Asuna put a hand on her friend's shoulder to stop her from grumbling about her concerns about the metal rose she had been working on for at least a few days, even if it was just for her welding class. Since Rika had been spending more time in her personal section of the engineering workshop that came from her full-ride scholarship.
Which really hadn't surprised her back years ago when Rika had gotten it, since Rika, despite her habit of being a bit of a clutz with relationships and being very highly impulsive, was very smart.
Especially if you add her, Kirito and Caylee together. Then you end up with IRL and VR projects in ALS Alf-Heim Swords like Rika's screeching dragon armor plated wings and the propulsion boots for it that she and Kirito had worked together to build. Together of which, she had spent a week being giddy over last month and welded a miniature model of.
So Asuna didn't know how or why the girl would be freaking out of a rose for her class if she could forge and micro weld the tiny pieces needed that made up the model that sat on her desk at home.
If she could make a tiny model for fun, or heaven forbid, the detailed metal statue of two swords crossed in a stone that were for her and Kirito for Christmas last year, surely the girl could make a rose.
"Rika, you need to relax," she soothed her friend and used her grip on her shoulder to stop her from getting out of the car they were in, namely Rika's car. "I've literally seen you make a model of that flying dragon armor and I walk past it every day since you and I share an office. You're working yourself up more than Argo, and I love my sister, but she works herself up sick trying to capture every story or when she was mastering that grappler you and Caylee made for her in ALS."
"First off," Rika pointed at her with a smirk, "how dare you suggest that seeing Argo grapple and swing across a room like spiderman isn't the best thing since watching Kirito face plant with my flying prototype." At that Asuna rolled her eyes and giggled, "and second, who says I'm not calm? I'm cool as a cucumber," she stated confidently and slid out of her seat and out of the car.
"I do," Asuna replied and scooped up her bag before she got out of the car herself. "Since I just heard you worry and fret about it under your breath for the past six minutes-"
"Nice shorts Rika!"
Rika promptly hit her head on the roof of the car and Asuna rolled her eyes with a snort and walked around the car to the other side. So she could see her holding a hand to the back of her head while still leaning over the back seat. "Keep looking Klein and I'll-" she started shouting before she looked over her shoulder at Asuna and saw her struggling not to laugh at her. "Oh, shut it, you," she playfully threatened with red ears, which made it impossible for Asuna to keep a straight face and not laugh at her best friend.
Who was definitely the type to nail her head on the ceiling of her car because she was startled by a guy jokingly complimenting her, even if it was one of the ones that lived with them.
"Hey! Don't laugh at me!" Rika whined at Asuna's laughter and managed to get out of her car without giving herself another bump and with her bag. Though the smile on her face said that she didn't really mind her laughing, as was her nature. "Asuna!"
"S-Sorry," Asuna managed through her laughter and tapered it down to giggles, "I can't help it!"
"I know, I know, I'm really funny and all," Rika looked like she was about to start laughing herself and Asuna couldn't help it but snort and find it hard to keep the giggles from turning into laughter again. "Okay look, stop laughing, seriously!" Asuna couldn't help but laugh again and Rika herself gave a bit of a laugh, "Come on! I really need your help here, okay? So stop laughing and help me!"
"I'm sorry," Asuna blinked away the tiny amount of water in her eyes from laughing so much and gave her best friend a smile, "what do you need me to do, Rika?"
"Well you could marry me," Rika teased and Asuna rolled her eyes good naturedly, "no but seriously. I need you to look at something for me," she said and rifled through her bag as she used her hip to shut her car door.
"Let me guess, the rose?" Asuna asked but patiently waited for her to take it out.
"Yeah," Rika nodded and Asuna could tell she was being fully serious since she wasn't teasing her or being all that playful. She started walking toward the house they all shared and rented from Agil, "I really do want it to be perfect."
"Just as long as you remember that I have no experience in welding, I'd be glad to look it over for you, Rika," Asuna reassured and heard Rika's car chirp as it autolocked as she walked with her. "Kirito has experience in welding, I do not."
