Were she so inclined, Futaba Sakura would pinpoint the beginning of all of her problems at one precise date. The 11th of April 2016- a fateful day in which everything changed.
Well, not all of her problems. Just all of her current ones, and sure, maybe some of her problems were also fixed along the way- but that's not the point!
During that fateful day, which began like any other with Futaba waking up from her 4-day long nap, she came to have a ton of messages on her phone from Sojiro, as per usual. It was kind of their thing- he often couldn't communicate with her due to his job and her... quirks, but they still made an attempt to keep in touch.
So when she came to, she was first shellshocked and then extremely worried about Sojiro's wellbeing. He wrote about how he'd taken in a delinquent with a violent record so that he could carry out his probation. A quick research about Ren Amamiya explained that he apparently was a punk with violent tendencies who had assaulted a woman and a local politician late at night, taking advantage of the fact that the man was tipsy, presumably in order to steal their money.
And the guy was living not at all far from her, and would interact daily with Sojiro. Sojiro was not built for this kind of thing, the guy would break him over his knee like a pasta noodle!
But...
She also could not do anything about it. What was she supposed to do? The guy was out there, and involving herself with the situation meant... meant...
A-and besides, Sojiro was kind of a cop once, right? So he could probably deal with this kind of stuff. Maybe. Probably.
But before she could even come to a conclusion, a voice rather clearly spoke into the mic piece that she had set for monitoring Sojiro and getting that sweet, sweet cafe ASMR.
"Alibaba, Alibaba, I know you're there." a masculine voice called out.
Futaba almost pissed herself right then and there.
"W-what?!" she spoke, before realizing that whoever the person was couldn't hear her back.
...he couldn't hear her back, right?
"I'm interested in chatting. Do you have like, a way of communicating or something? This is kind of one-sided. For what it's worth, you can call me-" a small pause. "Ah, rats-" It was weird, how he seemed to have an accent of some kind but at the same time spoke perfectly fluent Japanese.
Futaba cursed herself for not having installed cameras in Leblanc. She shot to her feet and-
And realized that she couldn't do anything. What if it was a creep? What if it was the delinquent?!
She already could not be made to deal with Sojiro most of the time, let alone a stranger!
Futaba began breathing hard, trying to quell the wave of panic that hit her.
You shouldn't ever have been born. This is all your fault! Adding to her already less-than-ideal state of mind, the voices began screaming in her mind.
Futaba began crying, curling up into as tight a ball as possible.
It was all her fault for things going this wrong.
When her... moment of hardship, passed, Futaba began walking through her household. She hadn't even managed to eat, too concerned with the events.
But at least when Sojiro wasn't home, this house was her domain, and she was free to go wherever she wanted. That included, of course, the chance to absolutely ravage the fridge, which Sojiro tended to keep stocked with snacks (and curry) precisely for occasions such as this.
However, as she made her way towards the kitchen, she noticed a letter sitting curiously just inside their house, slid under the door.
"Who even leaves letters in this day and age...?" she muttered to herself, walking to pick it up. At first she assumed that it was some random garbage for Sojiro, like bills to pay or something like that, but her breath hitched when instead it lacked any sort of proper form and just said "ALIBABA" in English on the outside.
It also used English in its contents, though she thankfully knew enough to get by thanks to online games, and it wasn't like it was a long message or anything.
'Add me on Harmony. Nickname#438.'
After an initial confusion about what she met and fear of the fact that someone knew exactly where she lived despite all the precautions she took to the contrary- she contemplated informing Sojiro, but at the same time she didn't want to tell him exactly what it was that she was doing online, since it was in hacker circles that she was known as Alibaba- she looked up what kind of social media Harmony was, and... it seemed fairly normal. No real reason she could tell that it was chosen, not enough fame that it'd crossed her sight up until now.
Although apparently, the username format meant that he'd literally chosen "Nickname" as his nickname. How original.
Futaba sent him a friend request, and half expected him to accept immediately, all things considered, and she'd also barricaded herself in her room and made sure to lock the front door and that the windows received a similar treatment. If someone broke into the house, they'd have to work to get her.
That did not seem to be the case, however, and she was left to wallow in her own thoughts.
At least slaying Rathalos in Monster Hunter helped, in that regard.
Nickname: yo
ty for accepting
Alibaba: Hey rat
Nickname: rat?
Alibaba: 4
Nickname: Oh
that
wow
lmao
The_rat: that's hilarious
better than what I came up with anyways
Alibaba: your poor naming choices aside, why'd you contact me, you creepy stalker?
