"That's enough, Atla," Fohl said, dragging Atla away.
Atla struggled, and it was so awkward both Shindo and I looked away as Fohl practically took Atla away, kicking and screaming.
Still, he was ultimately successful, and we watched as both of them disappeared beyond the horizon.
"Well, I never thought that we would end up in that kind of situation," Shindo said.
"Yeah," I said. Didn't this sort of thing happen to ultra-famous celebrities and the like? Why was it happening to me, a small streamer? "But something gives me the feeling that we haven't seen the last of her." As a matter of fact, it seemed like I was already developing a headache thinking about how
"Mm-hmm," Shindo said. "So, with that said, can you help me out with my project?"
"Didn't you want to go out just now?"
"Yeah, but now we've wasted enough time, so we need to get going."
"Who's the 'we' here? This is your project, isn't it?"
"C'mon, don't be like that, bro," he said. "But, what is this about a bunch of girls visiting your place?"
"Long story, I'll tell you later- but it is not what you think."
"Sure," he said, sounding unconvinced.
"So, how far along are you regarding this project?"
"I uh, have a couple of ideas."
There was awkward silence for a moment as I slowly turned my head towards him, though I could tell that he could feel my anger. "H-Hey, what's with that look?"
"Ideas? Are you telling me that you haven't even started yet?!"
"H-Hey, don't shout, the neighbors are going to notice!"
"Okay, what are these brilliant 'ideas' of yours?"
"Uh..." he trailed off.
I went through his ideas. Many of the were, as expected, dumb. What on earth was a 'bioplant' that could grow extreme amounts of food? Did he think he was a wizard or something for coming up with that?
"Okay, this at least is something you could make," I told him. It was a motion-powered cell phone charger. The idea was simply, a magnet, from the motion of you walking, would charge up electricity, which could be used to charge up a phone.
I had seen something similar in middle school, though what this involved was a flashlight that was powered by shaking it. It was quite a neat concept and I saw many people using them or showing them off. The issue was that while it looked very nice and cool in concept, it was extremely cumbersome to use and not worth using unless you were out camping or something or the like. Power outages were almost unheard of in Japan.
"So, how would this work?" he asked.
"Well, first of all, we need a magnet," I told him. "The issue is that just by walking, you would at most shake the magnet and not rotate it a full circle, or invert it, which is what you'd need to do." I sketched something out for him. It was a spring at the bottom, and so small movements should've caused it to bob up and down, which by itself should've generated a current. "Then, you would attach this to your leg, so it can't be too heavy, but when you walk, it would... wait a moment..."
"Huh? What is it?"
"Why do this while walking? If we want some kind of rotary motion, why not use a bicycle instead?" I asked.
"Uh, I guess that could work but..."
"Everyone uses them, almost everyone that is," I said.
I then drew out something different. It was a something you would attack to the front wheel, which would turn as the wheel turned. And the magnet would move via that.
"But, where are we going to get all of these things?" Shindo asked.
"I'll leave that to you."
"Hey- don't be like that!"
"What, you can't expect me to do all the work," I told him. "Whatever, we can at least make a poster on it."
"Again, where am I going to get this stuff? I don't even know the stores around this area?"
I shrugged. Hmm... there was one person who might be able to help me with what we needed. "I do know someone, they'll be coming by tomorrow though."
"What, you have secret contacts?"
"No, a study partner who I'm doing a project with," I told him.
"Whatever then," he said. He looked kind of bored, but did work on the poster. Thing was that while it was nice to have something written down to show to people, if we didn't have a working model, it was going to be hard to sell it as anything other than a fly-by-night idea that we did at the last minute. Which, given how it was, was not untrue, but we didn't want people to think that it was untrue.
The poster was done by late evening, and was satisfactory enough with some blank spaces that we could put things if we got photos of the actual device when we made it.
"Alright, let's watch some television," Shindo said, flopping down and switching the TV on. "Man, today was a long day."
"You barely did anything," I reminded him.
"Hey- you literally used me as bait and then captured a tiny girl," he said.
"Please don't say it like that," I said, face in my hands.
"Yeah... uh, bro?"
"What now?"
"Why are there all these episodes of this magical girl anime in your browsing history?"
I went to take a look, and yes, they were all episodes of Magical Girl Kiiroi. Of course, given how much Filo and Melty had watched it, it was plastered across not only my history, but also the recommendations on the smart TV. There were even recommendations for other magical girl shows and the like. Needless to say, it was odd if you considered my age bracket that I was watching all of that. "Bro... you're not secretly a lolicon are you? Like, you haven't fallen for that girl Atla, have you?"
"...that's it you're not getting dinner tonight." I said with finality.
"BRO!"
