.hack/FRAGMENT

Saya

version 14.0

I Want to Know You

new topic posted 2.11.06

Alright, here's a side note from Koto for you all. There is absolutely no point to this segment. Yeah, you might say there's no point to most of the stuff I've posted, but there really is. Honestly, I'm not lying. Later!

It was early Saturday morning (well, early for most teenagers) when Erika awoke to the annoying ringing of the phone next to her bed. She turned over onto her side and covered her ears with her pillow, muffling the sound. At least, muffling the ringing, she couldn't keep out her mother's voice as she thundered up the stairs to her adopted daughter's bedroom, flinging the door open and throwing the covers off the teenager. "It's cold!" Erika whined, her one hand groping wildly for her blanket while the other remained over the pillow.

"You have a phone call," the woman said. "It's from someone called 'Koto,' I think it was…"

Koto? How in the world did Koto get her phone number? (I'm just great like that, that's how.) Erika picked up the phone next to her bed and shooed her mother out of the room. "Koto?"

"The one and only," that was definitely Koto's voice. "I thought I'd give you a ring…" (Give her a ring? What the hell was I saying?)

That wasn't the point… "How did you get this number?"

Erika could almost hear her friend's shrug through the phone, "You gave it to me, remember? When you thought you'd never get back to the real world? And I thought my memory was bad."

"Why are you calling?" she sounded exasperated (she should have been delighted to hear from sweet little me).

"Just wanted to see if you wanted to head over to the mall with me…is that too much to ask?" The obvious answer was 'yes.' "Come on, with all the stuff that's been going down in 'The World' I figure you could use a break."

She had a point. The things that had been happening in the game haunted Erika in real life. "Fine, give me three hours…" There was only one mall in the area, so it wasn't that hard to guess the place Koto was talking about.

It was up to Erika to find her friend (we were doomed) since her appearance was different IRL than it was in the world of the game. It didn't take long (since I stand out so much from the crowd…and I was the only one leaning against the side of the door waiting while everyone else was rushing to get inside). "Koto!" the raven-haired girl called to her friend, waving a hand. She had just come from a trip to the hospital (poor excuse for leaving me waiting for three whole hours).

"Hey!" the other girl said, pushing herself off the side of the building and brushing a strand of brown hair out of her chocolate brown eyes at the same time. "Wow, you look…different…"

Being in the horrible mood she was, it probably wasn't the best of things to say. "Yeah, and you look so…the same," she said sarcastically, tossing her long, dark hair out of her pale face.

Koto held her hands up and smiled, "Don't need to be testy. Want to talk about it over a smoothie? I don't know if you've been to the new shop that opened up maybe few weeks ago…friend works there, I can get discounts."

The other girl sighed and hung her head. When she looked back up she had an apologetic smile on her face, "Sorry about that. Sure, I could go for something to eat…drink…whatever…"

The two friends chatted about the goings on in 'The World' as the tall brunette led them to the café and ordered some food for the both of them from her friend. While she sipped at her smoothie, Erika stared into her mug of hot chocolate and blinked away tears caused by its steam. "Hey, you never said what it was that put you in such a bad mood."

Erika mumbled something inaudible and Koto kicked her swiftly under the table. The dark-haired girl glared at her friend and said, "Hospital."

"What about it?"

"Just came from a visit…"

Koto raised her eyebrows (so, I'm incapable of raising only one…) and took another sip from her smoothie as her friend laid down a tray of food on the table and she gave him a quick smile before turning her attention back to Erika. "That sucks…"

That was it. No, 'Oh my, are you okay' kind of thing, no worry in her voice (can you imagine the great and powerful me fawning over someone else?). It was kind of refreshing; whenever Erika told someone about her frequent visits to the hospital they usually started acting different towards her, like she could break at any given moment in time. But this girl, this girl that she only knew through 'The World' acted like it was no big deal. That was jus the kind of thing Erika wanted.

"Yeah, it does. Aren't you going to ask why?"

Koto shrugged, "Nah. Tell me if you want, but otherwise, I don't want to go into something that would ruin a shopping spree."

The other teenager shook her head, her dark hair breaking loose from where she had tucked them behind her ears and slightly covering her pale face. "It's alright, I think it would be kind of nice to tell someone else," not to mention interesting. (She told me a few months later that she likes to experiment with people to see their reactions to certain things, and I happened to be one of her experiments…what nerve!) "I don't remember anything about who I was. So I guess I'm kind of an anomaly, but then there's the fact that I'm always getting sick. The doctors can't figure out what's wrong with me, so they have this whole, 'If we do enough tests we're bound to find something' mentality…"

"I know what you mean, can't stand doctors myself. Though nurses, say anything bad about nurses and I'll have to beat you to a pulp," it was amazing that the girl could say all that with a straight face (how many times do I have to prove my greatness to you?). Apparently, Erika couldn't listen to it that way…she burst out laughing. It was like a bubble had been popped, a relieved kind of laughter. Relieved that Koto didn't think she was a freak, now. "Come on," the brunette said, slamming her palm against the table and lifting up her hand to reveal a pile of crumpled bills, "let's get shopping."

"Hey, that's no fair!" Erika yelled, jumping up from her seat and following her friend out of the café and into the crowded mall. At her friend's confused look she went on, "I told you about me, now tell me about you."

The brunette shrugged as she walked into a clothing store just across from them. She held a shirt up to her chest and her eyes clearly asked for the other girl's opinion, but Erika was staying quiet until she talked. "Nothing interesting really; Mom's a hacker, Dad's a good-for-nothing, my name isn't really Koto…"

"What?"

"Koto's a nickname. The name's really Kotoka...Minazuki Kotoka."

"I meant about your dad…"

"Oh, that he's a good-for-nothing bum?" she said it so casually, it surprised Erika. It was as if she didn't care (to tell the truth, I don't…the man could burn in a tub of acid for all I care). "Divorced when I was younger…blah, blah…can't pay child support…blah, blah…essentially disappeared from my life for six months before trying to pick up ties again…blah, blah. No big deal."

Koto looked at her friend, afraid that something would be different now that she had spoken about what she hardly ever told anyone. But she was greatly mistaken. Instead, the dark-haired girl broke into impossibly loud laughter (people were staring, and come to think of it, she was kind of scaring me, too). "Don't we make a strange pair, then? We're both screwed up," she said with a smile that Koto gratefully returned.

"Screwed up or not, I still want to finish this shopping…"