September 24th, 2018 – CC Corp, under investigation by the public health and safety commission for allegations of involvement in the recent 'Doll Syndrome' epidemic, announces that their flagship title, "The World R2" will be shutting down it's servers within the month, permanently discontinuing the game. CEO Eiji Nagashima was unavailable for comment, but spokesmen for CC Corp have neither confirmed nor denied any connection between "The World" and the recent rash of Doll Syndrome cases.

September 27th, 2018 – After an extensive and thorough inquiry, agents of the public health and safety commission release their findings to the public, shocking millions. In summary, the commission's agents discovered that certain elements of The World had been adapted from an earlier game, known as 'Fragment', written by renowned German neurobiologist and computer scientist Harald Hoerwick. This was already public knowledge but was not widely known. What was truly the discovery was that unfinished and faulty parts of Fragment's code was built in to the framework of The World, creating anomalous conditions that led to the events of not only the permanent crash of The World R1, but also the previously unexplained events experienced by players of The World R2 during 2017. The faulty code has already been removed by a team of admins working for CC Corp during 2017…the infamous Cubia Event, but many of CC Corp's customers expressed concern and anger over the newly revealed link between CC Corp and cases of Doll Syndrome, which almost universally died out after the 'AIDA Event' detailed in records seized by commission agents. Numerous arrests took place amongst CC Corp employees and shareholders according to implications of criminal negligence and conspiracy pertaining to Doll Syndrome victims. The World R2 is immediately shut down by the public health and safety commission as a potential danger to the Japanese public, as well as the internet at large due to the viral nature of the anomalous digital entities spawned from The World's evolved and adapted programming. Charges of libel against Brazilian Ambassador Carlos "Salvador" Aihara are dropped.

October 1st, 2018 – CC Corp declares bankruptcy, with stock plummeting to record lows.

October 13th, 2018 - CEO Eiji Nagashima and several high-ranking CC Corp employees are convicted with staggering evidence of criminal negligence, conspiracy, unethical business practices, embezzling of company funds, and violation of the end user license agreement. Nagashima faces life in prison, and his cohorts receive 30 years with no chance for parole.

October 20th, 2018 – Under pressure from the public and legal representatives of victims of Doll Syndrome, government officials release an official statement regarding the circumstances of the 'AIDA Event', and the 'CUBIA Event'. To the shock and awe of millions of viewers across the nation, public health and safety commission chairman Taro Mitsuhide details the events of 2017 at a press conference in Tokyo. Ratings indicate that about 2 of 3 persons in Japan tune in to view the televised broadcast.

The official explanation is that sometime during 2017, the unique conditions made possible by the evolving nature of Harald Hoerwick's original, half-finished code, as well as the adaptive nature of The World's skeletal framework built around the 'Fragment' code, resulted in a series of events that led to the creation of a self-aware Artificial Intelligence dubbed CUBIA by CC Corp employees. CC Corp irresponsibly failed to report this occurrence, and instead engaged in unethical scientific experiments regarding the CUBIA AI without the consent of players within The World. This was in blatant violation of established internet and commercial law, as well as the EULA agreed to by CC Corp customers. Government officials, even from other countries, were understandably concerned at the possible existence of a rogue AI loose on the internet. Fears were assuaged and many sighed in relief when Mitsuhide reported that the CUBIA AI had been deleted from within The World already, during the infamous CUBIA event using specialized scripts pre-built into the code itself by Harald Hoerwick as a failsafe.

Upon further questioning, it was revealed that the one ultimately responsible for the deletion of the CUBIA AI was in fact the main participant in the CUBIA Event, Player 'Haseo', well known The World player who had been propelled into online stardom earlier in 2017 for his rapid domination of The World's in-game arena, conquest of a supposedly unwinnable dungeon, and defeat of the supposedly 'undefeatable boss', which was later revealed to have been the CUBIA AI's programming in condensed form.

Haseo had been previously appeared on the E-News scene as a sort of online celebrity famous for in-game accomplishments. New reports confiscated from CC Corp reveal that Haseo was the one ultimately responsible for defeating not only CUBIA in it's in-game incarnation, but also for patching the AIDA bug from earlier in the year on his own initiative by directly accessing the programming with the assistance of admin employees of CC Corp.