"That's fine, I want your opinion cause Kirito wouldn't recognize beauty if it hit him in the face if it's not named Asuna Yuuki," the brunette casually dissed her childhood friend and Asuna lightly shook her head at the tease. "Ah, found it," Rika pulled a long clear acrylic case from her bag, where there was a silver colored rose sitting nestled inside. It was held up straight by a cradle of thin supports made out of clear acrylic and Asuna's eyes widened at the sight of the handmade flower.
Rika took her reaction as a positive since she was smirking as she swung her bag over her shoulder. Then she unclipped the clasps that kept the base connected to the case and offered the base and the rose to her, "feel free to pick it up, I'll just clean it again later."
"You knew there was going to be nothing I could say bad about it before you showed me!" Asuna accused even as she carefully took the rose out of it's cradle via the silver stem.
"Well… I had a hunch yeah," Rika smirked, "cause I mean, I partially lied. My professor saw it yesterday and gave me a perfect score. I just wanted to see your face when I showed it to you, but I did want your opinion on it!"
The rose was made out of very thin sheets of metal with the tips of the exterior petals curling over itself like Rika had heated it to the point of it being borderline liquid. With each petal being unique and different as proof of each piece being made by hand. They were nestled in close proximity to one another, being closer together at the base than at the top and they were sanded in one side, making the almost soft and airbrushed kind of texture of a real rose. The stem was curved slightly, and Rika had shown off her glass sculpting abilities with the leaves having metallic bases but were otherwise made out of sculpted glass.
Her status as the only child of a well known maker of handmade metal and glass decorations was really showing again.
It wasn't super heavy for something being made out of metal, though she wasn't entirely too surprised since she owned a two foot tall statue of Rika's that she said was hollow and it wasn't too heavy for it's size and density.
"What is there to say besides that it's beautiful?" Asuna laughed and gently turned the flower around in her hands, taking in the beauty of it with a smile, "cause it looks pretty perfect to me."
"Maybe that I'm awesome?" Rika teased then laughed and offered her the base to put the rose back into, "but seriously, if you think it's perfect too then I'm a happy camper and can move on to something else."
"Good, it's no surprise that your professor gave you a perfect score," Asuna laughed and obediently put the rose back into it's cradle, "did you send your parents a picture yet?"
"Yup, though I felt bad, since my dad said that my mom cried when she saw it," Rika admitted sheepishly and carefully slid the case back on and did the clasps, "she's always wanted me to make a rose, since dad has one and I follow in his footsteps to a degree."
"Then are you going to give it to her?" Asuna asked curiously, "she'd probably really appreciate it."
"Maybe," Rika narrowed her eyes at the case, as if scruntizing it a bit more and checking for any imperfections in it that weren't intentional.
"Hey Rika, Asuna- woah! did you make that, Rika?" Kirito's voice spoke over Asuna's shoulder and while she jumped, Rika didn't even twitch.
"Of course I did, you really think I wouldn't have made something this cool?" Rika snorted with an eye roll and a smirk though she didn't look away from the rose and the case, as if she was thinking about something relating to it. "Unlike you blackie," she used Agil's nickname that had been there for a long time. "I'm a goddess at making things outside of VR."
"You say that as though we didn't work together with Caylee to rebuild a functioning mockup of that AI car for our capstone projects in highschool," Kirito snorted and gestured to his car, the recreated exterior that he, Caylee, and Rika had spent a year on in high school completely changing the look of to match the car from an old movie named KITT.
"And I've remade a motorbike to look like a bike from ALS with working LED lights," Rika smirked thereby surprising both Kirito and Asuna. Since they hadn't actually heard of her making that. "Good enough to be named the winner of this contest?"
"Not till I see pictures," Kirito retorted and reached out in a 'gimme, gimme' fashion for the brunette's phone, which she pulled out of her pocket.
"I can do one better," Rika smirked and pulled up her photos, "cause I have video of me following it in my car."
"No freaking way, I have to see this," Kirito grinned and the two nerds gathered around her phone while Asuna chuckled endearingly and leaned over to watch it too.
First there was nothing but the view from Rika's windshield of her going down a deserted road, before after a second there was the sound of a bike whizzing by and sure enough, a recreation of one of the high end bikes in ALS shot into view. It was white with teal light strips going down the sides and back with its rounded back and bulletesc shape toward the front and the rider wore a tinted black helmet with a black jacket so their identity wasn't identifiable beyond being female.
