"Do you remember when you stubbornly decided that you wanted to date someone who was also a twin?" Eugeo asked his brother, where the only lights around them were the faint glow of the old glow in the dark stars they had had on the roof since they were little.
Kirito tucked his arms under his head and sighed, looking up at the ceiling with the knowledge that his twin brother was lying on the lower part of the bunk. The room was a mess like usual, a split between Kirito's messy computer parts and Eugeo's art supplies. Even if Eugeo's digital tablet wasn't on it's cradle on his desk, so he must've had it.
Probably using it to calm himself down with the nervous anxious excitement of going to a new boarding school in the afternoon tomorrow, together this time.
"Yeah," Kirito finally answered, his obsidian gaze lingering around at the beautiful glow in the dark stars that he could pretend was a full galaxy. He could've just gotten down and turned on his astral projector, but it wasn't worth the energy. Not when the stars brought back many memories over the years. "I remember it, not that I've had any luck with it. The closest I've gotten is in meeting my partner in GGO and even then, she just knows a set of twins."
"She ever talk about them?" Eugeo asked curiously and Kirito couldn't help but laugh.
"No, Sinon's very tight lipped about everything. She's… aloof I guess is the best way to put it," he laughed and gave a mild shake of the head at the idea of the near silent sniper ever revealing actual information about her life IRL. "Having a real conversation with her on the battlefield that doesn't have her responding in as few words as possible is difficult. If anything, the gunsmith that upgrades our guns and gear is more friendly and talkative than Sinon is."
"Maybe so, but you and Sinon still play together whenever you're online, so she can't be that bad, right?"
Kirito shrugged, "she's pretty cool and has an absurd precision with her sniper, so it's worth it playing with her. She's just not the type of girl I'd be interested in dating, too closed off and like me that way. The gunsmith? Maybe, she's pretty cute and very laid back. Unless of course" he winced a bit, remembering the pink haired girl's wild temper, "you make her mad, then she's scary."
"That sounds like your type, Kirito," Eugeo snorted and Kirito blushed, "but let me guess, she's not a twin, right?"
"As far as I know, yeah."
Eugeo was silent for a moment and Kirito shut his eyes in the silence, his mind drooping a little in activity and the exhaustion from the past two days catching up to him.
The tournament had been fun, he had gotten to know his partner a bit more being in the game for forty-eight hours straight and moving between the battlefield and the SBC Glocken. Using the nutri-bands to allow them to stay within the game, even if Kirito was a bit jealous of the fact that Sinon evidently dived with an optik and full dive system rather than just an augma. Meaning unlike him who has spent the last two days technically unconscious, making him sore and stiff when he finally left once the tournament was over; Sinon had been moving around IRL between bouts of fighting, preventing stiffness and not having to pause her entire life for the tournament.
Damn, he wanted one of those…
The optik was a non-public device released two years ago by the Shinozaki Corperation by their lead innovator. It was made out of micro tech and temporarily implanted in front of the ear through nano tech or permanently implanted like a few people with it.
It allowed users to interact with and work with technology without having to use their hands. From everything from messages, recordings, hacking, programming, projections, everything. It could even merge the VR, AR, and IRL worlds together, allowing someone to do what Sinon did, and switch her senses back and forther between VR and IRL or do it simultaneously in semi- low concentration zones.
Which from what he had experienced at the expo two years ago that introduced the technology, was extremely disorienting at first but man, he had wished so badly that they had been released to the public so he could get his hands on one and use it. Then he'd be full diving to the max amount within it's safety protocols.
Instead, he had the dimmed down version, namely the augma, something that his siblings, Eugueo and Sugu, had pooled their money together with his mom to get for him for his birthday.
He loved the augma, but man… he still wished he had the optik… That kind of one of a kind technology made the computer geek in him practically squeal…
Eugeo's voice stirred him out of his wandering sleepy thoughts.
"Maybe there's a set of twins at the new school?"
Kirito hoped so.
He wanted to be with someone who understood the nature of having a twin. Of how intertwined his life was with his brother's, how they were both independent from one another but at the same time needed one another and could read the other like a picture book.
He wanted someone with experience with that kind of bond.
Kirito: Won't be in VR today, busy with IRL stuff.
Shino Asada rolled her eyes and idly dismissed the message. She would respond later. When she was actually in VR and not sprinting down a hallway with half a mind to grab her girlfriend by the ear for the prank she and Argo had tag teamed into and were simultaneously running like hell from.
She should've known Rika was up to something with Argo when she wasn't in her workshop and Asuna had texted her, asking her where Argo was.
"I hope you realize that I'm going to kill you for this later!" She hissed to the brunette with the sound conversion feature of the optik tucked snuggly infront of her ear. "What were you thinking, making something like that?!"
Rika, who was running beside her, keeping pace with her instead of sprinting ahead closer to where Argo was dodging over students and trying to get her sister off of her tail. "I didn't know it would be that epic!" The tone sounded more giddy than anything else, which only served to make Shino more irritated as she heard footsteps behind her of a teacher chasing after them.