This stunning display of online heroism has shaken the nation. That the victims of Doll Syndrome were effectively resurrected from seemingly permanent comas only through the heroic efforts of another of The World's players as well as a few admins has further enflamed people against the irresponsible actions of CC Corp. During the press conference, many members of the audience (including prominent government and corporate officials) expressed an interest in the true identity of Haseo. Many families and victims of Doll Syndrome have made announcements of support and gratitude for the actions of Haseo, despite them being technically against CC Corp's EULA in regards to modifying the game's files. Mitsuhide himself went so far as to state that were it not for the actions of the mysterious Haseo, it was a very real possibility that CUBIA could have escaped from The World using data collected from players, causing not only billions of dollars in damages, but possibly starting an alarming epidemic of Doll Syndrome and effectively usurping control of the internet.

Upon learning of the sheer gravity of the situation and the extremely narrow margin in which disaster was avoided, governments around the world have taken steps to tighten security and fund additional research into cyber-defense, an already booming industry. Internet service providers and online services, as well as digital entertainment in general is also under careful scrutiny in the wake of the CC Corp scandal.

Additionally, the character and exploits of Haseo have been propelled into online stardom and internet popularity. An influx of news reports and firsthand accounts have been brought to the forefront as Haseo is hailed as the Heroic Savior of the Information Age. Haseo's name has recently become the number one searched term in virtually every major search engine for the past few days, and growing continually. Fan websites and even discussions on Haseo by established mass media titans such as Asahi and JNB have been popping up with exponential regularity. The question on everyone's mind seems to be 'Who is Haseo'? Searching on the web will bring up numerous theories, but journalists generally agree on the summary presented by the original article in Akiba Online News regarding his recent conquest of The World's in-game arena at the top of the ladders.

Taken from numerous sources, Haseo was by all accounts an ordinary player during his first appearances. However, approximately three months into the game, Haseo joined a growing number of players frustrated with the rampant 'Player-Killer' phenomena in The World. Player-Killers are players who attack and kill the avatars of other players within dungeons and fields of The World, outside the arena. This feature had always been a part of The World, and distinguished it from other MMORPGs in the fantasy genre. It was later expanded to include towns as 'danger zones' as well, briefly.

Haseo, for unknown reasons, became one of the pioneering "Player-Killer-Killers". That is, players who exclusively hunt and defeat players who prey on other players. This was the period when Haseo first gained renown as an infamous and feared 'PKK'. He gained the menacing moniker "Terror of Death" from a widely spoken-of battle between Haseo and a party of no less than one hundred PKs. This was regarded as an online urban legend by many players, but records taken from CC Corp's database indicate that this event did indeed occur, on July 6th of 2017, at 7:24 PM Tokyo time. Video recordings of the battle were released earlier this week by the a former CC Corp employee in an exclusive with AON. Since then, the '100-PK Showdown', among other recordings of Haseo's exploits can be viewed on numerous News and Fan-websites.

After that event, Haseo continued hunting PKs for about 2 months, and then suddenly disappeared. It has been discovered that Haseo leveled down to level 1 due to a serious glitch in the system caused by a conflict between Fragment's original framework and the code of The World, which had been built around it.

However, in about 1 month, Haseo appeared again in the online community as a participant in the in-game arena circuit. The arena was divided into three sub-divisions; The Demon Palace, the Holy Palace, and the Sage Palace. Shockingly, Haseo achieved unsurpassed success in the arena equal to his reputation as a PKK. Haseo conquered all three arenas over a relatively short period of time, being about a month and half of preparation between each run and conquering all three on his very first try. 'Team Haseo' consisted of Haseo and his various friends and guild members. The most common lineup, however, consisted of Haseo, Atoli, and Silabus, all belonging to Haseo's guild, 'Canard'.

During the course of these arena takeovers was the notorious 'AIDA Event', in which players were unable to log out and were actually unconscious during the time of play. New information has revealed that Haseo actually battled the AIDA virus in-game during arena bouts, as the AIDA virus had corrupted the avatars of several previous arena champions and other high-level players. The battles culminated in the eventual defeat of the central AIDA data entity, which had infected the avatar of Player Ovan, a previous acquaintance of Haseo's. This singular victory is regarded as the first of Haseo's heroic actions, as virtually all of the hundreds of cases of Doll Syndrome were effectively reversed in the 24 hours immediately after Haseo's victory over AIDA using specially programmed software added to his account by an admin working for CC Corp. Haseo effectively saved the lives of these unfortunate victims of corporate negligence, and has rightfully been hailed as a hero by the families of victims and the awakened comatose players themselves. Interestingly, Haseo did not seek compensation or even recognition for his actions, which were only ever explained much later by Taro Mitsuhide of the public health and safety commission during his investigation of CC Corp.