The person riding the bike then gave Rika the perfect view of it from the side, revealing its light rimmed wheels as they pulled it into a drift, causing the light strips to flash red and turn blue through the motion before it straightened up and zipped back down the road past Rika's car.
In the video though Rika cheered, "Hell yeah! I told you the lights would work!"
Rika then swiped across her screen and showed the bike from the side, a picture of it flying past the camera. Though it was clear that Rika was the one driving it this time since her pink hair was poking out under the helmet and she wasn't wearing a jacket.
Plus, Rika was photogenic, not absurdly good at taking pictures. Especially here when it looked like something that had to be taken with a DSLR to get the shutter speed that high, like the one Argo had.
"It's not my bike though," Rika admitted a bit sheepishly, "so I don't have it, especially right now."
"Aw man," Kirito complained, "how'd you do it though?" He asked and Asuna took it as her cue to leave the two alone since she wouldn't understand much of what they were saying if they were using a lot of engineering terms again.
Of which was Rika's field of study, and practically in her blood, while Kirito had taken a few courses on it to better understand stuff for his VR game development major.
Honestly, the two had been making things for as long as Asuna could remember. Namely back in middle school after she had started going to school with them and found out that Rika lived pretty close to her. When she'd see Kirito over at Rika's and the two of them were either getting into trouble, building something they weren't supposed to be, or trolling each other to no end. Controllable bottle rockets, whip cream firing water guns, automatic water balloon tossers, magnetic baseballs, Asuna had seen it all.
And the projects only got more complicated as they got older and continued their game to one up each other to the point of remodeling cars, automatic security systems for their house, home made solar panels and phones, the whole nine yards. Especially with the release of ALS and its endless crafting features.
God, now that was an endless list.
Still, turning away from them gave her the opportunity to see her sister as she arrived. Where she was sitting on the back of the blue motorbike with a custom skateboard slot that just pulled up.
Well, at least she was wearing a helmet. Even if it was probably because she had left campus judging by the text she had gotten earlier asking if there was anything Asuna wanted her to grab for everyone since she was out.
"Where did you go now, Argo?" Asuna sighed and walked toward her sister and away from Rika and Kirito who were looking at Rika's holo tablet, which had the blueprints for the modifications to the bike.
She was surrounded by highly intelligent but also incredibly dumb idiots.
"'ust ta da 'limbing gym," Argo hummed as she removed her helmet and Asuna believed her, both because she could just tell if Argo was trying to lie to her, There was always a part of her that instinctively knew what Argo was feeling, including if she was telling the truth. It was an unexplainable bond that lingered between them even if they were on opposite sides of the campus.
Though she could also tell because the blonde was in a sleeveless hooded athletic shirt and shorts. Meaning she had either gone running, worked out, or like Argo said, went to the climbing gym that had become her favorite place since she had started bouldering last year.
Asuna wasn't going to complain, not when extra exercise for her sister meant less crazy schemes, impulsivity, and chaos. Though, judging by how Caylee removed her helmet and looked entirely too tired to be awake and functioning, Argo's choice to exercise and taking her meds earlier probably had to do with her not feeling well.
"What?" Rika broke her conversation with Kirito to complain, "auh, you should've told me you were going bouldering Argo," she said and casually handed Kirito her tablet to look at the blueprints on his own, "don't touch anything else Kirito," she warned before she walked toward the rest of them. "I would've gone with you, Argo."
Asuna rolled her eyes and elbowed her friend, "you were on a date Rika, visiting a climbing gym is not worth skipping your date even if you couldn't brought her there."
"The skipping thing is true," Rika agreed thoughtfully then shook her head, "but she'd scared of heights, like terrified of them, so it would be cruel to bring her with me." She sighed and tucked her arms under her head, "still, I haven't gone in a while so it kinds sucks."
"Just go again later," Caylee said and pointed behind her at Argo, "I will pay you to take her so the rest of us don't explode tomorrow from her bouncing off the walls while she's cooped up inside while I'm gone."
Right, Caylee had a business thing tomorrow and would be gone, which meant that her sister was going to be irritated being stuck inside since she didn't have anyone to have around with her so she wasn't allowed to leave outside of when they were all in classes."
