No.

Akane shook her head.

It was tempting. More tempting than usual.

While wild flings with pretty girls, and even feeling some connection to them, was all too common, what really drew Akane in here was all the things she didn’t know.

All the glimpses into another life, wholly apart from her own.

Too far apart, for them to actually form a bond.

The class thing was only the start, though a fine place to start. Anyone who could afford to stay one night in the Hotel Sundancer couldn’t understand Akane’s world, and her struggles month-to-month. Her aspiration to make it to the national promotions and wrestle in front of all Autumn.

And rake in the thick-ass purse for winning.

Of course, that cut both ways. Akane wouldn’t understand what it was like to have that much, maybe to be born into it like modern royalty, and the special burdens and troubles that came with it all.

They could sympathize and try to work past it, but it would always divide them.

Then there were the things that wouldn’t ever change.

It was like the girls always said back in high school; Akane would be gone in ‘the blink of an eye’, as far as they were concerned. Sure, some elves could get invested in human lives, just like humans could get invested in a cat.

But they shared the same understanding that one day, no matter how deeply enmeshed your lives became, it would be time to move on.

Flings are fun, but anything more would just be pain all around.

Akane felt the pull of wanting to help, or at least keep things going between them longer, but she was a bull in a china shop. The best thing she could do to ‘help’ Maria was to leave this single moment burned into their memories.

A single, perfect moment, never to be matched or topped.

It would stay like that for both of them, and that was for the best.

For Akane, today was all that mattered.

There was still plenty of daylight, and plenty of elves on the beach.