Next of Haseo's achievements during the 'CUBIA Event' was the defeat of the CUBIA AI Entity, a dangerous and self-aware AI that evolved within the world and attempted to escape into the greater internet by taking data from the players connected to The World. At first, players bought into CC Corp's explanation that CUBIA was merely a special event promoting the game for veteran players. However, the true nature of CUBIA soon became clear when players 'killed' in-game by the CUBIA entity rapidly developed Doll Syndrome in real life. Fearing a resurgent epidemic, state officials took preventive and quarantine measures around the victims, who were all discovered still wearing their VR headsets. This was the first clue that CC Corp had a connection with Doll Syndrome.

Most fortunately, the world was spared what experts believe may have been the worst internet-related disaster since the Pluto's Kiss incident in 2002 when Haseo personally defeated the CUBIA entity with a repurposed version of the CC Corp developed software he used to defeat AIDA. The rogue AI was summarily defeated, freeing the data taken by the entity and inexplicably freeing the consciousness of the players captured by it. This was the second time that Haseo saved a large number of people who were reduced to a comatose state thanks to CC Corp's criminal activities. It was the final nail in Eiji Nagashima's coffin and CC Corp's reputation. The World has since closed it's servers permanently, and had it's data confiscated by the government. A class-action lawsuit by the families of those affected by the Doll Syndrome phenomenon has effectively bankrupted CC Corp's remaining resources. In order to pay for the severance agreements and outstanding costs, CC Corp accepted a generous acquisition by American entertainment giant Blizzard Entertainment.

What this means for the trillion-dollar online gaming industry is currently unknown, as the two titans of the Japanese MMORPG industry are now defunct with the closure of CC Corp. There is now a vacuum in the market, and it appears that Blizzard hopes to take advantage of it with this daring and controversial move.

As for Haseo, no official statement has been made by either the public health and safety commission or by the Kayabuki administration. However, it is apparent that no charges will be filed against Haseo.

Now…the moment everyone has been waiting for. Last night, unofficial contacts claiming to be a former CC Corp employee presented NHN producers with data containing the secret identity of the famous gamer and hero Haseo. Concluding the one-hour special, we will reveal information of the internet's national hero :

Ryou Misaki,

Age 18,

Tokyo, Japan

Yes, folks, the real name of internet hero Haseo is none other than Ryou Misaki, an eighteen-year-old student in Tokyo.

According to extensive research by our reporters, Misaki is the son of prominent businessman and entrepreneur Yuya Misaki, currently operating out of Hong Kong. Ryou Misaki is studying at the prestigious Ouran Private Academy in Tokyo, and lives in an apartment on his own. Due to his age at the time of the events of 2017,his photograph cannot be aired. However, I think it's safe to say that Misaki will see a big increase in popularity now that's everyone knows he's the hero who saved the world from no less than two Rogue AIs.

Misaki represents everything Japan looks for in a hero. He was just an ordinary high school student killing time by playing in one of Japan's most popular online games. But when the world was in danger from a virus only Haseo could stop, he answered the call with stunning success. In conclusion, everyone here would like to personally thank Misaki for his heroic efforts to save the internet and preserve our way of life."

"…and…that's it! We're off!" Said the producer, Hiro Arasaki. He was a middle-aged Japanese man with a short but stocky figure, and wore a pair of tinted glasses and a baseball cap, as well as an black-and-white NHN personnel jacket over casual clothing. "Great job, Mikuro, you really sold it! Damn, look at those ratings! We've got almost 67% viewership, and that's just on TV. Look at the web! Almost everyone in Japan's tuned in to NHN!" The producer celebrated animatedly, and noise filled the studio. People shook hands and pat each other on the back, congratulating themselves on the record viewership for their station.

"Thanks, Arasaki." Answered Yosuke Mikuro with a huge grin. He was a typical news anchor, with a clean shaven face and short cropped hair, wearing a plain blue-grey suit and red tie. "Everyone did a great job. Ha ha!" He laughed, elated by the good fortune of their studio.

"Yeah! I can't believe how lucky we were to get that tape this morning! Damn, that Misaki fella's gonna put NHN on the map!" Shouted the manager in jubilant celebration as he took a shot of the champagne someone cracked open. Mikuro was toasting with a couple of his colleagues over to the side.

