"Greetings Hitomi!" The chipper synthetic voice clucked out as the display of the stylized eye sprang up. "I see a new target has been added to your quest list! Would you like to-" But it didn't get to finish.

"Shhshshhhhh!" Hitomi shushed it, cuping the phone in her hands. "I don't have time to deal with this right now!" She whispered emphatically into the receiver before jamming the device into her bag and looking around conspiratorially. It didn't look like anyone really cared though, but she still didn't feel like sticking around. If she did there's no telling what sort of new random event would start.

So she beat feet out of the library room and looked around the seating area outside, but didn't spot James there. Maybe he'd left? It was a small hope, but a hope nonetheless crushed as she looked around and saw him leaning against the wall, checking his phone.

She could probably just walk away since he wasn't paying attenti- Ah, nope. He looked up at her. Hitomi gripped the strap of her bag and headed over.

"So? It all good now?" James cut right to the point, not even looking up at her.

"Y-yeah…" Hitomi stutered. Something about his casualness was setting her off. "I… I explained it."

"Good." James started typing something on his phone. He spent a while saying nothing, before he looked back up at her with a questioning sneer. "What?"

"W-what?" Hitomi repeated, not really sure if she understood what she heard. "I-is that it? We're done now? It's j-just go tell him I…" Hitomi stopped short of admitting she freaked out. "I wasn't being provoked?"

"Yeah." James chuckled snidely. "What, you wanted a date or something?"

Hitomi violently stammered and shook her head.

He laughed at her. Well, she was pretty sure it was at her. "Yeah well good, you shouldn't push your luck with that. Well, see ya, I got no reason to stick around here anymore." James pushed off the wall and took a few steps, giving Hitomi a sideways wave.

She was fine with letting him go, she really was, but… "W-wait, what about our project?"

He looked back with another sneer. "What? What about it, it's not starting till Thursday." Oh. Oh yeah, that was true. "I'm not in any rush, weirdo. We'll figure out what we're doing then, partner. Now if you'll excuse me this time." He waved her off again, more exaggeratedly this time, and made his way out.

Hitomi sat down, exasperated. Well, at least this whole thing hadn't been too bad. But why had she spoken up and asked about the work they didn't even have to start yet? It wasn't like her. And more so it wasn't like her to give a full explanation like she had to Mr.Baek, especially one she had just made up. Maybe it was a bit of his patient nature but she'd still kept going at her own normal pace.

Maybe it didn't take that long to get used to socializing after all? Come to think of it, she couldn't remember how long it'd taken her and Takemi to get used to one another. It had been pretty fast she thought, but always passed that off on being kids at the time. Maybe she'd been over critical of herself all this time.

A buzzing came from her bag and Hitomi threw it under the chair. It rang for a few seconds then quieted down. She hadn't just shoved it in there because she'd just been told to keep it down and didn't have time for it right then, but because she didn't want to give it any time right now.

She could kind of predict what it was going to do anyways, inform her that it'd accessed Mr.Baek's profiles, give her some vague promise of a weird reward, present her some kind of quest about it, all that. And she didn't really feel compelled to go through all that, especially when she still had questions about what all had happened.

She didn't think anyone had really noticed, she comforted herself with that as she rolled up a lock of hair around her finger. Not like there was anyone that close anyways to notice. Well… James seemed to, but had chalked it up to grooming. That was lucky she guessed. But still it couldn't be related to that Charisma thing, and yet, there was no other real option.

Dealing with something so strange was definitely something Hitomi had to give more thought to. She should-

The buzzing in her bag sprung up again and she lost her trail of thought. Fine! Time to decompress would just be a luxury anyways, she thought as she rummaged through her bag and extracted her phone. She was about to jam her finger on the accept call button when she realized that it wasn't a notification from her AI friend.

Startled and confused, she stared at the incoming call. It read as one of her contacts. Juli. She… she had exchanged information but didn't expect that to be significant.

"H-hello?" She hesitantly answered.

There was silence on the line long enough that she thought this might be a missed call, but just as she was about to check again the aloof voice she'd heard the other day came through. "Hitomi? Shiiiit, I kinda thought you'd given me a fake number."

"W-wha? J-Juli? W-why would I do that?!"

"I dunno, you just kind of seem like that type."

"Wh- I-I do not!"

"Pfft. if you say so." Juli laughed over the line. "Say, as long as we're cool then did you wanna hang out tomorrow?"

Hitomi was struck. What… what did she mean, hang out?! D-did she consider each other friends already?! Hang out where?! For how long?! Why her?! What was this?

"Huh?!"

"Whoa, why the reaction? You in drama or something? I mean I was just thinking about hitting some sales at the mall tomorrow, getting a new wardrobe, and I thought, hey, maybe that Hitomi girl I met would like to come along."

Wardrobe? Clothes shopping?! The mall?!! Oh that sounded like a big jump. Wait, was Juli saying she thought Hitomi had bad taste in clothes? They'd only met the one time!

She needed a good response, the kind of thing that was reasonable and could get her out of actually saying she was scared of that kind of public event.

"I-I'll t-th-think about it!"