The bellowing fires of wood-fired ovens kindled various juicy pizzas for the celebrating crowd at the local pizzeria in Virgo District. Three reflective silver tables lined up outside of the store for open-air outdoor dining, and Sunlight HQ covered the entire area to celebrate the occasion of April's good condition. Ryo sat with Sumire, Jinni, and Naoto while Chiaki, Star, and Claude sat at the second table. Natia and her father remained together at the third, while Solo and Duo sat in the distance relaxing in the warming sun. Despite being separate, they hauled their tables together for one collaborative pizza banquet.
Ryo recognized that he was growing accustomed to spending time around larger friend groups without nervousness, especially with how a handful of Sunlight was friendly and approachable. Ryo traced his eyes across the table and savored the liveliness of everyone's joyous smiles and bolstering optimism. It had only been a few days after arriving in Aries, and he had only Sumire to thank for all that had happened.
Ryo and Sumire sat lateral from one another. Their elbows were propped up on the shimmering silver tables, and their hands were resting on their cheeks to purposefully ignore each other after their short scuffle in the clinic's hallway. Jinni and Naoto sat next to each other to observe the sibling's bizarre behavior. Ryo and Sumire were occasionally peeping at each other, but none of them wanted to be the first to apologize to one another. Naoto watched Sumire's eyes watering as she lightly pouted, which he found to be alluringly adorable.
"Oh, you two…" Jinni began while mimicking their resting posture with her palm on her cheek.
"We're here to celebrate the occasion for Miss Springwell's good health. You two need to cheer up already. Piacere? Please?"
"She's right," Naoto said, slapping Ryo and Sumire's arms with his latex-gloved hands. "Makeup already. Everything's gonna be okay now."
"Aww, they're so cute together as siblings…" Jinni teased, looking at Naoto in response. "I've never seen anything like this before from you, Sumire! Cute!"
In unison, Ryo and Sumire turned around to face each other with the intent to apologize. "I'm sorry," They both said at the same time. Ryo paused and let Sumire finish her apology first. "I shouldn't have released all of my anger out on you. I was just worried April wouldn't survive, and…"
"I understand," Ryo intervened. "I thought the same thing as well. Only, I'm still worried about her health. I wish it wouldn't have gone to this degree."
"Hey, enough of that, man," Naoto disrupted. "We know you wanted to do more than you already could. Let's just chill for now, all right? And goddamn, you've got those dark circles underneath your eyes, Ryo. You need sleep."
Ryo agreed. His nightmares of Sez's prohibitive behavior only made his drowsiness much more serious. The more he had speculated about Sez, the more he wanted to bring up the possibilities of the incident being his responsibility. However, he didn't want to wreck the joyous moment of everyone's celebration. Although he was slightly uneasy about April's tremendous side effects in the accident's aftermath, he accepted it and wanted to relax for once with his new friends.
The aroma of a fresh fire-roasted pizza lit up the outdoors in an instant as the head pizzaiolo served three separate large pizzas for all. Yellow and pink tangy lemonade drinks were also delivered out to everyone in the open-air establishment. Star and Chiaki gracefully cheered together after they received the mushroom sausage pizza. Her appetite for food had always been The rest of the supreme pizzas were cheesy and delightful combinations styled with mushrooms, pepperonis, bell peppers, and olives. Nana jumped on Star's shoulder as she was the first to bite in its melty goodness. Chiaki chuckled aloud after watching her face slobbered up in red pizza sauce.
"It's so yummy…" Jinni complimented the pizza's divine and melting flavor as she indulged in a single bite. Her cheeks puffed out and reddened in pleasure as her eyes closed to envision the combination of flavors taking in effect. "Squisito!" She playfully slapped the back of Naoto's neck with her left greasy hand to tease him once more. "Eat, Naoto! Eat!"
"I am eating! Are you blind? Goddamn it, now I gotta wash my neck," Naoto said, groaning and putting distance between him and Jinni. He grabbed a knife and fork to accurately separate the pizza into multiple slices to prevent a messy dining experience. Jinni eyed him with an emotionless expression, thinking his table manners when eating pizza was too complex and complicated to enjoy. "It is pretty good. Although, it's pretty greasy."
"Eat, Ryo!" Jinni encouraged as she noticed Ryo only examining the pizza. "I know you haven't had food since yesterday afternoon before the meeting. Mangia! Please go ahead!"