The whole studio celebrated their achievement and luck at their exclusive story. Little did they know, though, that their exposition was not entirely appreciated universally. They didn't realize the far-reaching consequences that their journalism would reap.

Ring-ring. Ring-ring.

There it was.

The inevitable call.

Ryou Misaki sat alone in his lonely little three-room apartment in Tokyo with his head hung low. Shit, he thought. I can't believe they said my name on TV…

Ring-ring. Ring-ring.

Someone was already calling him. He sighed in exasperation and panic as it really sunk in that the whole world now knew that he was Haseo.

CC Corp, for all of their faults, had adamantly refused to give out his personal information. Unfortunately, it looks like that in the media circus surrounding the CUBIA scandal that nothing was sacred.

"…Hello?" He tentatively answered. God, he hoped it wasn't his father.

"Ryou?" Came the voice, thankfully female and recognized.

"Oh, thank god. I thought it'd be my dad that called first…or worse." He was honestly relieved. He wasn't too keen on explaining how he saved the world from cyber-cthulu and didn't tell his parents…

"I…I just saw the broadcast on TV…I'm sorry, Ryou. I know it must be bad for you." She said, nervously. Maybe she thought he'd be angry or something.

"Ugh…it's ok, I guess. I'm fine. You don't have to worry so much about me. But…I guess this IS big…Man, I hope I don't get in trouble at school…" Chigusa had a tendency to worry too much, but she might be right, in this case. Ryou might be talking a big game, but really he was teetering on the edge of panic. The whole world knew who he was…and everyone was talking about him. "…Ok…maybe I'm not fine…" He continued in a lower tone.

"Um…do you want me to come over?" She offered. She had moved from Chiba to Tokyo over the summer to be closer to him, but they weren't quite living together yet. She had her own apartment on the other side of town. Ryou was honestly tempted to take her up on that, as he was honestly feeling as jittery as a rattlesnake cooped up in shoebox.

Still, he knew better. "No." He said quickly. "I don't want you getting mixed up in this if I can help it…You should avoid my place until this blows over…" But damn, that was the wrong thing to say. He'd better fix this fast… "Don't worry, though, we can meet up later somewhere else. I'll think of something…"

"Oh..O-ok…" She acknowledged, somewhat sadly. Chigusa still had low self-esteem issues, and Ryou had to be careful of his big mouth around her. He didn't want to hurt her by saying something stupid at the wrong time, so he had been working on his attitude over the last few months. He was understandably upset over the course of events, but he had to keep his cool. When he was on the phone with Chigusa was not the time to lose his temper.

"Y-yeah…Look, we probably shouldn't talk right now. I'm really sorry, but hackers these days can even listen in on phones…I wouldn't be surprised if someone at school tries to jack in to my calls. I'll buy a new phone tomorrow and call you as soon as I can, so please, wait until then. I promise." He pleaded with her and hoped she'd understand. He definitely didn't want to drag her in to the spotlight with him if he could help it, and he was right about his phone being insecure. It was just a basic Sony, and it didn't have any special security software loaded on it. He heard her sigh and audibly pull herself together from the other end of the line. Really, he should be the one doing that in this situation…

"Ok. I understand. I'll wait 'till tomorrow, but you'd better call me by then."

Thank god. He really didn't need to deal with upsetting his girlfriend with everything else that was going. He was glad she understood. Honestly, he'd rather talk with her, too, but it simply wasn't safe. He silently thanked the Buddha that Chigusa was so patient with him. He knew he wasn't always easy to deal with…but at least this time, his heart was in the right place.

"Thank You…I'll definitely talk to you tomorrow. I'll walk over there if I have to." He said with a conviction that seemed to creep into his voice whenever he made a real promise to any of his friends. He supposed that's what inspired the faith he never really earned, even in friends he treated like crap when he still had all of those angst issues last year…

"I'll hold you to it, Ryou." And with that, an audible click sounded over the line as she hung up.

Hnh. Crap. If he wanted to keep a low profile tomorrow, there was no way he could register for a new phone and fill out all the information for it. And it's not like he could just use a pay phone, either. He wasn't comfortable with that. He sighed. It looked like he really would have to hoof it to Chigusa's place, tomorrow, all the way across town.

In the meantime…he should probably check the damage. He put the TV on mute and got up off of his mattress. He flopped into the swivel chair at his desk at the other end of the room, and booted up his PC.

