"...oi...Sorata, what do you want on your pancakes...oh," Aoyama yelped as she opened the door. The duo were already up and awake, sitting on the floor around a mess of papers. Aoyama noticed that Mashiro was practically glowing, and not just because she was basking in the morning sunlight beaming in through the window. She had a small, yet meaningful smile which served to make her look like an angel. Aoyama was surprised at how Sorata could manage to stay calm. "Did you two stay up again?"

"Nope. We just woke up early to work on the game together. It's due by Friday so we're skipping school to work on it," Sorata said, holding up a piece of Mashiro's art for his game.

"Oh. Okay then."

Truth be told, Aoyama was a bit saddened by the fact that she would be going to school alone, but she nodded her head in understanding. She knew what it was like to have a passion for something. Her expression suddenly toughened up, and she looked at Mashiro with a determined look.

"G-Go get him! Mashiro-chan!," she cheered, extending her arm out to give a thumbs up to her direction.

Mashiro tilted her head in confusion and returned a thumbs up, while Sorata caught on to his friend's line of thinking.

"Nothing like that will happen," he weakly laughed. "I just want this game done by today so that it can be play tested tomorrow. Mashiro, pancakes?"

"I...would like it...," Mashiro said awkwardly while fiddling with her hair.

"How would you like your pancakes?"

"Sun...day?"

Aoyama looked at her dazed, happy face with confusion, before Sorata explained that she wanted the waffles that she had on the Sunday date, and Mashiro nodded excitedly. It seemed as if she was sitting there, reliving that memory again, because she couldn't stop smiling.

"Geez...I don't believe you won't do anything with her...," Aoyama giggled. "Ok. One waffle with melted vanilla ice-cream for you, and three pancakes for you?"

An hour later, everyone was out of the house, with the exception of Ryuunosuke and Rita of course, and our duo was deeply focussed in their work. Sorata was typing away at his computer, calm and collected: as if he had planned every single keystroke the night before, while Mashiro was drawing on her graphics tablet. She had woken up Sorata this morning by getting out of his bed, bringing the computer from her room to Sorata's and creating a ruckus as she set everything up.

Hour after hour, beautifully made assets came flooding in and were being linked with their appropriate code so they could function in the game. Although it was a 2D game, it had lots of depth, utilising three layers of foreground, middle-ground and background which the character can hop across, giving it the illusion of being much more than a simple Mario rip-off. Mashiro leaned over Sorata's shoulder and 'woo'ed at the sight of her plant assets gently rocking back and forth as if they were being blown in the wind. The player model ran past it and each of the shrubs jostled in response.

"Pretty neat huh?," Sorata said in awe. "Look, this asset here can be broken by the player, and the loot drops..."

Sorata's unconscious explanation of how the game worked quietly faded away as he noticed Mashiro's long, silky hair begin to cover his right arm.

"Uh...Mashiro? Your hair?"

Mashiro continued to let her hair drape over him, to the point where it began piling up on his lap.

"Wha...," Sorata mumbled, not surprised by his friend's eccentricity. Considering her other odd quirks, this wasn't anything much, but the smell of shampoo and teenage girl pheromones was mildly distracting. "Is this like...some kinda test or...?"

"Boys like this. Right?," Mashiro asked, completely unabashed.

"What has Nanami been teaching you this time I wonder?"

She shook her head. "I read it. In a book."

"What book?"

"The book."

"H-Huh? Look, if you're gonna do...this...I think you should be a bit more subtle," Sorata explained, swivelling his chair around so that he was looking up at Mashiro.

"Subtle?"

"Yeah. Like erm...you know. Subtle."

"I was being subtle."

"I don't think you understand."

"Sorata idiot."

The two looked at each other like they were trying to get into each other's heads, until Sorata blushed in embarrassment and returned his focus to his screen. Work, work, work...

"Keep working...keep working...try not to focus on the insanely pretty girl that's standing right next to you...d-do girls usually smell this good?," he thought frantically.

Within the short timeframe of an hour, Mashiro had somehow managed to convince Sorata to let her sit on his lap as she worked, saying that it 'would be good for her posture'. Sorata had to tilt his head to the right so that he could look behind Mashiro's head while she was drawing more and more assets. But for each asset that she drew and coloured, she would insist, no more like demand that he would pet her on the head while saying encouraging words like 'good work' and 'you're a good girl'.

It seemed as if Mashiro did share some DNA with the cats.

She leaned back on Sorata's chest and stretched her arms and legs, the extra movement making Sorata feel uncomfortable in certain areas. He stroked her head gently as he encouraged her to take a nap or have a break for all the hard work she's done.

"You should take a break too Sorata," Mashiro purred. "You've done lots of work. Good job."

"Teamwork makes the dream work. Coffee?"

The door creaked open and a very smug Rita came walking in with a tray of food and drinks. She set it down and leaned forward so that she was face to face with Sorata.

"(My my...aren't you a little too bold?)," Rita breathed in English, causing Sorata to blush and recoil back.

"(I've been drawing pictures for Sorata.)," Mashiro replied in her native tongue as she got off his lap and began eating a baumkuchen.

"Oi oi...don't understand," Sorata muttered.

Rita giggled. "(Do you find him cute? Have you two...done it yet?)"

"(It?)"

"(Mhm. It. Sex.)"

Mashiro felt a blush forming on her cheeks as she ate her snack and downed it with some sweet coffee.

"Oi! I know what that word means!," Sorata yelled.

"(I...we were drunk. I think.)," Mashiro explained.

Rita kneeled down and hugged her friend as she ate, looking up at Sorata behind Mashiro's back.

"Tsk tsk...I thought you were better than that Sorata...taking advantage of a poor girl like that. A foreigner no less!"

