head. But soon, her sheepish laugh transformed into genuine, heartfelt joy.
"Then you should have just refused me! Or~ was Shu afraid I'd be sad?" Kiana raised an eyebrow at Shu with a wicked grin.
"I was afraid you'd get so fat Mei wouldn't recognize you," Shu replied coldly. He felt he truly had developed antibodies against Kiana.
Kiana proudly put her hands on her hips and puffed out her chest, unapologetically showing off her figure to Shu. "Hmph hmph, this Miss is a natural-born beautiful girl! No matter how much I eat, I won't get fat!"
"Hard to say." A hint of a smile tugged at the corner of Shu's mouth. He reached out and pressed directly down on the top of Kiana's head, squishing her back down to her previous low-key stature.
Shu's certain tone made Kiana feel as if a flash of white light had exploded in her brain.
"What? Could... could I actually get fat?!" Kiana cried out in shock, her eyes full of disbelief.
You had to know, she was already 49 kilograms! Converted to jin [T/N: A Chinese unit of weight equal to half a kilogram], that was exactly stuck at the limit of 98!
If what Shu said was true, and she gained even just one kilogram... that would mean—
Her weight would skyrocket from two digits to three digits!!
Yes, this was Kiana's best math moment.
The sky was falling!!
"Shu!" Kiana grabbed Shu, her face full of terror. "I won't get fat, right? You were just joking just now, right? I definitely won't reach 100 jin, right! Right, right!!"
Shu didn't speak. He just silently pulled out his phone and booted up Honkai Impact 3rd right in front of Kiana.
Under Kiana's nervous gaze, Shu cleanly navigated to the Dorm menu and opened the identity information of Kiana's newest battlesuit card in the roster.
Throughout the entire process, Shu didn't say a single word, merely looking at Kiana solemnly with eyes full of pity.
Every step Shu took made Kiana feel an increasing sense of dread, and when Shu finally opened that character info page, Kiana swallowed hard involuntarily.
She nervously clutched Shu's hand and stared intently at the screen.
Weight: 49.9kg.
A number teetering right on the extreme edge.
"Almost." It wasn't until Kiana clearly saw the number that Shu finally released his suppressed laughter.
"Ah! You did that on purpose!" In that moment, Kiana realized what had happened and decisively raised her fists to pummel Shu.
Still the same light, girly punches; still the same cooperative defense.
However, since they were out in public after all, Shu and Kiana quite tacitly reined in their smiles and stopped their scuffling.
Looking at Shu's expression as he tried to hold back his laughter, Kiana suddenly felt a little surge of pride in her heart.
When the two of them first met a couple of days ago, Shu's words were still ice-cold. He was like an NPC—poke him once, he'd say one line.
But now? He was even joking with her!
Although it was still rare, and although he only did it with her.
It was still a huge improvement.
Hmph hmph, mere Shu, perfectly handled!
"Let's go," Kiana tugged his hand a couple of times. "Let's find a place to sit for a bit so you can digest properly."
Shu suspected that by the time he digested enough to not feel sick, Kiana would probably be hungry again.
Meanwhile, Kiana had already started looking around. Her gaze swept over the surrounding shops, and then her eyes lit up.
"Shu, look!"
She pointed excitedly at an area not far ahead.
It was brightly lit, a cacophony of various electronic music mixing together, with game sound effects and cheers faintly audible.
A huge signboard displayed the words—
Homu Super Joy Arcade
Kiana's eyes launched out like searchlights.
"An arcade!"
It had really, truly been far too long since she had played with these things!! She was already sick of just playing those games at home!
Having found her target, Kiana decisively dragged Shu and started running toward it.
Caught off guard, Shu stumbled.
"Wait... I just finished eating..."
"Go, go, go! Time to digest!"
"This isn't how you digest—"
But Kiana was already beyond hearing him.
Shu?
Irrelevant.
Her eyes were completely filled with those flashing machines.
The various sounds of the arcade blended into a wave of noise that tugged at the emotions.
The striking sound effects of fighting games, the gunshots of shooting games, the roaring engines of racing games, the mechanical music of claw machines, the electronic beats of dance machines—all the sounds intertwined, stirring up feelings of excitement.
Colorful lights flashed incessantly, reflecting off the young faces inside the arcade.
"Wow..."
Kiana stood at the entrance, her eyes full of stars.
"Shu, Shu! Let's go play that!" Kiana pulled Shu and was about to charge in, but Shu pulled her back and steered her toward the automatic token machine.
"You have to exchange tokens before you can play..." Kiana's casual tug hadn't used much strength, but it was still quite strenuous for Shu.
Kiana realized her mistake and laughed awkwardly. Then, taking the initiative, she actively dragged Shu over to the token machine.
In front of the machine, Shu quickly scanned the code and paid, and the machine spat out a pile of game tokens with a clatter.
It was hard to say whether the sound of coins clinking together was jarring or pleasant. Perhaps human emotions really could alter sensory perception; the sound Shu normally found jarring was, in this moment... actually not too bad?
Kiana cupped the heavy little basket of tokens in both hands, her eyes shockingly bright.
"So many! How many did you exchange, Shu?"
"Two hundred. If it's not enough, we can come back and exchange more later."
"Two hundred!" Kiana's voice went up an octave. "How long can we play with that?"
"That depends on how you play..." Shu thought for a moment. "I feel like they'll be gone in an hour at most."
"I'll be frugal!" Kiana promised Shu earnestly.
She looked at the basket of shiny game tokens and took a deep breath.
Then she looked up at Shu, flashing a brilliant smile.
"Shu!"
"Yeah?"
"Today, I'm going to show you—the true strength of Kiana Kaslana!"
Shu was silent for a second.
"Your strength at playing games?"
"Yes!"
"But you can't even clear the Abyss."
Kiana's face froze.
"That—that was an accident! Wasn't that just because I hadn't played it before? If you let me get familiar with it for a while, I could definitely take first place every time!"
"Oh..."
"What do you mean 'oh'? At a time like this, you're supposed to say 'I believe in you'!"
"...I believe in you!"
"That was too formal! Shu, you're doing this on purpose, aren't you!"
"No."
"You're definitely doing this on purpose!"