"Blegh, don't 'emind me," Argo pouted, "bein' stuck inside all 'ay is borin'."
"Well maybe if you wouldn't get into trouble when you're alone we wouldn't be having this conversation," Asuna pointed out in half-amusement, referencing the amount of times Argo ended up in trouble and needed Caylee to skip class to bail her out before she got arrested.
"You're lucky you're cute, I love you, and that I have a RATH ID so they have to let you go when I show up," Caylee deadpanned to Argo which made Rika laugh and Asuna look amused since it was true.
The fact that Caylee worked as a recovery specialist for RATH had it's perks, including the whole, being able to take a n official investigative journalist with her, and the fact that she was classified as a member of the secret service, meaning she could bail Argo out as many times as needed and had till they set up this rule when she started going on overnight work events.
"Ccause otherwise you would be arrested and in jail a long time ago."
"Ey, just ya wait, when Ima graduated, yer gonna 'ave ta take me with ya," Argo smirked at her girlfriend and Asuna rolled her eyes. As if the world needed Argo to have an even more prominent web of connections and influence on the media needed to be any bigger or more important.
Though Caylee was really cute with her response and made Asuna smile, "and I'm impatiently waiting for that day. But until then, you have to stay home with everyone and not kill them before I get back and can rescue you."
Argo's ears turned red and she clammed up, taken off guard by her normally a smartass, girlfriend.
Caylee took advantage of her silence and looked at Rika, "you going to take her later?"
"Can't," Rika admitted sheepishly, "I've got a date with my workshop tonight," she said with a straight face then laughed while Asuna groaned and Argo just laughed too.
"This has been fun," Caylee drawled and started up her bike while Argo slipped off and fetched her skateboard and the things Asuna had asked her to pick up, "but I have to get to class now. Argo, no getting into trouble today."
"Good luck in your coding class Caylee," Asuna smiled warmly at her, "we'll watch Argo for you."
"It'll be as boring as usual," Caylee shrugged and gave Asuna a smirk that didn't make sense till she heard the rest of her sentence. "At least there's no Kirigaya chucking paper balls at the back of my head and blaming Argo in that class."
"What?" Asuna whipped around toward her boyfriend, who nearly dropped Rika's tablet to look wide eyed at Asuna while Argo smirked and abandoned him in favor of dropping her skateboard to the ground and riding it inside as the door automatically opened when she got anywhere near it.
" Kirito-kun!"
"I didn't mean to hit her Asuna," Kirito explained sheepishly and trotted closer to her without her saying anything, "Argo grabbed my wrist and threw off my aim!"
"Then who were you trying to throw it at," Asuna rolled her eyes and shook her head lightly, "you're such a child sometimes Kirito-kun."
"I'll be on my way then," Caylee smirked at her childhood friend and Asuna lightly shook her head with amusement, "shoot me a text if you need anything," and the hacker was off.
"Next time," Rika grinned and swiped her tablet before giving her a good smack on the back as she walked by, heading for the front door. "Hit who you're aiming for, Kirito."
"Rika!" Asuna reprimanded her best friend, "don't encourage him!"
Her best friend really was cut from the same cloth as her sister and her boyfriend.
"Hey, if you're going to pull a prank," Rika said simply with her keys in her hand as she raised it in a gesture of surrender, "then you gotta do it right especially if you work with me on pranks, gotta keep my image up," she teased and unlocked the door. "Plus," she threw Asuna a cheeky smirk, "it's hilarious watching Kirito be scolded by you, Asuna. K, bye love birds!"
Honestly…
Asuna sighed but linked her hand with Kirito's and followed in the welder's footsteps, " don't get caught next time Kirito-kun."
Kirito's eyes gleamed with mischief, "yes, ma'am."
"Hey!" Argo called from inside, "yer the reason Ima here 'nd not snoopin' around so get in 'ere love-birds!"
"No, you're here because you get yourself in trouble, plus it's going to be dinner soon!" Asuna retorted and only got mischievous laughter in response to her words.
Asuna could hear the grin in her sister's voice and she rolled her eyes. Her twin was a handful, and she didn't envy Caylee in keeping her in check and happy