"It's not what it sounds like. We were both drunk okay? I didn't...make her."

Rita let go of Mashiro and made herself comfortable in Sorata's bed, messing up the perfectly well made sheets and pillow.

"How many more goddamn girls are gonna jump in my bed...?!," he thought tiredly. He had long since forgotten what it was like to not wake up with long strands of hair in his mouth.

"So," Rita chirped happily. "How's the game going? Want me to help?"

"Help is always appreciated," Sorata said as he went back to typing on his computer. "Mashiro?"

"Mm. Draw with me Rita."

Rita smiled, and now with three people working on the game, it would be done by tonight. As he was near finishing, he felt a great weight being lifted off his chest. It was as if he could finally breath again, because of the fact that he was now an active participant in his life, rather than being a mere spectator. Even if he had plenty of doubts that this game would be a total flop, it was still a very comforting feeling that he at least tried to grab ahold of an opportunity rather than letting it slip by like he had done plenty of times before.

"Sorata?," Rita said, snapping him out of his daze. "You've been playing that game for well over an hour now. I'm playing next."

"Wha-...huh?"

He looked at the time on his phone, and had realized that his 'testing' of the game slowly turned into him just...playing his entire game, beginning to end, new save and all. He had barely noticed the time go by.

"Wow...I didn't notice any glaring issues...slight audio problems here and there but...man...that's impressive...," Sorata mumbled.

"He's talking to himself again."

"Quite common amongst very focused people."

Rita began playing his game while Sorata and Mashiro took a quick nap. Even if she wasn't too familiar with computer gaming, she quickly got used to the mechanics of the game thanks to the game slowly introducing new movement techniques and items as the game progresses. The key item was a device which let the player manipulate time, either forward or backwards, and they would have to use that idea to solve puzzles and bypass enemies, in order to find their lost family in a post-apocalyptic world.

Rita was hooked on the game, and it took her an hour to beat. She leaned back on the chair in astonishment as the credits rolled, and noticed that her name as well as everyone in Sakurasou was listed, with an accompanying picture, sometimes candid.

"Mhm. Sorata-kun. Mashiro. I think you two will do great things some day. If only..."

She turned around in the swivel chair, resting her feet up on Sorata's nightstand as she watched the two sleep the fatigue away. They were positioned in a way so that Mashiro had her head tucked neatly under Sorata's chin as they slept, which Rita felt her heart melt at. She took a quick picture before tip-toeing out of the room and back into Ryuunosuke's.

As everyone began coming back home on a typical school day, Aoyama was staying at the studio late at night, 'working'.

"Mmmm...oh fuck...Mari...," Aoyama moaned as she bit down on her lip.

"Shut up! Someone's coming!"

The two stayed locked in each other's embrace as they heard let the footsteps outside the closet walk past, all the while Mari still teased Aoyama by sticking a finger or two inside of her.

"F-Fuck you...," Aoyama whispered with a wobbly voice as her co-worker began to finger her harder. "Y-Y-You..ah...!...fucking...tease..."

"You make the cutest sounds when we're doing it, you know that?"

"Mmmm...!~"

Mari began to rub her crotch against Aoyama's, causing the table she was sitting on to wobble back and forth. Aoyama dug her nails in the back of Mari, which caused her a fair bit of pain, but given the context, was somewhat erotic for her. She began to sloppily kiss Aoyama's neck and naked breasts, which tasted like her sweat as well as the cleaning detergent used to clean the motion capture suit. It was even more embarrassing for her considering she was still in 'uniform'.

Aoyama muffled her orgasm by ramming her mouth into Mari's, and after ten seconds of intense euphoria her body was able to relax. She leaned her head on Mari's shoulder. It took all of her strength to basically not melt onto the ground like she was made out of jelly.

Mari picked up her shirt that was thrown on the ground and laid it on the table Aoyama was sitting on, so that she could lay down. She also placed her forearm on her head while her legs were twitching and convulsing slightly from the orgasm she just had.

"Fufufu...my little kouhai just had a climax...," Mari chortled to herself, but Aoyama could hear.

"Shut...up...shut...argh...," Aoyama panted. It took a while for her to catch her breath, and in the meanwhile Mari was cleaning up the 'fluids' that were on the ground with some tissues.

"Come on missy," she said, throwing some clothes on Aoyama's belly. "Break's almost over."

"I just...hold...on..."

"Was it that intense...? Jesus...I knew I was good but...damn..."

"S-Sorry. I've just been...really horny these days."

"Hm. Puberty strikes again?"

"It's more like stress."

"Ah, I see. big role and all. Totally has nothing to do with Sorata-kun, right?"

"Y-Yeah. Totally. Hey wait, did you cum?"

"Huh? U-Uh, yeah."

"It didn't sound like it..."

"I guess we have a few more minutes left."

As they were enjoying their last few minutes of break together, Kazuki Fujisawa was on the set, drinking a coffee with another director. He ruffled through the scripts with a disapproving look on his face, something that was picked up by his friend.

"Something the matter? I thought you liked that script."

"I did. No, I still do. But it's too...elementary. Not for Aoyama-san."

"So a rewrite is in order then? God knows how long that'll take. And for what..."

"No, I'm suggesting she makes her own. Improvise her own lines. You saw what happened on Sunday."

He sat down in a chair and lazily ate his dinner.

"I know it sounds off-putting, but she has some personal problems. I can tell. If we can just tap into her emotions a bit, maybe lines will just flow out of her naturally."

"I hope you know what you're doing. I don't want our lead actress to walk out on us. She is just a high-schooler after all."

"A high-schooler with ambitions, Akihiro. Trust me on this."

"Alright then."