Bread in hand, Sayori finally left her house. It's been a while since she's been outside for a reason other than grocery shopping. But surprisingly, the girl got a random spark of motivation, and some old bread that she had no intention of eating.

And thus, Sayori made her way to a nearby park. She sat on one of the benches near the giant pond, opened her bag of bread and starting throwing pieces towards the ducks, and into the water.

This absence of anything important should be calming... So why was it impossible for her to feel that way?

Despite the bright smile on her face, there was something bothering her. A nagging feeling that, even during summer vacation, she was wasting her time.

Right when she was about to fall down that rabbit hole however, she noticed a figure approach. Looking over, there was one thing that immediately stood out to Sayori...

'Wow... She's really pretty!'

Having stayed up way too late reading The Magical Revolution of the Reincarnated Princess and the Genius Young Lady, Rio rolled out of bed long after the sun had risen. For lack of anything nutritious to eat in her dorm room, she helped herself to a couple cookies that Sato-senpai had dropped off the other day, as well a half-finished sports drink from her mini-fridge. She sighed, dragging her sleepy body over to her desk chair. Why did days always have so much stuff to do in them?

Immediately after turning on her monitor, she was crushed beneath a tsunami of notifications. "Ughghghgh," she groaned, grabbing her glasses and looking for what was important. "Fujioka-san, did you send your research documentation to Director Wada? He needs it for the grant application, but we can't find it." "Sorry," Rio mumbled to herself as she typed. "It must have bounced." That sounded better than she'd forgotten, right? "I attached it to this email, please take a look."

"Rio, I don't want to keep having to remind you. You need to update the guild spreadsheet with your raid availability. We're light on healers right now, so if you can't make it, I need to draft in some replacements." Biting at her lip, Rio clicked over to the spreadsheet, looking at the scheduled dates. "I dunno about that..." After some hesitation, she marked Unavailable for the next raid, but left the following ones blank. "I marked tomorrow's. I'll let you know about the weekend when I know more."

Over the next few minutes, she rapidly pre-ordered some limited-edition goods that were close to selling out, fired off a few emails to her colleagues, and made sure to heart all the memes her friends on Discord had sent. "It's a lot of work being so laid-back," she observed with a small sigh. "But at least I can get back to reading." The day was pretty clear, as far as she remembered, so swapping into another set of pajamas and then getting comfy was all her day had in store.

It was only once she'd achieved maximum coze, wrapped up like a sushi roll in her blankets with her manga, that she suddenly jerked up, fully falling out of bed still imprisoned in her blanket wrap. "Agh!" That 3rd-year who had asked to come to the lab and ask questions was coming today. Like, fifteen minutes ago! Roughly disentangling herself from the cozy state, Rio swapped out her PJs for a comfy turtleneck and sweatpants, and threw her bag over her shoulder. Catching sight of herself in the mirror, she frowned and shook her head. No time to straighten her hair, messy with an ahoge would have to be fine.

Now Kazuichi knew he must look terrible for Sonia to be speaking to him, the mechanic left to wonder how she ended up drawing the short straw to be the one to bring him the medication despite the lackluster way he had treated her in the past. He had tried to make up for it after it was brought to his attention he was being inappropriate by Hajime and Fuyuhiko, first with an apology and then by keeping his distance as much as he could. This was the first time they had interreacted in quite some time, and were Kaz’s vision not swimming thanks to his fever, he would have felt anxious about messing up.

"your footing here is good, but the way you're moving your body..." aki frowns, mulling over exactly what she wants to say. sonia seems like someone accustomed to more formal dances, but that's not really what this class is about. it's more about freedom of expression and finding the right moves to push yourself and get your exercise in without hurting yourself... it's not a surprise the shsl princess is so elegant, but there's more to dancing than just making the right moves.

                    even though they were on a path towards redemption, the weight of their actions weighed heavily upon all of them. if not for each other, it might be easy to fall into despair yet again. to think that if he had learned to appreciate himself sooner- if he had tried to reach out, make more friends... perhaps he would have never gone through with the project. maybe the tragedy wouldn't have been able to occur.

                    the princess snaps him out of his gloomy thoughts temporarily. and, when looking at her, a faint smile appears on his face. he was grateful, at least, to have her by his side. to have all of them here by his side.

                    while once hajime may have cursed himself, hating how unremarkable he was, now he couldn't be more thankful to be that person again. well, he supposes that isn't entirely correct. he's isn't the same as he was. he's grown.

                    ‶  thank you, sonia... the same goes to you, too.  ″ the smile does soon fade after that, his gaze being directed out towards the ocean. there's something melancholic in his eyes. he held hope for their future, this is true, but it was difficult to move beyond the past.

                    ‶  i guess i'm just... thinking.  ″ he frowns.  ‶  about what i've done... it's hard... knowing everything. i just-  ″ he clenches his fist, nails digging into his palm.  ‶  i don't think i can forgive myself. i wish i could just undo it all.  ″

"................'sawcon' these nuts!!"