"Can you just do me one favor?" He scratched his head.

"What's that, Sojiro?"

"Please, just don't…y'know…get with…Futaba."

"Huh?" I looked up at him, startled. "Haha, I didn't even think of that. She's like… a sister to me."

"A sister, huh…" He laughed, then put his hand on my shoulder. "Well, I wouldn't mind if you started calling me 'Dad' or 'Father' someday. As long as you two aren't married."

"Ew, stop. I told you, I'm not into her like that. You two are my family."

"Family…" I swear I saw a tear in his eye for just a moment. He patted my back. "Gotcha. We're a team now."

Hmm… That conversation with Sojiro has got me thinking, though. Will Futaba be able to find a husband on her own?

Bzzt. Bzzt.

I open my text. New message from… Futaba. How coincidental.

Futaba: I'm coming over tomorrow.

Futaba: Promise list stuff.

Futaba: You said you'd help me, right?

Me: Yeah. See you then.

No response back. I put my phone back into my pocket. Thought we finished the promise list. Must be a new one.

I woke up to find Futaba sitting on my couch.

"Good morning, sunshine!" she said with a smile.

"Hey, don't we usually meet downstairs?" I rubbed my eyes.

"Well…" She pursed her lips. "I don't want Sojiro to find out about this."

"What is this, anyway? Something about the promise list we already finished together?"

"No way! I already collected my EXP for that. That was a non-repeatable quest!" She held up two fingers. "This is Promise List 2: The Second Coming!"

"Gotcha. What's on the list this time?"

"I'll just get straight to the point. I heard you and Sojiro talking about me 'getting with' someone last night at church."

"Oh, you did, did you?"

"Yeah, bro." She giggled. "For serious though, you and I really are like siblings, aren't we?"

I nodded.

"So… I guess I was thinking… If I want to be a normal high school girl… I should find… a boyfriend? That's what normal high school girls do, right?"

"So this is an NPC finder quest?"

"You got it all wrong, bro." Again with the bro. "This is a Find the Newest Party Member quest! And you know in most games party members are PCs."

Again, I nodded.

"So. The quest. Ahem. I want you to help me find a boyfriend."

"I knew this was coming."

"There's no way you could've guessed that."

"You're pretty obvious."

She ducked her head and smiled. "Pretty please?"

"Did you really think I'd refuse? I'd do anything for my uh… sis…ter?"

"Yay!" She jumped off the couch and dove onto me. "Thank you thank you thank you!"

Sojiro yelled upstairs. "Hey, stop jumping on the bed. I have customers, y'know?"

Futaba sat up. "Okay, let's work on the list. We have some specific objectives!"

"All right… What should we start with?"

"Hmm, from the social sims I've played, I'd say we first need to find all the potential boyfriends. Then, I need to go on a date with them. And if it works out, then they'll ask me out, right? The girls in these games almost never ask the guy out first."

"That's not necessarily true for real life, though. Keep your options open."

"Gotcha. Real life."

"Hmm… The guys…"

"Include every potential candidate."

"Even our friends?"

"You're the one who told me to keep my options open."

"All righty then. First off… Ryuji."

"Wait, Ryuji? I dunno about that."

"Options. Open."

"Okay, okay. I'll give him a chance. As long as you can guarantee he'll give me a chance."

"I'll do my best." Putting my pen to the paper, I started to write more names.

Futaba read them out loud as I wrote each one. "Mishima… Inari…" I stopped. "Wait. Is that all the guys you know?"

"…Yeah? I mean, unless you want to go out with a kid or an old man who's probably already married."

"No thanks. I'll stick with these three. So, Ryuji, Mishima, or Inari? Okay. My sights are set. I'm locked and loaded."

"So the first promise is for you to hang out one on one with each one?"

"Wait, I don't think I'm ready to hang out with a guy one on one. How about we make the first promise a hang out with us three?"

"So, you want me to be a third wheel."

"We've hung out with Mishima before… C'mon. Just one time for each guy. It'll be fun."

"So after the group hang out, you'll go on a date… a one-on-one date… with each guy?"

"Yes. I think I can do that."

"You think."

"Yes."

"Okay. So what's next?"

She adjusted her glasses. "Hmm… What comes after dating?"

"Well, I've hung out with a lot of girls one-on-one before, but I didn't start dating one until several hang outs later. So I don't think you can just hang out with them once."

"Whaaaat? But that sounds like a lot of effort!"

"At least Mishima will probably play video games with you."

"True. Okay." She started thinking again. "So the second promise is to hang out with each of them multiple times. One on one."

I nodded.

"The third promise… Hmm… Oh, wait. Duh. I have to start dating one of them."

"Mhm."

"Then what? What did you do?" She looked at me. "Wait, you have a girlfriend?"

I laughed. "Yeah, yeah I do."

"You never brought this up in our group chat!"

"No one ever asked. And it's personal."

"Come on, I'm sure Ryuji asked at least once."

"Yeah, in private. That's not the point. What were we talking about? Your next promise?"

"Affirmative, captain!" She took a look at the list again. "Oh, I think I said what the next promise was already. Earlier. After several one-on-ones… He..." I looked at her. "Or me… Will ask the other out. To be boyfriend/girlfriend." I wrote that on the list.

"Anything else?"

"I don't think so, for now. But we can add revisions later for whatever details we might have. I think this is it. Promise List 2!"

"The Second Coming!"

We high five.