Although Ryu really wanted to head straight home after school and see if Shizuka had messaged him, he couldn’t. Even he had obligations. Ruri had the swimming club, Caragh had her job and so did Ryu. Data entry was by no means fun, but helping his mother pay the bills did make him feel good.

Arriving a little early, Ryu took his seat and looked at the work to be done. Stacks upon stacks of folders that needed to be manually entered into a database. It was monotonous, repetitive and ripe for automation.

Once Dot started feeding the keypresses into Ryu’s head, the limiting factor wasn’t how fast he could type, but how fast he could feed Dot the information to be copied. A burst of cheap plastic keys being pressed would be followed by a series of pages being flicked through, only for another burst to begin until Dot’s buffer emptied and Ryu had to flick through more pages.

“Hey Ry-”

Ryu looked to the side, still typing, at his boss. A somewhat chubby man that always wore a suit. His boss seemed to be at a loss, as he listened to what could only be the sound of someone fingerbanging their keyboard.

“Yes?” said Ryu.

His boss shook their head. “I thought something might be wrong. Are you almost done?”

Ryu took a look at the few folders that remained. Three and a half in total, if he counted the one he was currently working through.

“Almost, is there more?” said Ryu.

Finishing his current burst, Ryu flicked through more pages. He only needed to see them once for it to be in his memory, and naturally the same could be said for Dot.

“No, that’s all for today.”

Ryu’s boss walked into the room and looked at the screen, confirming for himself that Ryu wasn’t just bashing random keys.

“Stop typing for a second.”

Ryu finished the current row before ceasing, and his boss looked back and forth between the screen and folder.

“What is this? It’s not from that page.”

Ryu flicked back seven pages and placed his finger below the row in question.

“It’s here.”

Ryu’s boss looked back and forth again, checking to be sure.

“You remembered all this?”

“Yeah.”

“Wow.” Ryu’s boss stepped back. “Well keep it up. You can head home afterwards.”

Before the chubby man could leave Ryu spoke up.

“Um, will I get paid for the rest of my shift?”

His boss looked at him funny. “What? You’re almost done, why would I pay you to sit around?”

Ryu didn’t like his boss.

Feeling a little grumpy, Ryu quickly finished his work and left, having only clocked in barely an hour. What would that get him? Barely enough to cover transport.

On the bright side, he did get to go home early.

***

“Why are you home?” said Ruri, as Ryu stepped through the door.

She was in the lounge again, studying with earbuds on and the TV in the background. Ryu liked that, just having something playing in the background, and he supposed Ruri did too.

“I finished early.”

“Right.” Ruri perked up. “Well can you help me with this problem?”

“Just give me a second.”

Ryu took off his shoes and dropped off his bag in his room before returning to the lounge. Ruri was laying down with her legs on the armrest, but shuffled them back as Ryu took a seat beside her.

“It’s this one.”

Ruri pointed to a question - maths, Ryu’s favourite. Dot would take care of it though.

“It’s seven. Why is it always seven?”

Ruri stared at the question, eyebrows together. “How did you do it? I’ve been working on this for ages…”

“I dunno, anyway I got stuff to do.”

Ryu got up, ready to leave for his room, but Ruri grabbed his hand.

“Aren’t you gonna help me?”

Ryu turned around and looked down at her.

“Do I have to?”

Her hand still gripped his, tightening. “What have you got that’s so important that you won’t help me?”

“I can’t help you anyway.” Ryu pulled her hand off his and left before she could utter another word.

Shizuka could be waiting after all, and he wouldn’t want to let down his cute kouhai that he was already having fantasies about. It was in his nature.

Once he logged in, a wonderful event happened. A notification popped up.

[You have 1 friend request]

He opened it, and his heartbeat sped up.

[From: sshi#6189]

[Hey its shizuka. add me and we can chat.]

Ryu never thought he’d see something so beautiful from something that wasn’t 2D. His eyes looked over the text a few more times, before he accepted it. There it was, his first friend. Not even Ruri, his own sister, had added him.

And she was online. Was he meant to message her as soon as possible? Would she think he was creepy if he started being friendly? Another box stopped him in his tracks.

[sshi#6189 wants to chat]

“I guess she’s taking the lead.”

Ryu accepted the chat request.

[Your voice is now being diverted to sshi#6189]

“Hey!” said a voice in his ear.

“Hi?” Ryu hadn’t used the chat function before. “Can you hear me?”

A moment passed, and Ryu grew worried that he may have missed something, like a push to talk button. But Shizuka settled his concerns in an instant.

“Yup, wanna meet up?”