Affection displays between friends.

Kai arrived home shortly after six, and rapidly cleaned his room and readied it for Luke to visit. This was far from the first time his friend had come over, but it was the first time he had a real chance to turn him into something more than a friend.

He was so thankful that his parents had plans to meet with some of their friends every Thursday.

Once he finished cleaning, he took out his phone and prepared a new quest for Luke.

Quest: Show of gratitude.

Description: Think of a way to show your teacher gratitude for helping you study.

Reward: To design a reward you need the reward designer perk.

Designing recommended reward…

Choose one of the following:

Increase of affinity based on the method chosen to display gratitude.

Increase of the comprehension of the studied subject based on the method chosen to display gratitude.

Perk based on the method chosen to display gratitude.

Kai stared at his options for a moment, slightly conflicted. “The second option is off the table… but what about the other two… I don't want him getting weird perks, but I still don't know exactly what affinity does.

Suddenly struck by inspiration, Kai selected the word “affinity” with his thumb, and a search symbol appeared next to it.

[Affinity]: Stat that represents how agreeable two people are between themselves, think of it as impersonal affection. [Note: The effects of ALL stats on QuestMasters are capped to 10% of their base value]

Kai blinked a couple of times, that was… almost perfect! He would’ve preferred if Luke loved him already, but this was a good enough second, especially considering that it would most likely push back Luke’s boundaries, and help him get closer to him in the future, so he selected that reward without much thought.

Just half an hour later, Luke knocked on the front door with a bag of chips in his hand. “Hi! Larry’s was out of the good stuff, so we’ll have to do with the basic ones, I hope you don’t mind.”

Kai smiled and invited him in, following behind him towards his bedroom. “Not much, but if you were that out of cash, you could’ve said so before making excuses.” He teased, closing the bedroom door and tacking out his old thermodynamics notes. “Any doubt in particular?”

Luke threw a blank stare at him, before sighing. “Enthropy, enthalpy, energy balancing, heat cycles…” Kai cracked a smile and chuckled a little.

“Anything you don't have doubts with?”

After both of them laughed for a bit, Kai started explaining everything from the start, especially focusing on how to solve the types of problems that the professor would place on the exam.

Those were a couple of long, exhausting hours, but eventually they called it quits, satisfied with their progress so far.

“I have to go to the bathroom, can we watch some anime or play a game before I leave? I’ve had enough class for today, maybe the whole week.”

Kai smiled and started to keep his notes. “Sure! But we still have class tomorrow, and I will not be left alone in Mrs. “Absolute boredom”’s class.”

Luke smiled and left the room, letting out an exhausted, exaggerated scream in the hallway. “My friend… he has dragged me to penitence!”

Kai chuckled and finished cleaning everything up, before turning on his computer and selecting the anime Luke and him were watching together when they had time, before sitting down on his bed, using one of his pillows to rest his back.

“Sorry you missed half the intro, I wasn’t planning on getting up aga-!” Kai started to explain when Luke came back, but stopped when his friend hugged him out of nowhere, resting his head over his shoulder.

“Thanks for helping me study… it means a lot…”

Kai blinked several times, having forgotten the quest, this caught him by surprise, and he could even swear he could hear his neurons short circuiting as his heartbeat quickened.

“No-no-no problem… why the hug though…” He tried to speak, too nervous to enjoy it nearly as much as he would like.

“It just felt right…” Luke whispered before getting off of him slowly, sitting down next to Kai with a slight blush on his face, trying to pretend to be focused on the monitor.

“O-ok… it was… nice…” Kai said, not even daring to turn towards him, and hiding his growing erection with his hand. “If this is the payment… I can teach you every day…”

He finally whispered, his voice too low for Luke to hear him.

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Once Luke had left his house, Kai opened the QuestMaster app and rapidly checked the notifications.

Luke Strays completed his quest successfully. [+5 xp]

Luke Strays has received the reward: Affinity with Kai [+ 10]

Level up! [+1 perk point]

Luke strays has leveled up

Achievement unlocked: They grow up so fast

A target has leveled up for the first time! [+5 XP]

Kai jumped on his bed and laid down staring at the ceiling, not even bothering spending his newly acquired perk point. “Stupid Luke… how do you think of something like that!?”