Chapter Text
“Welcome to my home Hiro-san!” the tall man said as he threw open a wooden door, placed equally, with almost scientific precision, between two windows. The moment he walked in Hiroki, inexplicably, felt a little annoyed. It must have shown on his face because Nowaki looked at him sympathetically as he went over and got some orange juice out of the fridge.
“Ah sorry I should have warned you about that, I ran out of funds near the end of building, so the wallpaper isn’t finished. I’ll probably have cash soon so it won’t last long. But until then the unfinished décor will make you pretty annoyed.”
“What the..?”
“In the world of the Sims every action has an effect on your mood, those moodlets show up in a bar above your head.”
Hiroki looked up and was startled to see a green diamond and a couple of lines above his head. One was green about three quarters full and the other was pink, a third full. “your moods from interactions with others also show up there. The green is for friendship, and the other is attraction.” Hiroki’s jaw dropped as his face burnt to a crisp. His eyes drifted up to above Nowaki’s head, that guy was grinning like a kid in a candy shop, his pink bar was half full.
“Uh…” he said spluttering. The taller man just stood there grinning happily a little longer, before he turned on his heel and called “follow me Hiro-san!”
Still a little shell shocked, he walked dazed through the house, trying to ignore his strange surroundings. He walked to the doorway where Nowaki had stopped. It was a sparsely decorated bedroom, with little more than a bed and a chest of drawers inside.
“You can sleep here. Sorry it’s not much, but I rarely stay here longer than a day or two so...” He rubbed the back of his head self consciously.
“It’s… it’s fine.” It was more than fine. The room looked normal enough that he could almost forget that he was stuck in a virtual world. Besides, he hadn’t slept well for days. It had taken them just about a week to get through all the games, and after being (for the lack of a better word) attacked by tetris blocks, cars and zombies, he could really do with a good night’s sleep. However, a grumble from his stomach reminded him that he hadn’t eaten for a while either.
“Do we need food?” he asked earnestly, which elicited a loud laugh from the ravenette “hey don’t laugh, it’s a serious question!”
“Yes Hiro-san, we do need food. I can order pizza, it’s actually pretty good.”
“Sure.”
Nowaki moved back into the kitchen to order, leaving Hiroki alone in the bedroom. He stared at the soft, fluffy looking covers on the bed and he couldn’t help himself. He flopped forward, burying himself in the sheets. He breathed out a heavy sigh, relishing in the warm comfort of the sheets. It was a homely feeling he had missed since arriving in the game. Hiroki frowned into the pillow. Since he had met Nowaki in the first person shooter and since he had kissed him in Grand Theft Auto, the wariness he had felt around the man had gone away. Instead, he felt something…else. He may have acted coldly or said some stupid things, but more often than not he found himself blushing around the younger man. But was it okay for him to get involved with a man he knew nothing about? He still needed answers, and maybe now that they had made a home base here, Nowaki could actually answer them.
“Mind if I join you, Hiro-san?” the brunette jumped in surprise. He felt the mattress move under the weight of Nowaki lying beside him on the bed. He opened his mouth to protest, but then he remembered that this was Nowaki’s house, technically if anyone should get off it should be him. But the tall man didn’t seem to mind his presence, So Hiroki turned so he was lying on his back and just stared at the ceiling as they lay side by side in a comfortable silence. If Hiroki noticed the occasional glances the Nowaki shot his way, he pretended not to. Instead he let his eyes fall closed and his body relax into the comforter a little more. A nap would do him good.
Hiroki slept well, and for much longer than he had anticipated. He was only awoken by the feeling of a hand on his shoulder, and the movement of the bed. He cracked his eyes open and was startled to see Nowaki’s face right above his own.
“W-what the hell!” He jumped, sat up too quickly, then bashed their foreheads together with a painful ‘bang!’
“Hiro-san the pizza is here.” Nowaki said calmly, as though he wasn't just assaulted by his houseguest.
“I- Oh, sorry.” He watched as Nowaki pulled a pizza box so it was right in between them. It smelled heveanly. Hiroki greedily grabbed a slice, mouth watering and took a bit. His eyes widened.
“Holy crap this is great! How can video game food taste this good?”
“I know right?” Nowaki grinned as he dug into his slice. “I’ll miss it when we finally get outta here.”
A string of too hot cheese burnt the roof of his mouth, making him hiss. Hiroki frowned down at the pizza.
“You’re a doctor?”
“Hm?” Hiroki put down his slice and leant an elbow on his knee, resting his head in his hands.
“In the real world? You’re a doctor.”
“Yes, well I think was is a better way to put it.”
“well you’ll go back to it when all this is over right?” Nowaki’s smile faded and it was replaced with that same nonchalant look he had worn when they’d first met. Hiroki suddenly felt guilty, like he’d said something he shouldn’t have. Nowaki spoke
“Hiro-san you have to understand, it may not look it, but I’ve been in here for years. I can’t just go back to a normal life when we- if we get back.”