"Okay," Ryo said, picking up a piece of combination pizza. He examined it closely and admired its immaculate structure. It was the ideal perfect pizza that one would see in a television commercial fresh out of the oven. After taking a bite filled with mushrooms and pepperoni, Ryo's eyes lit up in delight. "Wow. This is pretty good." He admitted.
"See? Told you!" Jinni cheered, eating more bites of her pizza.
"Hey, just curious…" Naoto began after swallowing another bite of pizza. "I don't mean to bring this up to you guys, but I want to know. What kind of person was April, anyways? Considering how we recently heard about her, we wanted to know more about her before she recovers. It'd be bad-mannered if we didn't remember all that she was."
Everyone at both tables began listening in. Star and Chiaki in particular wanted to know as well, considering her heroic and brave act of saving them from the Yakuza's incident saved them from death. Natia's uninterested expression fell flat as she pretended not to listen to their conversation. However, knowing how much April meant to Ryo made her interested in her background.
"Well," Sumire began. "She was a beautiful singer and talented guitar player. She was famous all over where Ryo and I grew up. Everyone gave up their time on the weekdays to go see her perform in the jazz club in Osaka. She was also really pretty and had a very unique fashion sense," Sumire added, smiling at Naoto. "I only added that part because I knew you'd be interested in it, Naoto."
Naoto's face tensed up in redness. "Huh? What? What'd you say? What are we talking about?" He panicked, pretending not to have heard. He concealed his crush for Sumire by hiding his face behind a slice of pizza he was hiding. "I didn't think about her just for her appearance, you know! I don't always look at girls just for that, geez!"
"Yet that is why you ignore me sometimes, Naoto," Jinni added.
"Huh?" Naoto shot back his gaze at Jinni, who pouted. "Hey, I ignore you because you keep bugging me all the time. It doesn't have anything to do with the way you look." He clarified.
"So… I'm beautiful?" Jinni's bubbly personality startled Naoto as she winked at him.
"Okay, settle down, you're getting out of hand now…" Naoto replied, embarrassed of her perky personality and actions.
"April was one of the best performers in my jazz club," Claude added on the sidelines after he took a sip of ginger ale from a plastic cup. "I considered her one of my apprentices when it came to mixology as well. She wasn't particularly skilled in following instructions, but she still enjoyed the challenge of it all."
"Oh yeah, that's right!" Sumire snapped her fingers as she remembered. "She could make some great drinks back in the day when she was a regular. I was always around Claude, remember? Just recently, she made me my favorite drink of all time-"
"Wait, don't tell me," Naoto wanted to guess to impress Sumire. "Orange soda!"
"Orange juice." Ryo corrected.
"Close enough…" Naoto whimpered, covering his forehead in shyness.
Sumire sighed, looking out into the distance covered by the evening sunshine. "It's really sad to know that she's probably forgotten all about it. But I could make it myself, so at least I have the skills for that. Maybe Claude and I could teach her again once she recovers. Maybe she's up for the challenge." She suggested.
"What about you, Ryo?" Jinni chimed in. "What was April to you? You don't have to answer if you don't want to. I just want to know more about you."
Ryo could have stated countless things that contributed to her radiant charm, mysterious abilities, and consoling aura. He had so many memories about her only in the span of three days that he couldn't establish a single one properly from a person like April. He could talk about her beautiful orchard and sakura garden arched with gilded and chiseled stones, her soothing encouraging voice to believe in hopes and dreams, and her massive estate with decades of wealth kept preserved for such a momentous living occasion. Her orchid scented perfume, her luscious wavy blonde hair, her pet cat, her pearly emerald eyes, her well-mannered and dutiful personality-
"Is he okay?" Star asked Chiaki.
"Huh?" Ryo shook his head to break free from his trance. He had been brainstorming too much about April's features without acknowledging Jinni's question. He had to come up with something quickly to break the sudden awkward pause. He started with the most obvious answer from his thoughts. "She saved me twice. She treated my wounds and took care of me. She would always look into my eyes and guess what I was thinking about. We would always talk in the snow, and she would always smile like a pretty angel-"
"Move," Natia's rambunctious voice suddenly rang behind Naoto's back as she shoved him off of his chair with her sturdy elbow. She interrupted Ryo's train of thought about April as she intervened.
