Arknights: Living the Dream

Chapter 7: Preparation

She takes a deep breath, and still maintaining the smile on her face, she replies with a confident, "Yes!"

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The song passes through my guitar so smoothly, I probably wouldn't have noticed I was playing anything if there weren't any lyrics.

Regarding the lyrics, I feel as if my voice sounds a lot nicer than it used to. As if I could always sing perfectly.

Once I finish playing, I quietly breathe out and look over toward Sora.

She's lightly crying with a large smile on her face.

"Of course you're still so good." She wipes away her tears, "But that just means I have to be better, no?"

I place down my guitar, "Well show me how much you've improved before we begin talks on who's better."

"Alright!" She replies, "I will play the first song I ever played you, and you will love it!"

I smile and scoot over.

I lean onto Sora's shoulder and light a cigarette, "Go right ahead."

She freezes, much to my confusion.

I'm pretty sure I've done that before when we were playing together... Maybe shes surprised as-

"S-Sorry for pausing." She spits out suddenly, "You j-just look really cool doing that."

...

"Do I?" I mumble, "Well that shouldn't matter, you get on with your performance, It's been a year since we last did this, so let's see if your improving talk was all for nothing." I say.

"It isn't!" she replies, "And besides, I would never give you a bad performance... But! Let's get on with it."

I close my eyes and puff my cigarette as she begins playing light chords.

"Once upon a time" comes lightly from her mouth, "In a city during its prime..."

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"And no matter the crime" she breaths in, "The city will stand for the rest of time"

...A brief pause as she slowly turns to me.

"Was it good?" She asks with a concerned smile.

"Of course it was" I reply with my own light smile, "I forgot how sweet of a song that was."

"Well it's a song that my parents had played for me, so I always recite it through rosy glasses." She breathes in, "But! I need to know, have I improved?"

I move off of Sora's shoulder and tap my cigarette on the table's ashtray, "You have, firstly-"

"YES!" she interrupts me, "O-Oh! Sorry, I just was working so hard to hear those words, i-it just feels surreal to finally hear them."

"No, no, don't feel bad about it." I assure her, "You're allowed to celebrate you know? In fact, I would encourage it."

"So should I celebrate even more?" She asks.

"If you want to..."

"Alrighty then!" She gets up and starts prancing around the room, humming a celebratory melody through a large smile.

I just smile to myself. I can't tell if she's purposely overblowing it, or just that happy to be validated after all this time.

Either way, it makes for a fun sight.