It was, unfortunately, worse than he feared. His mailbox was already full, and he had just emptied it the other day…Now, though…he literally had two terabytes worth of fanmail… Some of itt was from his classmates, mostly asking if NHN was telling the truth and if he really was Haseo. Unfortunately, almost anyone could find his email address with a cursory search on just about any engine. It was a simple fact of the restructured internet after the Pluto Kiss Crash of '02 that everyone had to deal with.

He gave up on trying to look through his email as he saw the inbox full of hundreds of thousands of messages. Closing that tab of his browser, he opened up the Searchlight website to surf the net a little and see how many hits he had.

It was not pretty.

Searching his name got him a stunning 8.3 million hits…in just under ten minutes, he noted. This was scary. All of his friends at school had told him that they were looking forward to the supposed 'expose' on Haseo tonight for days since it was announced. At first, he had thought nothing of it, but he decided it'd be better safe than sorry and set aside some time to watch the special anyways.

Sadly, his suspicions on the dubious nature of NHN's sources had been unfounded. They had totally hit the mark. Ryou Misaki, after all, was in fact Haseo. He had, in fact, fought AIDA and CUBIA at the behest of CC Corp admins, namely Yata…

Most of the hits were either message boards talking about him and asking who the hell Ryou Misaki was, or news broadcasts repeating the story over pretty much every station and the entirety of the internet. He even got hits in English, French, Chinese, Russian, German, Spanish, everything. Everyone was talking about him, and he was hating every moment of it.

Crap… he thought. School is going to be really awkward, tomorrow.

He had thought he was done with all of this when CC Corp got busted for creating CUBIA and AIDA, but that was obviously not the case, now.

Sure, it'd be nice to have all of his hard work to save the net recognized for once, but those were just short term consequences. He had seen enough TV to know that celebrities had nearly every aspect of their lives scrutinized and analyzed by everyone. Those were just actors and musicians, though. He was another matter entirely.

He had no idea how right he was.

"Haseo! Haseo!"

"Mr. Misaki! Can we get a statement!"

"You're our hero, Haseo!"

"We love you, Ryou!"

Well.

Walking to Chigusa's place…might be problematic after all. He had dressed himself up in a dark green hoodie with the hood up, over a black Carp's baseball cap and sunglasses. It was a good disguise.

Problem was, he had yet to get out of the front door. The calls had started early in the wee hours of the morning. Someone figured out where he lived, and more people showed up when they started yelling about Haseo. It snowballed from there, and someone else apparently had the bright idea to put his address on the net. After that, the streets had crowded with hundreds of fans, news crews, and passerby. It was like a nightmare. His freaking apartment was under siege. Thankfully, his rather understanding landlady had kept the doors locked, and only quietly offered her gratitude for his heroism. As it turned out, the granddaughter of her best friend since high school had been one of the Lost Ones he had saved from AIDA.

He needed to come up with a plan. Honestly, it was looking like he wouldn't even make it to school, today. The principle probably wouldn't be quite so understanding about his school coming under siege as his landlady was.

What he hadn't counted on, though, was the back door. Maybe that could work? It went into an alley blocked by the two adjacent buildings that actually went out into the street behind his apartment, rather than the one in front of it that was currently crowded by a jubilant, hero-worshipping mob.

"Thanks…you're a life saver, Mrs. Aokawa…" She shooed him off as he stepped outside, and before she closed the door behind him, replied.

"Oh, I don't think I'm the life saver here, young man. Good luck, now."

And with that, she shut the door quietly and locked it behind him.

Heh. Him. Ryou the Hero. His Mom and Dad would probably have some choice words about hiding his online double life from them sometime in the future. His dad probably couldn't make it back from Hong Kong if he wanted to, but mom was a different matter. If nothing else, he'd better prepare himself for a rather intense phone conversation soon.

Sneaking over to Chigusa's place had been quite a chore. He'd had to walk for something like fifteen miles, and cross a few busy streets and bridges as well. His disguise earned him a few odd looks, but he didn't get into trouble or anything. Most importantly, no one recognized him as Haseo or Ryou Misaki, the man everyone was talking about. More news shows were on all of the jumbo-trons in Akiba or the plaza, and he managed to get over to Chigusa's apartment without any major incidents.

He unlocked the front door to the stairwell with the key Chigusa gave him, and knocked on her front door a couple of times.

