"I see."
After that, no matter how much Yuuji expected her to say something else, she simply remained silent.
After several minutes of absolute silence, Yuuji sighed and finally spoke.
"Question, am I some kind of mental manifestation, or what exactly am I?"
"...You're the real Yuuji dreaming about your past, you just lost your memories because of a malfunction in my invention" Lala replied, although she didn't know why he wanted to know. "Why?"
"I was just wondering whether I'm about to cause problems for another Yuuji or for myself. And it looks like it's myself, huh?"
"What do you mean?"
"I think we're from different worlds" Yuuji said, ignoring her question.
Hearing that, Lala blinked in confusion for a second before raising her head as she realized something.
"Your talking hairpin said earlier that what my parents knew didn't match the data. Those are data, impossible to fake, and they match everything I've told you, right?"
"Y-yes. That's true" Lala nodded, the color returning to her face.
"There it is. I didn't lie to you. We're simply much earlier than you think. At some point, I'll reincarnate into another world. What I told you isn't a lie, it just happened after all of this."
"Maybe? It could be. In the future you can travel to another world, so maybe you were a traveler from another world from the very beginning?
But you have memories of your childhood in that world, so maybe reincarnation? Incredible.
Ah, but even so, you never told me you were a traveler from another world." Lala, who had already recovered her usual personality, realized that point and became dejected again, though only slightly this time.
"W-well. Omitting information is still better than lying to you, right?" Yuuji excused himself awkwardly, even though he didn't remember causing the problem in the first place. "Anyway, I'm not sure about any of this. Ask my future self."
"You know? Knowing you, you're about to hate yourself in a few seconds" Lala smiled, her eyes still teary before leaning in and kissing Yuuji.
...
"I'm an idiot."
As soon as Yuuji woke up and removed the helmet Lala had given him earlier, he immediately had to criticize himself and his actions.
Having recovered his memories, he understood why he hadn't told Lala he came from another world. Telling her that wasn't the problem. The problem was that his current world had been a story in his previous one.
And although the chances of telling her the first part leading Lala to discover that she basically lived in a fictional world were extremely low, they weren't zero.
"Yuuji, you're awake!"
For her part, the moment Lala saw him wake up, she jumped toward him with her arms wide open without the slightest hesitation.
Yuuji instinctively caught her and gently set her back on the floor before speaking.
"You say that as if we hadn't seen each other less than ten seconds ago in my dream."
"Hehe." Lala laughed. "So, do you hate yourself right now?"
"A little." Yuuji nodded and sighed helplessly before deciding to explain the situation. "Lala, the truth is that I have memories from my previous life, which awakened shortly before I met you, right when I started awakening my abilities.
My previous world was almost identical to this one, except there wasn't any kind of supernatural presence there.
I'm honestly not sure how it worked. I was simply at home in the other world, and then I was here. At first I thought I had just reincarnated here out of nowhere, but all my memories and feelings confirm that I didn't simply replace this world's Yuuji, I've always been him.
As for why I never told you, it's because my reincarnation hides a secret, one I'll never be able to tell you no matter how close we become. Rather than risk you discovering that I was hiding something from you and having to live with that, I decided to hide my entire reincarnation from the very beginning."
After thinking it over, Yuuji decided to explain everything he could, including mentioning what he couldn't.
"If it's something you can't tell me, then I won't force you to say it" Lala said understandingly, placing a hand on her chin. "Although I am curious about what it could be. Is it the kind of secret that would hurt me, or the kind that would make me see you differently?"
"A secret I can't say anything about."
Yuuji refused to give any kind of answer.
"I see." Lala sighed before smiling. "Then that's fine."
"...Seriously? That's it?"
Confusion was written all over Yuuji's face as he watched her accept it so easily.
"Of course. I was only bothered because you lied to me. I don't mind you having secrets" Lala explained with a confident smile. "You don't know everything about me either. For example, my mother's name is Sephie. You didn't know that, did you?"
"I actually did." Yuuji smiled.
"Huh? How?" Lala asked in surprise. "It had to be Momo."
"Speaking of that, Lala." Yuuji stopped her and placed his hands on her shoulders, making the alien princess nervous when she saw how serious he suddenly looked.
"Didn't we agree that you didn't have to smile when you weren't actually happy?"
"Well, about that..." Lala scratched her cheek awkwardly. "It's a work in progress."
"If you keep this up, I'll bring your father here and force you to face him in person" Yuuji threatened.
"Huh? He. Yuuji, you can't do that." Lala laughed in disbelief before almost immediately beginning to doubt herself. "You can't... right?"
"No comment" Yuuji replied with a knowing smile.
"Huh, today's Yuuji is very mysterious" Lala said, smiling even more than usual, enough to confuse Yuuji for a second.
At least until she wrapped her arms around his neck in a hug and spoke again without ever losing her smile.
"But speaking of mysteries, the reason you didn't want to go out with me was because you were afraid the same thing that happened during the trip with your parents would happen again, wasn't it?
You were afraid that having fun every day would eventually make you start getting bored again, just like before. You didn't want to date me because you didn't want to hurt me if that ever happened, right?
But now..."
Instead of speaking, Lala simply kissed Yuuji for several seconds before pulling away, never once stopping her smile.
"I can start calling you boyfriend now, right?"
After spending several seconds stunned by Lala's sudden actions, Yuuji finally spoke.
"...That sounds terrible."
"Yuuji, you're an expert at killing the mood" Lala complained.
"You think so?"
"I know so" the alien princess corrected him.
"Alright, alright, I apologize.
Then... Lala, would you do me the honor of becoming my girlfriend?"
"Well, since you're asking." Lala pretended to act modest.
"Pffft."
In the end, neither of them could hold it in anymore, and they both burst into laughter.
"Why are you two laughing by yourselves?"
Suddenly, another female voice interrupted their conversation. She had arrived without either of them noticing.
"Yami, how long have you been standing there?"
"I just got here."
"Thank God" Yuuji murmured in relief. "And what happened to Tearju?"
"She's waiting outside. Since you had something connected to your head that looked like it would explode if anyone touched it, it didn't seem like the kind of place someone as clumsy as her should enter, so I didn't let her come in," Yami explained.
"That reminds me" Yuuji realized. "I never told you to come help me. From the beginning, you only turned it into a dream so you could come in too, didn't you?"
"Hehe" Lala pretended not to hear him.
"I guess that's all the answer I'm going to get." Yuuji sighed before getting both of their attention. "Alright, it's still early, so let's go somewhere."
"Where are we going?" Yami asked, naturally agreeing to the plan.
"I don't know. Where do you want to go?"
"Let's go to a buffet. I want to show my mother Earth's food."
"And then let's go to an arcade. If we're going to teach things to the Golden Inventor, I think she should learn how to create more entertaining things to surpass her past."
'You just want her to make something fun for you to play with' Yuuji thought to himself, immediately deciding not to say it out loud before replying with a smile.
"Alright, let's go to both places."
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+15 chapters in advance on Patreon.
p-atreon.com/IAMME26
(just delete the hyphen)
80 power stones = 1 extra chapter (cumulative)