"Hey, what the hell?!" Naoto shouted. "That was uncalled for, Natia! Let him finish!"
"No, I don't think so," Natia stated. "I don't want to hear more sappy personal stuff. What matters is that she's alive," Others took notice of her sudden appearance at Ryo's table by observing on the sidelines and her rudeness towards April's history. Natia peered deeply into Ryo's eyes with a slight frown as she replaced Naoto at the table. Her eyes never blinked or retracted from Ryo's gaze to strike intimidation into his mind because of her previous defeat. "How about we play a game to break the mood, Nakai. Interested?" She declared, lifting herself to approach Ryo's face.
"I'm not in the mood for games," Ryo explained, ignoring Natia's demands after his mind was broken apart from April's endearing qualities.
"Fine. Then maybe your sister's in the mood since we've got a score to settle anyway. You're too pansy to play because you're afraid of losing, aren't you? Our score's zero to one. Don't make this hard for yourself, you wretch." Natia insulted, placing her hands on one of the pizzas on his plate.
"Zero to one? What are you guys talking about?" Sumire asked as she observed Ryo and Natia's interactions. Ryo realized that she hadn't known they had battled in the Virgo District before April's incident. "And if you want to compete for that stupid suit that badly, then I challenge you to a pizza-eating contest. Unless you're afraid of gaining weight, you scoundrel." Sumire wiped her fingers with her napkin and bumped heads with Natia to indicate her dedication to their competition.
"I'm just afraid of you crying when I beat you and take the V2 nanosuit for myself," Natia suggested. "Guess I've already set up the wager, then. If I can eat more slices than you in five minutes, then that nanosuit's mine. And if I lose, then you can keep that suit on your disgusting body."
"Guess we're going to have to order more pizzas…" Chiaki commented as he stood up with Star to enter the pizzeria again. Star began choosing the pizzas after hearing of the sudden competition.
"This is ridiculous," Ryo began, looking at his sister's eager face. "Don't do it. It's not worth the time and effort."
Sumire had a nuance for Ryo's peaceful suggestions, as she believed Natia's duress needed to have vital consequences. It was clear that Natia's deep hatred for Sumire had dwelled into the racial territory, but Sumire's bitterness for her was primarily based on her impulsive, judgmental, and brash attitude. Ryo sensed a strong and passionate rivalry between the two based on their conflicting opinions about each other. After contemplating twice about whether or not to render the competition void, Sumire accepted it with a bright wink and a smile.
"You're on, bitch," Sumire challenged, enticed by the yearning defeat of Natia's ill-mannered personality. After she had accepted, Sumire shoved the silver table against Natia's core, placing the competition out in the open grass fields decked with sunlight. Everyone else began spectating from a distance even if they felt uneasy about its results. All of Sunlight HQ, including Ryo, knew that challenging Natia is uncancelable. "Don't cry if you lose. Otherwise, I'll have to beat your tears out of you."
"I won't…" Natia challenged as she smirked, placing her hand on the silver table.
"This is such a bad idea…" Naoto placed his palm over his forehead in embarrassment.
"You can do it, Sumire!" Jinni cheered, hopping up and down while clapping her hands. "Ce la fai!"
"This is so pointless," Ryo commented as he shrouded his face from second-hand embarrassment. Despite the competition being a rivalry game between his sister and one of his bigger rivals, he had no choice but to participate as an observer. He couldn't fathom why they were cheering for something so trivial. He slid his hand down from his eyes and saw Sumire performing clumsily-appearing stretches that looked like amateur karate moves. Ryo couldn't help but chuckle over his sister's unusual dedication to battling in a pizza competition. He suddenly felt an urge to cheer for his sister's fighting prowess as the others around him cheered for her success.
Several minutes passed as more trays of combination pizzas were brought out from the pizzeria. There were a total of five extra-large combination pizzas on three silver tables available for consumption. Nana leaped on the table and waved her pom-pom hands to catch their attention. Sumire and Natia stood next to one another to face the crowd watching. Several bystanders jogging and appreciating their daily strolls across the shopping plaza also took notice.
"Nana will begin the countdown! Five minutes! Eee-eee!" Nana squealed. "Three!"
Sumire and Natia reciprocated belligerent glances with each other.
"Two!"