I'm interested
whatever hacking you did to get my location, I can't even find a trace of it
i'll let you know I live with a cop and can get you thrown in jail
Why r u connected through a public wifi?
also do u speak jap
The_rat: Can't read weeabo sorry
Alibaba: wow
The_rat: and I can't really tell you, that'd be selling my tricks
not yet anyways
and I'm broke
don't have a way to buy a data plan
Alibaba: ...
lame
sad
and dare I say, pathetic
The_rat: ow
anywyas
anyways*
I figured you could use the company, given that you're a hikikomori
and you know, I have a secret evil agenda regarding you that i can't tell you
this is just an elaborate pyramid scheme
For how creepy things had kicked off as, Rat really did seem interested in just "keeping her company". He was evasive in many things regarding himself, or how exactly he'd come into knowing who she was, but… she felt oddly drawn, to the idea of having eyes on the outside. And the mystery of his seemingly unhackable phone kept her drawn into the situation. She knew it was dangerous, but for some reason, it didn't register to her that she should probably not entertain a stalker. At least it was someone to talk to- someone outside the bounds of her house.
What's more, he regularly sent her pictures of the outside, but whenever she tried to hack into the city's camera systems, she would just not be able to find him despite spending half a day cross-referencing pictures to the places he allegedly should be. It was scary, but a sort of fun scary. A puzzle, a mystery to solve that kept her attention away from worse things.
And so, she found herself befriending him. He was a bit cringe, often making jokes that only made sense to him, and he seemingly was next-to-always online, though he always sent photos that indicated that he was out and about somewhere in the vicinity of Shibuya- and always, always making use of public wifi.
There was a certain charm to the mystery.
And so, despite her better judgement, Futaba kept in contact with Rat. And that decision would soon come back to bite her in the ass.
A brief argument took place about the fact that according to Rat, the sacrifice of Black Condor at the end of the first season of Neo Featherman was nothing more than a cheap plot device to reintroduce him as a mind-controlled villain, while she was trying to instruct the heathen in the subtle tones and foreshadowing that took place, and the already present strife between the characters and how he was able to finally understand the meaning of friendship.
That argument ended with Rat sending an image with a caption that read "Nice argument, unfortunately, I live in your walls", which was just eye-roll-worthy, until a notification on her computer informed her that a new user was connected to their wifi. Her heart skipped a little before remembering that, yes, Rat did know where she lived.
She huffed in frustration. He had no right to scare her like that. Pulling up the chat, she typed out a "Go use some public wifi like a normal person, you hobo", waited for the notification that he'd read her message, then promptly ended his connection to the wifi and changed the connection to be QR-code only.
Sojiro was an old man with computers, so she would have to teach him later how to do it, but a girl had to get her little victories in somewhere. Had she had her way, she would've tinkered directly with the router, but the software protection that she put in place would have to do. It was hard to strike a delicate balance between not so easy that creeps to get in, and not so hard that it would upset Sojiro.
After a moment, same notification. She could feel a vein begin to throb in her brow.
Rat: hey, don't do that
The nerve of this guy!
Alibaba: how about you don't stay right outside my house like some sort of creepy stalker?! Go back to being a hobo in Shibuya
Rat: that's the neat part :)
Rat: I'm not outside your house
Her heart skipped yet another beat as she quickly opened the application for camera monitoring in her house and found absolutely nothing. Man, what was with Rat being extra creepy today?
Right as she was considering whether to chew him out or directly block him, she heard footsteps creaking across the wooden parquet of her home.
Another look at the cameras. Absolutely no one. She... she must have imagined it. It's like that time she played Outlast and her nightmares were extra spicy for a whole week.
The only thing left to do was to chew out her internet acquaintance-
Knock. Knock. Knock.
All rationale flew out of the window as she snatched her phone off the desk and practically launched herself into her closet for protection. Another check of the cameras told her absolutely nothing, and she came to a startling realization with a gasp. He'd already shown himself to be good enough that public cameras didn't show him despite being in the locations that they were pointing in. Most likely he'd hacked her home's cameras too!
She rapidly tapped out a message to Sojiro about an intruder in their house, but the handle of her door was already jiggling. He would never get here in time!
Tears streaming down her face, she tried to summon the courage to leave the nonexistent safety of her closet, but it was like she was paralyzed. She was useless. No, she was less than useless.
Sojiro will get hurt because she failed to keep herself protected.
She brought nothing but misery and death to her family.
It was her fault that mom, and now Sojiro, would die.
All her fault.
All her fault.
Do not stalk suicidal teenager hikikomori. It ain't cool. Unfortunately, Niles didn't seem to get the memo.
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