09—move

Gaillard would never knew whether Kai did take the initiative to advance their friendship, or whether it was all a matter of timing. Their renewed rivalry began not with a Vanguard competition, but out of all things, a misdirected picture of a stray cat.

The picture of the cat sleeping under an apartment stairwell looked cute and harmless enough, but it was the foreign number that sent it that made Gaillard pause. Before reasoning with himself that of course viruses can't be spread by text messages, he texted the unknown sender back:

Who are you?

The reply came an hour later.

It's Kai Toshiki. Sorry, I meant to save the picture to my phone.

Gaillard's next step ought to be to ask Kai where he got his number from and how he had accidentally selected it, once he got over his amusement that the most anti-social teenager on Earth had finally got himself connected to the wider social network. Before he could do so, Kai texted again:

Want to have a fight through picture message?

This was what Gaillard sent back:

Sure. If you send me a kitty every time you'd like to have one.

He was obviously teasing, and did not meant for it to be an informal contract that would bind the two of them. That was what it became as Gaillard received Kai's cat pictures, most without captions but some with. The strangest that Gaillard got was one of a black cat nonchalantly abusing a stag beetle with its paw. The caption read: 'This one hates fish. I don't know why.'

Gaillard had a feeling that Kai would turn frosty if he told the truth, and so he never failed to not turn Kai down. The time came when Gaillard had to clear the space in his phone and delete the cat pictures. He did so with great deliberation, scrolling and clicking through each one to check the captions. The reality of the strangeness of the way they communicate trickled over him bit by bit, until he could no longer resist the impulse to ask Kai:

Why don't you ever send me pictures of your own life?

Both of them had become a year older since they last saw each other's face. The reply came:

I thought you're disinterested in seeing my face.

Gaillard hesitated on being honest, but opted to do so anyway.

I think we've moved past that.

There were no more text messages for the rest of the night. Gaillard did not bother with sending a follow-up text, but still he waited to see what Kai made of it, even if he only replied with silence. He spent the next night lying on his stomach in bed, flicking through his deck with his phone hidden under his pillow.

Then a vibration alerted him that he had received Kai's answer. He opened a picture of a plate of omelette rice, complete with cabbage coleslaw and slices of tomato arranged to beautify it. The caption read: 'You always complain that you're hungry around this time.'

Gaillard thumped his face into his pillow once, scattering his cards, and retorted with:

You could at least draw a cat's face with the ketchup, damn you.

He was not the least mollified when Kai's reply came:

Wait. I'm typing the recipe.

'Use drafts!' Gaillard seethed internally until he recovered enough to give Kai this piece of advice. For better or for worse, they had moved on from Vanguard and cats.

A/N: The author lives, and she is one of the anti-social ones who have yet to own a smartphone. Until the far away future, when I am in the position to write more detailed and less pointless 'Kai's relationships are furthered due to his new ability to use a smartphone'.