Chapter 184 – Embarrassed

Her eyes opened. She looked at his hand hindering her and then at the owner of that hand. She started to get red in the face and exclaimed.

"W-what are you making me say?!"

In a different dimension, she might have physically hit him out of sheer embarrassment. However, in this world, this would never happen. Hitting men was frowned upon, an act that only violent women would do. So, the Chloe of this world could only look away from him and pout silently, a shameful look on her face. As she did that, she caught sight of Olivia who was now chuckling, unable to hold herself anymore. She became even more vexed and turned away from her too.

"I hate you two!"

Benjamin put his hand on her head and patted it.

"Sorry, sorry, I was just happy to know more about my little sister. There's nothing to be ashamed of."

"As if!"

She said that but didn't remove his hand from her head and he continued to caress it, pacifying the angry little demon. It didn't take long before she lost her frown and slowly fell asleep again, his monotonous movements accelerating the process. It seemed that seeing her sleeping like this had its effect on Benjamin and Olivia because they started to yawn before soon joining her in dreamland, proof that they all had been waking up too early.

The three of them slept for most of the travel and arrived at their destination a lot fresher. Their aunt and cousins lived in a more rural area of the country, a small town surrounded by farms and fields. They were part of the people living in the surroundings since their aunt possessed an insect farm and made a living from this avant-garde business. As far as he knew, she had a very rough start at the beginning of this new venture, for various reasons, but was now doing much better. This was a domain that was always very intriguing to him, at least in the previous world, and he enjoyed going around the place or watching her work.

Of course, he was aware that some things might have changed from before and had discreetly done his investigation before coming here, asking innocent questions to his family members until he had a good overview of their situation. In conclusion, things weren't that different, except for their characters. This was a good thing for him since he would only have to manage that part and not meet complete stranger-like people. In the end, the main issue was about him since from their point of view he was the one who would have changed.

The three kids exited the train with their luggage and were now in the small station of the town. There weren't that many other people getting off here and their aunt and cousins, who had been waiting for them here, instantly spotted them. They looked almost the same as he remembered them but before he could take a better look, a dynamic tanned girl rushed to him.

"Beeeen!"

She opened her arms wide and gave him a big hug, even though she was shorter than him, a wide smile on her face. This was his cousin Kiana, the female counterpart of the twin duo. She was a brown-haired girl with short hair, brown eyes, and a slim physique. She was currently wearing jeans and a T-shirt along with sneakers, a classical outfit for girls in this world, who didn't care much about what they were wearing.

He was surprised by the sudden hug, something that she would never have done in the previous world, but soon returned it by putting his arms around her back. She was extremely startled and broke her embrace immediately, looking at him with a shocked expression.

"What? Why are you hugging me back? You always hated it when I did that!"

This was the sort of reaction he expected and was ready for this.

"Heh. What you have in front of you is not the same good old Ben. Behold Ben 2.0, the new and shiny Ben, an upgraded version of the past me!"

She had now her jaw opened wide and her reaction was mirrored by his aunt and male cousin, who were arriving behind her. The girl in question soon turned toward his sisters to get an explanation.

"Olivia, what happened to him? He's weird!"

"One day, he said he would change and he indeed did change a lot. We were also very surprised."

Kiana looked at the proudly grinning Benjamin and continued.

"No way, where did the shy Ben go? Who am I going to tease now?"

"Well, this new one is good in a different way too. And it's not like he became bad or anything. Just... a lot more assertive, I guess."

They talked about him as if he was not right in front of them but he didn't care much about it. Instead, he went to greet his other two family members. His male cousin was called Ray. Just like his twin sister, he was tanned, with a slender physique. He had relatively long brown hair as well as brown eyes, looking at him with joy. This was where the similarities from what he knew stopped. He now had a soft expression on his face and was smiling at him lightly. He was wearing much better clothes than his sister, blue pants and a white shirt, with city shoes on his feet.

He would normally have gone to high-five him like the close cousins they were but he knew this was not what was expected of him in this world. Instead, he went for a short hug and his cousin returned it before they looked at each other again.

"How have you been, Ray?"

"I've been doing good, as always. Just a bit tired. What about you?"

Now that he looked at him more closely, he indeed had dark spots under the eyes, as if he was missing sleep.

"I'm always good too. So, what's up with you? Why so tired?"

"Yeah... I'll tell you later."

"Fine."

It was now time to greet the last person, his aunt.