a/n: Thank you for all who reviewed/faved/followed! I'm glad I could get some feedback on this. And I love this Porky figure *applause* :3 because of all the support he has given me xoxo thanks everyone! ^.^

Onwards to the next chapter!~

Chapter Two: More than a Friend

With each hour, and each passing day, Len opened up to the stranger.

After school, Len would make a beeline to his room, and shut himself in there for the rest of the day. No one can be sure if he even ate. All that his known is that these hours of confinement were not hours of solitude...he had "_r3b00t_".

Reboot was like a friend that he had known for a long time. After revealing that the user was female, Len wondered what her true purpose was.

"You called me, and I came to help. I am here because of ONE sole purpose...to get your life back on track. Or to 'reboot', so to say."

They would talk endlessly about things no one else would care about, in Len's world. Instead of coming to school early, Len spent his mornings with _r3b00t_. Troubles regarding school and social life were less of a pain, now that he knew he had someone to talk to about them after school. And _r3b00t_ always listened with empathy, her non-judgemental advice comforting him. Len had even showed her the scars he had made on his wrists. She became exceptionally concerned for him, more than what an average stranger might feel. Len though he might have...just MIGHT HAVE met her before.

All in all, a week had passed before Iroha came to visit. Len was completely, utterly obsessed with _r3b00t_.

"Lenny! It's me, Iroha!" The door shut, as the tall lady entered the kitchen. "Len? Len~!"

The blonde was suddenly aware of her calls. "Be right there!"

bananakagamine02: Srry. Gtg. Iroha is calling me.

_r3b00t_: No problem. Talk again soon?

bananakagamine02: Yeah! Very soon :D

bananakagamine02 has signed off.

Len logged off, and ran down the stairs. Iroha was a family friend, who had taken care of the kids while his parents were on the business trip. They never actually told Iroha when they will be back, so now she only drops by every week. She is his legal guardian, and also his mother figure.

"Hi Iroha." Len greeted, as he entered the kitchen. He smiled as he smelled something good cooking.

"Oh hey!" The pink-haired lady with the cosplay cat ears grinned. "Keeping busy? I hope that was homework you were concentrating on."

"Um, I was talking to a friend."

"A friend?! YES! I'M SO PROUD OF YOU, LENNY-KINS!"

Len sighed. "On the internet, Iroha."

Iroha became silent. She sheepishly returned to her cooking.

"How's life?" She asked. The lady started rooting around the fridge, grimacing as she threw out food items that had turned evil.

"Life is...alright." He replied, thinking about the said internet friend.

Iroha gave him yet another smile. "Hah! That was the most cheerful thing you've said all year."

The conversation went on. Iroha gave Len a new pair of glasses, to replace the ones that were "lost" the week before. When Len had asked what she was cooking, the lights suddenly went out.

"EEK! I didn't know we had blackouts this early in the year. Wait a second, have you been paying the electricity bill?"

"I think..." Len stroked his chin, trying to remember. Sometimes, the electricity would go off randomly at his house, and his parents just had to pull the main energy source to get it started up again.

He noticed that Iroha's cooking remained undisturbed on the stove. "Iroha, not all the electricity is out. I think we just have to fix the lights."

"Oh. Ok." She breathed a sigh of relief. Then the phone started ringing. Iroha went over to answer it, flipping her head to look back at the blonde.

"Can you be so kind to get the lights going, Len? I'll be there in a minute or two."

"Sure." Len dashed to the control panel, which was right outside the kitchen. But upon looking at it, he could see that all the main switches were on. Everything was going smoothly. Len cocked his head in puzzlement, and re-entered the room.

"Iroha, I think there is-"

"CRASH!"

Both heads turned to look at what had happened. The chandelier had fallen onto the ground, shattering to a thousand pieces, RIGHT NEXT to Iroha, who was gripping the phone with a pale hand. The phone bleeped in one continuous tone, with nobody on the other end.

The most disturbing thing was that the chandelier had landed in front of the stove...RIGHT where Iroha had been standing before the phone had rang. Seconds later, the chandelier dropped onto where she had stood. That meant that if the phone hadn't rung in that exact moment, Iroha would've been crushed.

"IROHA! ARE YOU OK?"

"Woah..." Iroha looked at the phone and the chandelier, as if her stoke of death was sinking into her. "The chandelier...it was right where I-"

"Who was on the phone?" Len asked. There was something that seemed unnatural about the incident. Like the chandelier and phone call were too in synch to be...coincidential.

"Nobody..." Iroha mused. She went all pale, and silent. Placing the phone back into the reciever, she rubbed her eyes as if she didn't believe it. "There was nobody there. But it saved me. Whether it was a prank call or a wrong number, it saved my life."

Len was a guy of science. A sudden stoke of miraculous luck always aroused his suspicions. Len walked over to the phone, and looked at the caller ID.

Ones and zeros. That was all the screen displayed, an invalid number. In fact, it was in binary code.

"Be right back."

He rushed up the stairs, and locked himself into his room. For some reason, he knew that _r3b00t_ would know about that. Hasn't she known so much about his life already? Booting onto the computer, he logged in as "bananakagamine02".

(8/11/13 5:47 pm) bananakagamine02: Did u see that...?

_r3b00t_ is typing...

_r3b00t_: 01001101 01100001 01111001 01100010 01100101

_r3b00t_ has signed off.

Len stared at the screen, wondering what type of message she was trying to leave. She certainly had something to do with this. He copied and pasted the binary in an online translator, and this was what he got:

"Maybe."

As Len's eyes rested on the single word the translator provided, Iroha's voice brought him back to reality.

"L-Len? Can you help me clean up the glass, please?"

"Coming." He left the webpage open, glancing at it one last time before he shut the door and walked downstairs.

"Just exactly HOW much is _r3b00t_ capable of...?"

a/n: Just you wait and see, Len ;)

Thank you for reading~ xD Whenever people someone likes my writing, it makes my day! My classmates don't care otherwise LOL

xoxoxo