"H..Hello..?" A voice stammered from the other side. Ah. His disguise.

"Chigusa, it's me…Ryou." He said, trying to keep his voice down. No telling who could be listening in.

"Um…really?" Ryou fought the urge to facepalm.

"…Yes. Ryou Misaki, we've been dating for four months?"

"Oh!…S-sorry! I didn't recognize you with that…"

He was starting to feel self-conscious now. "It's okay, but can I please come in? I don't like being out in the open like this…" He may be being paranoid, but not by much. Everyone in Tokyo probably knew who he was by now and- crap! Chigusa's neighbors! Damn! They probably knew all about him…he'd been around long enough that they might recognize him when his picture started showing up on the net…

It'd probably be better to lay low here for awhile, honestly. Chigusa opened the door hastily and ushered him inside. He made sure the windows were blinded and the coast was clear before shedding his urban disguise.

"Yeah. That was kinda the point." He snarked, but made certain to add a charming smile to disarm it and relieve the tension. "I just hope no one finds out I'm here…"

"U-um…Ryou…you're not…embarrassed about me…are you?" Shit. He did not like where this was going.

"No! No no no no!" He waved his arms in front of himself to placate her. He hated it when she got like this. Chigusa was really insecure because she had been bullied a lot during middle school, and it had taken a while for her to get comfortable with him even after they started dating. Often, it was like walking on eggshells if she was feeling down already. Still, he cared enough about her that he would watch his mouth whenever he could. "It's not like that at all! I care about you, and listen. I would tell the whole world that if you wanted me to, I mean it. But I don't want you getting mixed up with all of this business with the paparazzi and the media. It never ends well, believe me." He let out an exasperated breath and looked down at his feet, trying to avoid Chigusa's nervous gaze. He needed to reassure her. "I'm just trying to keep you from getting stuck with my problems…" he finished.

"Ryou…I'm your girlfriend, right?" She asked quietly. When he tried to meet her eyes, she was looking down and avoiding his gaze.

"Of course! I mean…I want you to be…if you want to…" He said. She nodded and closed her eyes in preparation.

"Then that means your problems are my problems. We're partners, remember?" She smiled sweetly at him. And he found himself remembering, alright. She had always been there, for him. Even in The World, she had always tried to be his friend, even when he acted like a royal pain in the ass and a self-righteous prick.

"Y-yeah…Thanks, Chigusa. I needed that." He rubbed the back of his hair and smiled awkwardly. "I guess I've just had a lot on my mind, with all this." He really needed to get himself together. Chigusa shouldn't have to deal with his problems, no matter what she said. She had issues of her own to deal with, and he wanted her to be happy. She didn't need to be caught up in the media circus out there, and she certainly didn't need to deal with his attitude problems.

Ryou had plopped down on the couch, and Chigusa joined him. They sat their in silence for the better part of an hour, just contemplating the everything that'd happened. Not just recently, with all of the business with CC Corp, but also with everything leading up to that. Tri-Edge, AIDA, CUBIA…all the things they'd done in The World, all the friends they'd made, including each other.

After awhile, though, Ryou felt he should say something, at least.

"So, uh…Chigusa…I was thinking…"

"Hmm?"

Urk. This might be awkward… "I don't really want to risk going out again when everyone's looking for me…and I don't really have anywhere else to go, so…do you think I could spend the night here?" Well, he said it.

The effect was more or less immediate. Chigusa's dark eyes widened, and her face turned the color of cherry blossoms. "Uh…" Was her intelligent response. Of course, the implications were not lost on Ryou, so he was quick to clarify.

"Ah, uh, I didn't mean that way!" He corrected. "I just need a place to sleep tonight, so I could probably just crash on the couch or something…" He exaggeratedly gestured to the couch they were sitting on with both hands. His own face had probably lightened up as well, if the heat he felt all over his face was and the suddenly muggy temperature of this fine autumn morning was any indication.

It wasn't as if he hadn't thought about her in that way before, of course. Despite her assertions to the contrary, Chigusa was quite an attractive young woman. He wasn't shallow enough to date her solely based on her outward appearance, of course, but he would be lying if he said that he didn't notice her stunning good looks. He didn't care what her bullies in middle school thought. To him, she was the most beautiful woman in his life.