"Duck left!" She hissed and ducked down the left hallway, throwing off the teacher chasing the four of them as they all split up, going three different directions between Argo, Asuna, and Shino.
Despite that, of course the teacher went the direction after her and Rika
"So help me if you get both of us caught for that expanding foam grenade Rika, you will not hear the end of it!" Shino growled and she really didn't have a choice, since there was no way she was going to take the fall for Rika and Argo's stupid prank on the new teacher. The soles of her converse flashed teal before she kicked off, feet landing on the holographic nano tech board that came with her and Rika's invention hovershoes. It certainly gathered attention since it was one of the thousand in production, but this far in their years at the school, it barely got a glance.
She may not be able to run at the same pace as Rika and Argo, but that didn't mean she couldn't keep up, she just had to get clever, unlike the two pranksters.
"I didn't know it was going to make that big of a mess, I must've calculated something wrong!" Rika defended herself and Shino saw a brief glow of pink out of the corner of her eye before the girl was shooting by her. She sped past Shino, weaving between students who were merely amused and doing the new teacher no favors in actually catching the brunette and her tech savvy girlfriend. "Excuse me, coming through!" she half laughed in normal english so other students could hear her, "oh hey Caylee, might want to book it!"
"Fuck," the brunette swore, probably at the sight of a teacher running after her and Shino. She promptly dropped her books and grabbed the hand of the platinum blonde walking next to her, "move it Kuroshiro!"
Shino didn't get a chance to worry about it as she neatly jumped, the board spinning beneath her feet as she avoided the pair's books and shot off after her girlfriend. "It's Rika's fault," she deadpanned as she shot by and raced to catch up with Rika who was approaching another intersection of hallways.
Hopefully Asuna and Argo would be up there, that and Silica better hope that she wasn't anywhere near them.
"RIKA SHINOZAKI, Get back here!"
Shino sighed and rubbed at her forehead to try and soothe the blooming headache she could feel coming on.
There was never a dull day at school being friends with Rika and Argo, the two troublemakers at the school that couldn't get in trouble. Which would be why Shino and the rest of their friends were running too, if only to avoid getting caught and being given detention out of sheer frustration at their friends' out of control pranks at least once a week.
Throwing a master of chaos, Kuroshiro, cunning master of media and information, Argo, and a master of engineering and inventing, Rika, really was terrible for the school when all three of them loved causing chaos from time to time. Even if Kuroshiro hadn't been involved this time.
Upon reaching her girlfriend, Shino reached over and swatted her upside the head.
Rika winced and held a hand to the back of her head, "Hey! That was mean," she complained and fought off Shino's offending hand when she threatened to smack her again, "okay! Okay! I get it, Sheesh! I'll triple check everything next time okay?" She pouted, "I was cutting it to the wire cause we were on a date yesterday that went longer than I expected, geez."
Shino's heart fluttered at the reminder, but she scowled, pointing a finger at her girlfriend, "don't blame me for your error and making a prank that literally filled an entire classroom with expanding foam!"
Rika blushed sheepishly and held her hands up in a surrender fashion as Caylee and Kuroshiro caught up to them. "Sorry, sorry…"
"Man, cut that one a bit too close, thanks for the save, Cay~" Kuroshiro looked over at his girlfriend as he straightened his tie and Shino snorted. The boy must've almost been grabbed by the shirt but Caylee had saved his bacon
"It's fine-" She was cut off by Argo and Asuna shooting down the corridor connecting to theirs with Argo complaining about how her sister had the shorter girl by the hood. Thereby meaning that Argo couldn't escape her.
"Let me go! It wasn't 'upposed ta be dat messy, kay?" Argo whined, "omise!"
"That doesn't matter," Asuna refuted and gave her sister's hood a bit of a shake, "give me the teacher's ring-phone, I know you have it, Argo!"
Oh, that's why he was still chasing them even though they were nearly at the entrance to the school's main building.
"I don't!" Argo refuted almost… sincerely? "I didn't 'natch it! Ri-chan did it!" The short blonde pointed to the brunette and Shino switched her attention to her girlfriend while Asuna was talking to Argo.
"Don't give me that, you catelog every new teacher's information!"
"O?! I didn't do it!"
Rika was in the middle of removing the inserting a USB-C uplink into the device and before Shino could reprimand her girlfriend for it, she had tossed the device to her with her signature charming smile. As if she was saying, 'please?'
Ugh, fine. She was going to kick her ass later, so she'd just do it all at once. Plus, if she had the ring phone then she could toss it back toward the teacher.
"You owe me Rika," Shino deadpanned as she pressed the back of the uplink device and booted up her skimming program on her optic.
"Silica!" Rika scooped up the young freshman near the entryway who squealed,
"R-Rika! Put me down!"
"Trust me, you do not want to go inside right now!"
"But-"
"Wait! Shino-!" Asuna called back a few moments later while Shino was occupied with closing down the software and removing the uplink device.
If she had been looking up instead of finishing up her work on the device like Rika asked, she wouldn't have collided straight with someone standing stupidly in the entry way.
