Despite being fully asleep, Alice gripped Hiro’s wrist with quite a lot of force. Who knew where she got that much strength in her sleep.


    Sleeptalking? Or is it a nightmare?


    Hiro didn’t know which one was happening to the person he just moved onto the bed.


    “Yuujin, please don’t go. I don’t trust them,” Alice continued to sleeptalk. Her long and sharp nails scratched Hiro’s hand and caused him to wince in pain.


    Still, he intentionally didn’t wake her up. He wanted to know, what was she dreaming about? This was the second time she mentioned Yuujin’s name in her dream.


    Hiro decided not to leave the room. Instead, he crouched next to Alice and closely observed her face. The old room warmer failed to neutralize the cold temperature of winter, causing her nose to slightly redden.


    Even Hiro felt that the temperature in the closed room was really cold and wanted to use something to warm himself.


    Still on the bed with her hand gripping Hiro’s wrist, Alice suddenly moved as if she was struggling to break free with her eyes closed. A secondter, she abruptly opened her eyes like a shocked person and finally woke up from her horrible nightmare.


    “No! Please, no!”


    Even her breathing was greatly irregr as if she had just run too much.


    Hiro looked into the sleepy eyes looking back at him. He didn’t know what to do in his current position. There was no way he could shake her hand off just like that, he didn’t have the heart to see her in that condition.


    Her face seemed pale and exhausted and her teeth were chattering due to the cold, truly showing that she was also a normal person with a weak side. This was a rare sight for Hiro.


    “Y-Yuujin,” Alice still sleeptalked even though she was already awake. The hand that was previously gripping Hiro’s wrist had moved to his face and was gently stroking his face. A smile was on her face as she gazed into his eyes with glistening eyes.


    Hiro felt strange.


    ‘Is she crying?’


    He hadn’t even thought of the possible reasons when all of a sudden, Alice pulled his neck and hugged him tightly, choking him a little and causing him to reflexively cough.


    “You’re safe!!” Alice buried her face in his shoulder. Hiro could feel her slowly warm up, and something wet dripped onto his neck.


    She cried without loosening her hug on Hiro, whom she seemed to be mistaking as the other person she desperately wanted to meet at the moment.


    Hiro froze in ce. Alice’s embrace made his body slowly warm up as well. If Alice was indeed mistaking him for Yuujin right now, he couldn’t fully me her. She wasn’t the only one who said he really resembled his brother.


    Moreover, if someone missed his brother like how he had deeply buried all this time, Hiro felt that they deserved a special appreciation from him.


    Hiro silently let Alice cry on his shoulder for as long as she needed to. After quite a long while, she fell asleep again after calming down.


    Very gently and carefully, Hiro moved Alice back to a sleeping position on the bed and covered her with the thick nket to warm her before finally leaving the room to rest on the living room sofa.


    What he just experienced made him want to know about Alice’s rtionship with his brother even more.


    ‘Is she his lover?’ Hiro couldn’t help but wonder in his mind. He had no other guess as convincing as that one at the moment.


    However, he didn’t remember Yuujin telling him anything about his love life. That brother of his hadn’t even talked about any girls to him, as if his entire life was focused on working and making money. Because of that, Hiro had even thought that his brother might be gay. How could someone be so popr yet never have a girlfriend?


    Hiro closed his eyes and drove out all the thoughts preventing him from sleeping. He needed to rest for now.


    Of course, he didn’t forget to turn on a parallel rm to wake him up so he wouldn’t sleep for more than four hours a day. He still needed to work hard.


    …


    A delicious aroma pulled Hiro from his subconscious.


    Alice was cooking in the kitchen for both of them after she woke up before Hiro, who had only slept for three hours.


    Hiro, who brought his unbearable hunger to his sleep, was immediately awakened and blinked a few times. He was still doubting whether the aroma that woke him up was in the real world.


    Having moved between the real world and the virtual world with extremely realistic graphics so often, he sometimes required more time to process which world he was in when he opened his eyes.


    That aroma, Hiro knew it well. It was very distinctive, so much that an image of the food Alice was preparing instantly appeared in his head.


    “Okonomiyaki.” Hiro gulped and immediately sat up on the sofa that had be his throne. He looked in the direction of the kitchen and saw Alice looking at him with the normal gaze he knew.


    “Is that okonomiyaki?” Hiro tried to confirm the truth of his guess.


    He could feel his mouth begin to water. Okonomiyaki was his favorite Japanese food, especially the okonomiyaki Yuujin often used to make when their parents recently passed away.


    “Your nose is as sharp as a dog.”


    Alice was impressed by Hiro’s sense of smell for Japanese food.


    “Yes!” Hiro couldn’t hold himself back from eximing with joy and quickly stood up to walk toward the dining room, like a child waiting for his mother to cook his favorite food.


    “I didn’t know you like it so much. We don’t have anything here and I forgot to go shopping. I only brought some Japanese sauces before leaving, too,” Alice exined how she had no choice but to cook okonomiyaki.


    But Hiro didn’t care about the reason. He was ted and couldn’t wait to gobble up the food.


    Even his stomach rumbled impatiently.


    “Here.” Alice handed a te full of okonomiyaki to the table in front of him.


    Hiro didn’t pay the hot steam clearlying out of the dish any mind and quickly took a knife and a fork to eat with.


    “Huff, huff… This is crazy. Freaking delicious. How did you do it?”


    Hiro didn’t realize that the dish used the exact same recipe he loved, even down to the amount of ingredients and added variations. He was too hungry to realize those details, to realize that Yuujin was the one who taught Alice how to cook his best version of okonomiyaki.