However, neither of them really had any previous experience with intimate human contact. Haseo was still missing chunks of memory from when he had been comatose for about two years when he was ten, and only had vague memories of rather immature behaviour and thoughts regarding females. He was certain that he'd never had any close relationships outside of his family, though. He'd thought about Shino in the same way he cared about Chigusa, before. But that was different. There had been something, there, maybe. She had been all he thought about for almost a year, on his quest for revenge.

They'd decided to just be friends, in the end. That was all either of them really wanted, although Shino had certainly been flattered. Almost as much as he had been embarrassed, considering the transparency of his feelings pointed out by all of their other friends. Shino always had been a little oblivious about that sort of thing. They still kept in touch, and Shino joined him and Chigusa sometimes whenever they went out to eat or the movies.

Chigusa, on the other hand, had even less experience than Ryou. She had been in a shell for most of her high school life, and was lonely even before then. She had been mercilessly bullied in middle school…separated from the pack by a clique of the other girls for whatever reason and marked as an easy target when she never fought back. The constant bullying and harassment had seriously stunted her growth, socially. She had been upset enough that she was ready to something…extreme, before she had made friends online. Ryou never asked about the scars on her wrists, but he knew. She had been getting a lot better ever since meeting him, Silabus, Gaspard, Kuhn, and all of the others in The World, and really started coming out of her shell when they started dating.

The point was that neither of them really had any experience with serious relationships or intimacy before they had met each other. Hell, Ryou didn't know about her but he hadn't even kissed a girl before that time in the park two months ago. He had been walking her home on the way back from dinner and they'd taken a shortcut through the park. She'd stopped suddenly, and Ryou, holding her hand, turned around to see what was the matter. He'd looked into her big dark eyes and then it just…happened. They'd kissed, for what was probably a first for both of them. Later that night, she'd told him that it had taken her almost all day to work up the courage for her to do it. Looking back, he'd thought she seemed a little nervous on the way back. That was why he'd taken the shortcut through the park in the first place. He thought she was scared that they might be waylaid by yankis or something since it had been pretty late, so he'd decided to take a shortcut to get her home quicker. He hadn't given any thought to the romantic aspect of a quiet midnight stroll through the park, although it had been a welcome surprise.

"O-oh! Y-yeah! Of course! I-I'll go get some pillows for you!" She stammered out just a decibel or two too loudly and he winced a little. She bolted up from the sofa in an embarrassed rush, and bolted off to the other room right after that. Ryou resisted the urge to make a 'phew' sound. Potentially extremely awkward conversation: averted. He liked Chigusa, and he could see them going to that level. Someday. Honestly, he doubted she was any more prepared than he was to take such a big step in their relationship.

For some reason, Ryou suspected that it would probably be awhile before Chigusa came back bearing pillows. Whenever she felt like she had embarrassed herself, she would try to avoid exacerbating the situation further by running off for awhile. He had worried about her at first, given her past tendencies, but his fears were unfounded. He had discovered awhile back that whenever she made an excuse to leave when she was embarrassed, she whole-heartedly pursued that excuse. Once, after an ill-timed joke at the noodle shop in the mall, she had made the excuse that she needed to re-decorate her apartment and subsequently beat a hasty retreat.

The very next day, her apartment had been completely unrecognizable from it's previous incarnation. It's furniture was completely rearranged, featured a new set of curtains, she somehow totally altered the shape of the marble counter in her kitchenette, and the teal paint had been replaced by shocking pink walls.

There was no doubt in Ryou's mind that Chigusa would spend the next two hours meticulously going over each and every pillow in her possession to test and see which was the fluffiest, most comfortable, and purest white of them all. It was kind of endearing, actually, even though he intellectually knew that it was a coping mechanism to occupy her mind with tedious chores in order to avoid dealing with uncomfortable thoughts. It was still sweet of her to put so much care into something for him. He'd have to make sure to thank her later.

It wasn't his place to judge how she dealt with stress, so he just shrugged and let his mind wander.

After a good twenty minutes, though, he had more or less exhausted his mind's capacity for complex and rational thought and decided that some mind numbing television would be nice. Chigusa was still in the other room, so he flicked the power button on the remote resting on the coffee table and activated the TV set on the other side.

"Kitsune News Network, Live, bringing you an exclusive report on Ryou Misaki-"

click.

"NHN about Ryou Misaki-"

click.

"-character Haseo"

click.

Every single one.

Every single channel prominently featured news, speculation, or debates about him. He even saw a cartoon version of himself fighting a chibified Sirius, for god's sake!

This was gonna be a long week…

If only he knew.