It has been three days since Maru faced Dia and lot of things have happened, such as her club accepting a new member, which coincidentally was one of Maru's childhood friends, Tsushima Yoshiko-san. The brunette was now heading for Numazu. Her objective was to finally get a cellphone. She was the only one without one and it could make communication with the rest easier, or so was Yoshiko's argument. Ruby was busy as usual, so she is riding the bus with just her grandma, much more technologically ignorant. Maru has a plan, though. She knows her own limitations so she is going to just ask the clerk for the simplest cellphone there is. Her plan is straightforward, a simply charge the frontlines.
She went into the store and followed her plan thorough, grandma just tagging along. The store employee asked Maru to follow him so she could see the models. Once again, he asked "what are you looking for, miss?" she repeated herself, "I don't want anything fancy, I'm looking for quick communication, that's all". The clerk responded with "Understood, is 2 gb too much? You're looking for a low-end or med-end device, right? Is 4G important for you?" he stopped because Maru didn't respond to any of his questions so he turned around and found out she was thinking HARD. He was surprised but all kinds of oddballs happened to get into the store daily so he waited patiently. Maru was trying to remember where she had heard the word jee-ga-bite before.
The brunette finally found her answer after 46 uncomfortable seconds. The place she heard it was yesterday, on her classroom. The girls were discussing about her phones. Yoshiko was apparently very surprised because a classmate 'survived' with 8 jee-ga-bites and then asked Maru, although it seemed like demanding an explanation, if she would be able to survive on 8 jee-ga-bites too. Yoshiko got even more surprised after Maru told her she owned no phone.
Right. So 8 jee-ga-bites were enough. Unless you were Yoshiko. But Maru didn't plan to give her phone a lot of use, so probably less than that was okay. So she asked the employee for a phone with 4 jee-ga-bites.
The store employee got moving, not even batting and eye to Maru's change of mind. Suddenly going to 4GB after asking for low end phones. Kids nowadays don't know the struggle.
He came back later, with three models but the kid nor the old lady were at the same place. He found the girl sitting on a bench while she got up and went up to him.
After some more of her quirks like asking how does a camera fit in there or what's a Sim card, she ended up choosing the model that the employee recommended, emphasizing that it could last her for a long while. She was surprised because the price tag wasn't that much, and so was her grandmother. Because of the price somewhat, but much more because of the HDTV screen she had been looking at for the past 20 minutes. It was the same 2 minute video on repeat. It's the present, zura.
Yoshiko would be even more surprised if she ever finds out that Maru's phone is not 4 jee-ga-bites, but rather 128 GB of storage. Of course, there's no way that Maru could discern between RAM and storage.
Still, not as surprised as Maru's grandmother next month, when she realizes that the price she saw was a monthly pay, and that she had to do 10 times more.
"Excuse my intrusion" said Hanamaru while going through the sliding doors. She moved through the halls of the Kurosawa residence and into the room where Ruby is spending her afternoons lately, shopping bag still in hand. She opened her arms wide, ready to embrace the figure in front of her until she noticed black. "Whoops", scaped her mouth.
Dia turned to face the intruder, her expression a bit lively compared to past days. "Good afternoon, Hanamaru-san. Didn't hear you coming in"
"Good afternoon. Umm..."
"Ruby just left for Numazu, you know. What are you doing here?"
"Uhh... I thought she'd be busy as always so I went on my own, I wanted to give her a surprise. More importantly, Dia-san. You're home early today."
"As you can see, I am. Excuse me."
Dia reached for her phone on the table, speed-dialed her sister and brought her phone to her ear.
"DIA-SAN, STOP!"
"What is it now?"
"Are you calling Ruby-chan?"
"Of course I am."
"Please stop"
"Why? Do you want my sister to waste the rest of her day looking for you?"
"It's not that. I want to call her."
"Yes, that's what I'm doing. Are you feeling well?"
"No, I meant I want to do it. I got a new phone and I want to try it."
"Oh..." Dia hanged the call. "Wait, you got a phone?" Dia dialed again.
"Hey that's pretty rude!" Hanamaru said, embarrassed. "It's right here, look", the brunette explained while taking the phone out of her shopping bag. Dia nodded and hanged yet again.
"Okay, go. She's probably going to call back because the missed calls so hurry up."
Hanamaru stared at her phone, Dia stared at Maru.
"Do you actually know how to..."
"Dia-sama teach me how to make a call please." Maru bowed as low as she could while standing up.
"Right, I've already added her contact so you can just go straight to the Phone app and tap on her name."
"Alright, zura" Maru touched the screen and felt her phone vibrate, it seemed like pressing a real button somehow.
"No, that's for email. Press Home to go back"
"Baseball?"
"No, the button in the middle of... Never mind that, here's something easier. Just answer Ruby's call" Maru moved closer to Dia's phone. It was vibrating, but much more violently. The brunette wondered if it was feeling any pain. 'Slide to answer' it read. So Maru did. She slid the phone on top of the table. "Hello?"
But it was still vibrating. Dia just grabbed Hanamaru's hand with one hand, and her phone with the other and told her "This is what you're supposed to do" before moving Maru's fingers awkwardly through the screen.
"Hello? Is anything wrong onee-chan?"
"Not much, depending on how far you've gotten"
"I'm still waiting for the bus. Did you need anything?"
"Oh that's good. Actually, there's…"
"RUBY-CHAN HELLOOOO"
"He-hello"
"there's that", Dia continued, "She's right here."
"Hanamaru-chan? What happened?"
"COME HERE, I'LL EXPLAIN LATER"
"I ignored you the first time but please stop shouting, Hanamaru-san, she can still hear you if you speak normally" Ruby listened as her sister moved away from her phone, still discussing with Hanamaru. "Huh? Yeah, that's the whole point, it doesn't matter if she's far away."
"Sorry for that", could be heard clearly as Dia was now close to her phone, "I'm going to hang up now, see you soon"
"Bye"
'There's no way she could have done it' was on Ruby's mind for a second. It disappeared for a minute, then it came back for the rest of the trip.
Ruby's intuition was not wrong. There was Maru, sitting next to Dia, Dia still wearing her school uniform, Maru dressed casually. They were talking to each other, pointing at the screen of …was that a tablet?
For the unexperienced eye, it might seem like Dia was exasperated, but Ruby knew she was composed. Actually, Dia liked to be relied upon. She also loved challenges. Being the one who got Hanamaru out of the Stone Age might be something she'd be proud of but not openly admit. Ruby, more than anyone, knew the magnitude of said challenge, so she giggled at her sister's attempt. Hanamaru was not as innocent, though. Ever since she decided to face Dia she's been more confident, as demonstrated by today's adventure.
"I'm home", she said at last.
"Welcome home" greeted both girls, both equally happy that Ruby finally made her appearance and that they didn't have to talk to each other anymore.
Ruby watched as Hanamaru walked with her arms open, so she opened hers too and walked into a hug. Maru told her about the things she'd done and Ruby congratulated her. Dia exited the room as she was going to prepare Dinner.
"Ruby-chan, did something happen to Dia-san?"
"Hmm?"
"You know, for the past weeks, she's had eye bags, and just her overall aura that screamed 'Don't get close to me', but today it's gone"
"I don't know much. She told me Mari-san forced her to take a day off"
"Is that it?"
"Probably not, but it certainly helped."
Ruby and Maru spent the rest of the day together, with Dia coming into the scene for dinner and just to talk afterwards. Maru surprisingly learned enough. She was able to read incoming texts and answer calls, probably. They couldn't teach her how to make them, though.
