3. Chapter Three #2
“Hey there,” Cody said, happy for the distraction from his doom and gloom thoughts. He reached down and gave the cute cat a scritch between the ears.
A pink notification box popped up. Cody flinched, standing up abruptly. Luckily, no one else was walking down the street to witness his weird spasm. He looked at the box as the system’s calm, female voice read off the notification for him:
[Congratulations! You Pet a Pussy Cat! Petting a Pussy Restores Your Stamina!]
Cody watched in awe as the green bar he had slightly depleted filled back up.
Huh, he thought to himself. There was nothing like that in Velasarin.
The only things that refilled his Stamina in the previous game were sleeping, eating, or potions.
He shrugged and kept on walking, bidding goodbye to the cat.
He walked the last few steps to the diner, but paused before going in.
He wasn’t sure why he suddenly felt a nervous twist in his stomach, as if he was about to enter a dungeon.
This was a completely different world. But then it did feel like this was the first momentous step.
He was re-entering civilization with the intent of talking to people on his Resident List. That made it feel like he was accepting that this was a game.
But maybe if he could one hundred percent this life sim, he could be done with this game shit for once and for all.
He took one last steadying breath and headed into Frank’s Diner.
The smells of greasy food wafted over him and his mouth started watering.
“Seat yourself,” an older waitress called. She was grabbing plates of food from the kitchen but gave him a warm smile.
Cody returned her smile and slid into the nearest booth.
There was a laminated menu on the table, but he didn’t need to look at it.
He wanted a cheeseburger and fries. And another coffee.
And a slice of apple fucking pie. Food in Velasarin sucked.
It was all stews and chewy game meat and potatoes with a side of potatoes.
Granted, fries were also potatoes, but Velasarin didn’t have deep fryers.
The waitress came over, notepad in hand and pen at the ready. She was probably pushing sixty. Her dark brown hair was streaked with grey and worn in a tidy bun.
“Hey fella, I’m Doris,” she said. “What can I get for you today?”
Cody placed his order and as soon as she turned away, he brought up his Resident List. He glanced around, making sure none of the other diner guests could see the screen.
In Velasarin, your screens were private, so he was hoping it would be the same here.
Since no one was gawking at the floating, glowing pink rectangle hanging in front of his face, Cody assumed that meant no one could see it but him.
He scrolled through the list and quickly found Doris.
She seemed nice enough, in the older aunt who is a little rough around the edges kind of way.
Very stereotypical diner waitress. The tutorial had mentioned gift giving and quests.
He would need to figure out what kind of gifts Doris would want or see if she gave him some sort of fetch quest.
Doris returned shortly with his food: burger and fries, apple pie, and a steaming hot coffee.
He plucked a greasy, hot fry from the basket and nearly burnt his tongue eating it, but it was worth it.
Crispy on the outside, soft on the inside, with the perfect amount of salt.
He dug into his burger, savoring the thick cheddar cheese and thin slices of tomatoes and pickles.
And then he was onto the apple pie, which even had a dollop of whipped cream on top.
Every single bite was incredible. The whipped cream tasted like Heaven.
There weren’t that many sweets in Velasarin and now that he was re-introduced to sugar, he wanted to eat all the sweet stuff in the world.
He would have ordered a second round, or at least a second slice of pie, but he reined himself in.
“Someone was hungry!” Doris laughed as she presented him with the bill. “You polished that off in record time.”
Cody let out a long sigh. “It was great. Best meal I’ve had in years!”
“Well, you can settle the bill at the front when you’re ready,” she told him and gave him a friendly pat on the shoulder.
He got up and made his way to the cash register at the end of the diner's bar. It was right next to the display case featuring rotating pies and cakes. He paid Doris, and just as he was doing so, remembered he was a millionaire, so he left her a generous tip.
“Ain’t you kind,” Doris said as she noticed the tip.
A pink notification box popped up:
[Congratulations! You have completed your first Friendship Level with Resident Doris Smith! Only four more to go until Full Friendship Achieved!]
Well, that was easy enough, Cody thought, while doing his best to ignore the screen. Doris was still talking to him.
“You have a nice day now,” she said. “And here, take a hard candy for the road.”
She passed him a red candy wrapped in cellophane, which he accepted with a thanks, and instinctively popped it into his Inventory.
Dude, you can’t do that here, Knife reprimanded.
Shit, you’re right. Luckily, the candy was small enough that Doris didn’t seem to notice it disappeared from his hand. He bid her farewell and headed back outside.
Cody continued his walk down Main Street. The closer he got to the end of the street, and the little family-run grocery store, the more nervous he began to feel.
He wanted to properly talk to Morgan, and she was on his list of Residents he had to talk to if he wanted to get this game over with.
But he wasn’t entirely sure what he was going to say, especially after spending a decade pining for her, and a decade before that away in the city.
He vaguely wondered if he had spent two whole decades working away at the auto factory, would he have felt the same?
Or would he have found another girl and moved on?
You could start with: ‘Sorry, I was an asshole’, Knife suggested. And follow that up with: ‘Wanna bone?’
As usual, you are not helpful, Cody said. The apology was a good idea, but he was already planning on doing that.
Every footstep brought him closer to the grocery store until he was right out front. As much as he would have loved to eat at the diner for every single meal, he knew that wasn’t a good idea and that he should probably buy some groceries.
Once again, he steeled his nerves as if he was about to enter a dungeon, and then opened the door.
The air conditioning hit him in the face and the familiar smell of ‘grocery store’ washed over him.
He nonchalantly glanced over and saw Morgan was working one of the tills, cashing out an elderly woman.
Her brother, Doug, was working the other till and busy cashing out a family with two young kids.
It looked like they were prepping for a camping trip: lots of hot dogs, buns, and a couple of s’mores kits.
Cody grabbed a cart and started picking out some food, filling it with exotic fruits he once took for granted: bananas, kiwis, and a couple of mangos. His mouth was already watering.
I mean, you’ve told me what a grocery store is and I’ve been inside your memories but…
wow, Knife said, sounding thoroughly impressed.
It’s different actually experiencing it.
You just walk in and pick out whatever you want?
And everything is readily available in one spot? And what even is that? A monkey’s ball?
It’s a kiwi fruit, Cody explained, and tried to send Knife a mental image of what it would look like once he cut it open.
While Knife had access to his memories, if it wasn’t something Cody thought about often, or recently, it was harder for Knife to access them.
It’d been over a decade since Cody had eaten any exotic Earth fruits.
Huh. Cool, Knife said.
They had markets in Velasarin, but they were a jumbled mess of stalls.
You had to buy eggs from one vendor and apples from another.
Small towns had butchers and bakers, but even then, it meant visiting multiple storefronts, bartering, picking the items that looked the least awful.
It truly did not compare to a modern grocery store, even a small one like Callahan’s Food Mart.
Cody pushed his cart through the store, picking up some coffee, milk, sugar, bread, peanut butter, seven different kinds of sugary cereal—all the necessities.
He also picked up a few things that were definitely not necessary, but items he had dearly missed during his time away, like individually packaged extra processed chocolate cupcakes.
He kept moseying around the store until Morgan’s till was free, so he could cash out with her instead of Doug.
He also wanted it to be while Doug was busy cashing out someone else.
As soon as his opportunity arose, he quickly walked over.
He parked his cart at her till and started unloading his items onto the checkout’s conveyor belt.
“Hey,” Cody said, trying to sound super nonchalant and not like this was the girl he dreamt about returning to for a decade. “Thanks again, for last night. And this morning.”
He noticed that Doug looked over pointedly, but since he was busy cashing out another family, he didn’t intervene.