Natia elevated her right elbow.
"One!"
Sumire placed her finger above one of the pizza's crusts. Her heart was pounding in anticipation of the competition's fiery and hyped nature.
"Go!" Nana cried as she accidentally tripped off the table clumsily.
Before Sumire even grabbed a hold of a single pizza, Natia swept her body through the winds and performed a powerful roundhouse kick to Sumire's stomach, sending her flying back against the grass. Her back soaked in the sun's rays, and her stomach's movement already made it difficult to consume pizzas because of Natia's forceful attack. Sumire clenched her stomach in pain as she grits her teeth. She stared at Natia coldly with her teeth longing for her defeated blood. In the meantime, Natia had already ripped off a massive portion of her first slice with her teeth, chewing it on the side as she nearly broke out in maniacal laughter to Sumire's splattered self.
"Hey, foul!" Naoto shouted, calling out Natia's unreasonable intervention. "Damn it, Natia! That's a foul!"
"Natia, that's enough!" Claude called, worried about Sumire's status. As her father figure, Claude was heavily invested in Natia's misbehavior against Sumire daily. "Don't make me end it right here and now."
"Why should you?" Natia said as she shrugged to the crowd with a cheeky and cocky smile. "Never said anything fighting, did I? Better get a move-on, Nakai. Time's ticking."
Sumire wiped the side of her mouth with the back of her hand and charged at Natia from behind. She feigned a punch to her back by sliding across the grass with her knees. She caught both of Natia's legs and slammed her against the grass before stealing the slice of pizza in her possession. Jinni, Naoto, Star, and Chiaki gasped in amazement over her quick and accurate reflexes to take down someone as combat-ready as Natia.
"I already have, bitch." Sumire repelled, taking continuous bites of the combination pizza.
As Natia planned to fight back, she withdrew her physical tactic after realizing that too much forced aggression would barely add to her pizza count. She stood back up immediately to soften in her pride of being knocked down by Sumire and began stuffing her cheeks with pizza slices. Now the true competition was on. Sumire took steady rapid bites of pizza slices to regulate her swallowing as Natia had already accustomed to taking much larger mouthfuls to wolf it all down. Sumire fiercely scowled at Natia as she carefully munched on another piece of pizza. Natia retaliated in the same manner, only her expression was rather spiritless and apathetic in spending too much unnecessary emotion on Sumire.
Pizza sauce and specks of cheese began accumulating around their mouths. Star wrapped her thin arms around Nana's metal chassis as she approached Ryo sitting on the edge of the bench. She tenderly leaned the side of her head against Ryo's shoulder, gripping him off guard during the heat of the competition. He abruptly couldn't concentrate on the competition anymore; Star's appearance made him want to know more about her experience and association with April. Now that she was by his side, he desired to get to know her.
"Hey," Ryo greeted, feeling the fluffy texture of Star's cyan hair brushing against his cheek. He wanted to speak with proper manners that appealed to a young child. "You're Star, right? I'm Ryo."
"I know," Star said, setting Nana down on the ground to let her waddle around. "Are you April's boyfriend? Do you like her?"
"Hmm? No, I'm not," Ryo tried his best not to stutter after thinking about his affectionate situation for April. He was still clueless about his exact emotions for her. "Why do you ask that?"
"Because I saw you give her this," Star said, pulling out the bloodied guitar pick that Ryo gave April before the incident. She had held onto it even though it was soaked in April's blood during the night of their agonizing grief. Now it was cleaned in water and appeared as new at the time it was purchased. "I saw you give it to her from the window. This is a gift of love. I know it." She continued, smiling at Ryo.
"You found it," Ryo astonishingly said as Star plopped it into his hands. His heart began beating much quicker than usual now that he had received the gift back. Now that he received it, he could obtain another chance to give it back in the proper way. "Thank you, Star. When she gets better, I'll give it to her again. I'll tell her that you found it too. She'll be happy."
"And then you'll tell her you to love her, right?" Star whispered into Ryo's ears. She giggled as she tapped on Ryo's shoulder afterward so that no one could hear about it. "You don't have to hide it. I can see it in your eyes."
"See it… in my eyes…?" Ryo muttered. Her phrase only reminded him of April's mind-reading abilities and her glamorous emerald pools for eyes. He wondered if there was any familial relation between Star and April. Perhaps people in the same family had the same ability. "What do you mean by that? What can you see in my eyes?" He asked.
