Tonight, he sat watching her status sign in and out. Connection problems, he figured. She would sign in for a few minutes. In those short minutes, he would hope and pray she would say something; say anything. But then she would sign out. It was almost getting annoying, seeing the same display name and picture pop up and down numerous times in all of twenty minutes.

But it was a thrill every time he saw her name. His heart jumped the second he realized it was her that was signing in again. It might be another chance to talk, he always told himself. Her display picture was almost always different. She had hundreds, he guessed, judging from the fact it was different nearly every day. One day it would be flowers or rainbows, the next it could be black as night. One picture could be song lyrics to a love song; tomorrow he knew they'd be different, possibly depressing and more emotional.

Just for kicks, he'd open his contact list and stare at her small display area, where her name, email, and picture were set apart by a click of the mouse. Everyone had their own section in the list. Hers was at the top. He didn't put it there; her name set it so. There weren't many people on tonight, only 3. But one contact was set as idle, another away, and one he never talked to… Real exiting, eh?

There it was again. Up and down the message went, in all of a few seconds, her display name showed in the bottom right corner of his screen. His fingers stopped typing every time he heard the online alarm go off, just to see who it was. This time it was her. He hesitated momentarily, and then clicked the mouse quickly to open a chat window with her. But he was too late, and yet again she'd signed out.

He reached for his cup, full of a fruity drink, Kool-aid. It was tropical punch flavored tonight. No ice. Too much mix. Not enough water. Just the way he liked it. It was the way he liked any drink, over flavored. Lemonade, especially, was the best drink when over mixed.

He set the cup back down amongst the small clutter on his desk. There was a notebook open to a blank page; a school assignment waiting to be written. There were scissors still left out from a quick trim to a paper (he put those away in the drawer upon glimpsing them). A TV remote, but the television was off tonight. Nothing was on, anyway. A few pencils, water bottles, and school books. It was a normal desk, one fit for a student.

It happened again. He was getting a little irked that she kept doing this. He clicked her name and typed instantly, so as not to let the connection get him this time.

"Hey," he said. The computer told him she was typing.

"Hey sorry im having some major problems with my connection tonight. Sorry for signin in and out so much. I should prolly just stay off."

'Don't stay off,' he wished silently.

"K. I'll ttyl then. Good luck with the connection. See ya some other night."

"Bye," she said quickly and was off again. He looked at the time, 8:38. What was he going to do tonight?

--

Kagome sat at her computer, praying that it worked still. "I can't believe I pulled the cord… I'm sorry computer… Please work… Forgive me…" Just a few hours before, Kagome had been on, trying to write her English essay, when the screen froze and she was forced to restart her computer. In a state of frenzied madness, she pulled the plug on the computer and huffed out in a cloud.

"It just froze up on you. Sometimes you got to wait these things out," her roommate told her. "It's a computer, it only does what it's told to do."

Kagome sighed and pulled her knees up to her chin as she sat down on the couch.

"Yeah. Guess I just got a little too antsy. I'm gonna give it a few hours though. Just in case," she lied, not wanting to deal with that wretched technology.

All the while she wished her computer would run. She wanted to be on the internet so badly, just to wait and see if he would say something. Her contact list showed he was on, but set to away all day.

"Where could he be?" she had wondered. "If he's there, why doesn't he say something? I don't always want to be the one to start the conversation…"

Instead, she sat with her roommate watching the football game. She may have been a girl, but she had her tomboy side.

Still, instead of thinking about the game, her mind was on the computer, wishing it was working. Finally, at about half time, she excused herself from the game and went back to her room. "I'm gonna go see if it's working now, k?"

Her friend simply waved her off as a miraculous last second touchdown was scored. Taking that as an "Ok", she walked to the room and sat at her small desk. The blinking monitor light told her the power was off, but that her monitor still worked properly. She reached down to the floor and pressed the power button. It started up with a whir.

The Windows on this computer was the latest version, but the computer itself was old. It took several minutes just to get to her desktop. When she bought it, this was a top of the line investment. Now she wished she had enough money for another computer… Every program took a few seconds longer than necessary to open. Sometimes the typing in a word processor would stall and fill in quickly only a few seconds later. It was a bother sometimes.

Eventually her computer was loaded up fully and her wireless connection had detected. She was set. The instant messaging program opened and signed her in. All her default settings were fixed and the colors changed to how she'd had them before. Slowly the contact list showed who was on and who wasn't. And he was on, with the status set to 'online'.

"The first time all day," she muttered dryly. But still, she seized the opportunity and said, "hey." For several minutes there was no response. A message popped up in the conversation window telling her that her message could not be delivered to all recipients.

'Fuck,' she thought. Not long after, she was signed out. With a huff, she checked her connection. "Unable to connect to the Internet," it said. Grand.

She sat waiting for the connection to connect and reconnect every few minutes.

"This is getting very old," she said to herself. Every time she opened a conversation window after being signed in, she would get kicked off just as fast. Several times this happened. She wondered if she was bothering him. She figured she would be just as annoyed if the same thing were happening with him.

Eventually, after about the fifth try, a message of his came through.

"Hey," was all he simply said. Without wasting a breath, her fingers flew to the keyboard and typed her message as quickly as she could.

"Hey sorry im having some major problems with my connection tonight. Sorry for signin in and out so much. I should prolly just stay off." She didn't want to stay off, but it was probably best in this case.

"K. I'll ttyl then. Good luck with the connection. See ya some other night." It wasn't much, but at least it showed he understood her situation.

"Bye," she replied. "I'll be on as soon as my connection works," but the message wasn't delivered.

"Well, that was that," she said with a sigh and shut the computer down. It wouldn't do much good with the power on, anyway.

--

Just a quick lil blurb from my mind. If anyone knows me personally (ha not) then they'll know that lots of the actions displayed are my own. I'll do a lot of these things when I'm on line… strange huh?

Beta: Well, I know you, and I know that your actions aren't too different from mine, so there.