"You can tell her that you love her," Star said as she shrugged. "I can see it. I really can."
"Star, I don't love April," Ryo repeated. "We're just friends. We really-"
"Hey!" Natia called as she began wolfing down more pizza with Sumire catching up. Because Ryo had been so advanced in his conversation with Star about April, he forgot that a competition had been going on that risked his ownership of the V2 nanosuit. "You better be watching, Nakai! That nanosuit's mine! Then you'll admit without a doubt that I'm better than you!" She taunted after swallowing another piece of combination pizza.
Ryo's eyelids felt heavy after Natia's sudden mockery and interruption, believing her taunts were nothing because of their battle. When he returned to speak to Star, she returned to cuddling Nana with Chiaki to watch the pizza opposition. Ryo wanted to know more, but instead, he was only reminded of April's condition and his unclear affection. Maybe she was just saying what April said to her before when they met? She's truly an April fangirl, Ryo thought.
"Jeez, Natia sure likes interrupting Ryo whenever he's talking about April." Naoto pointed out to Jinni and Ryo after studying her conversation patterns. "Maybe she doesn't like her. Could they know each other?"
"I don't think so," Jinni clarified. "Natia's from Iran. But yes, I have been noticing that as well..."
Ryo sighed. "She just doesn't like Sumire and me," He said, knowing the true answer behind her despised nature. He knew Natia only desired revenge for her unsatisfying defeat yesterday, but Ryo didn't want to reveal their battle to everyone. "She does it just to bug me." He ambiguously stated.
"And you started wearing that nanosuit again?" Naoto added. "I didn't think you'd do that considering those people at Melody screwed with it. How has it been working out for you? Did any crazy stuff happen?"
"Nothing yet, at the very least," Ryo said, remembering how the suit functioned properly when battling Natia. Its powers intensified Ryo's defensive capabilities by reducing the damage taken after getting launched across the district into its buildings. He was also able to utilize the neural interface of the nanosuit to activate its ignition turbines to travel through the air. Despite his success against Natia, he knew that his suit had a complete advantage over hers, for its neural interface processing speed was far greater. The training session he looked forward to would give him an extensive advantage over combat.
"Technically you shouldn't be using it before training, but you get a pass this time," Naoto noted.
"But I'd suggest using our other nanosuits for now until we understand where yours is coming from."
"Hey, look!" Jinni called, pointing over to the current competition.
"That's enough, you two!" Claude yelled.
The battle of pizza eating was about to end over the final slice. Sumire and Natia had tackled each other to the grass to fight for the last wedge of pizza. Claude sprinted over and began breaking up the fight as Star joined him. Ryo watched as Star leaped on the table to finish the final slice. Sumire and Natia gasped in shock after realizing that their competition had ended in a draw.
"Hey, no fair! I was about to win, Star! " Sumire criticized her as she shook her shoulders.
"Shut your mouth, Nakai," Natia said, wiping her hands and mouth with a napkin. "You were about to lose. Admit it."
"Rematch! That didn't count!" Sumire cried, shaking Star's shoulders more. Star couldn't take her seriously with the amount of pizza sauce slobbered across her lips and cheeks. Star began giggling as she pointed at Sumire's stained mouth. "Huh? What are you laughing at? Stop it!"
The rest of Sunlight HQ began to laugh with them at Sumire's clumsiness. Ryo even joined in after seeing how ridiculously silly his sister was. Chiaki took notice of Ryo's sudden laughter and smiled in response to his joyful expression. As Dr. Zanner paid in full expense for all of the pizzas, everyone sitting and enjoying their competition stood up from their seats to clean up the mess of their food battle.
Ryo stood by the sidelines as he glanced back up at the Aries clinic where April was recovering. He envisioned April's irresistibly affectionate smile standing beside her hospital room, embracing Ryo after a month. Her emerald sharp eyes would reflect in the moonlight's glow, where the wind's chilling breeze would brush her luscious blonde hair like luminescent waves in the cyan ocean. With his heart pulsating rapidly over the future thought of reuniting with April, Ryo knew he wanted to stay out of trouble, build himself as a capable and independent human being, and fight for a clear role in Sunlight.
I know you'll be waiting. I'll come back.