Hiroki’s heart felt heavy with Nowaki’s words. Since they had met, Hiroki had realized that Nowaki operated in two states; the first was his instinctive mindset, the Nowaki who took the most straightforward action to ensure survival, whether that was making out with him to hide their faces or entering a car race. This was the cold Nowaki who he had first met. In times like these however, in moments of calm, Hiroki saw the goofy smile which could only belong to an optimist (or perhaps, a former optimist.) Nowaki had been weighed down by the world he had found himself trapped in.
But Hiroki would not let Nowaki wallow in these fatalist thoughts. Nowaki had to be active and willing and fighting, so that they could escape. Nowaki was his only way out and if he lost hope then there was no guarantee they would ever escape. Hiroki grit his teeth and leant forward, grabbing Nowaki’s shoulders startling the man out of his trance.
“We will get back. And when we do I will help you get back to normal.”
“Hiro-san, you don't know what my normal is, there’s nothing you can do.”
“Bull shit.”
“Hiro-san,”
“Bull. Shit. I’ll help you, however long it takes, I don’t care. We’ll get the hell out of this game even if it kills us. But don’t ever say there’s nothing we can do because there is always a way out.” He looked away in embarrassment “I won’t leave you to fight alone.”
As Hiroki spoke a blush began to rise on the younger man’s cheeks Nowaki’s eyes were wide like saucers and staring right at him. They were such a nice colour, kind of speckled grey like the moon. It was then that Hiroki realized quite how close their faces were and he himself felt a pink tinge creep up his cheek bones. Nowaki, to Hiroki’s horror, leaned even closer
“Do you mean it Hiro-san?”
“Mean what?” he murmured in response. Their faces were too close. Weren’t they having a really serious conversation only a moment ago?
“That you’ll stay with me?”
“Yes.”
“Until we escape from here?”
“Of course.”
“…and after that?” Hiroki’s breath hitched in his throat. Nowaki had moved closer as they spoke, now his arms were braced on either side of him, their foreheads pressed together so that their breath mingled in the small space between them, tickling each others skin. Hiroki opened his mouth, but for a moment no words came out. He knew what he wanted to say, but was he ready for what would come after? He tried to look deeper in those grey irises to try and find the answer but instead he found himself getting lost in their colour. He had accepted his fate the moment he decided to fight for their future. Potentially a future together. He inhaled a shaking breath
“And after that.”
Nowaki closed the space between them so quickly, he almost choked on the final word. He felt the man’s soft lips against his own, somehow both similar and different from their first kiss. The same person, the same lips, but this felt so much more real. Hiroki leant into the kiss, pushing Nowaki back slightly and bringing a hand up to caress the back of his neck. He felt Nowaki’s lips tug into a smile beneath his own. Encouraged by Hiroki’s response, Nowaki pulled the shorter man forward, so close that he was almost sitting on his lap, and deepened the kiss. He felt Nowaki’s arms snake up behind his back and grip him tightly. He could feel himself becoming slightly light headed, was aware he needed to break for air, but he didn’t want to let go just yet. Nowaki, sensing Hiroki’s growing breathlessness, relaxed the kiss until their lips were just barely grazing each other. The brunette pulled away, just enough so that he could look up at the dark haired man through his lashes. He was startled to see that the other man was crying.
“N-Nowaki?” Hiroki asked, suddenly worried that he’d done something wrong, crossed a line. He pulled back to give the other man some space but was almost immediately folded back into his arms and crushed against his chest. Nowaki let out a shaky sigh and buried his head into the crook of his neck.
“I’m sorry…it’s just, you’re real. You’re the only real thing I have.”
Hiroki maneuvered them so that they were lying side by side on the bed, Nowaki still tangle din Hiroki’s form crying quietly into his shoulder. Who fell asleep first Hiroki couldn’t be sure, the only thing he knew was that this was the most comfortable he’d felt in a long time.
~~~
When Hiroki’s eyes fluttered open hours later, he was alone in the bed. It took him a moment to register his surroundings, reminding himself, like he so often had to, that he was once again in a video game. He felt the covers next to him, they were still warm. He sat up and strained his ears trying to figure out where the raven haired man had gone. He heard nothing at first but then the tell tale signs of something cooking on the oven alerted him to the other man’s whereabouts. He felt himself relax a little. Nowaki was a like soldier on the front lines, if he hadn’t known it before he knew it now. The way the man could switch almost instantaneously between cold and warm, closed off and needy, was still shocking to Hiroki. It wasn’t like Hiroki didn’t understand himself what Nowaki was feeling; he too had had a changeable personality when he was younger, keeping even the people who loved him most at arms length. His eyes drifted to the open bedroom door, where Nowaki must have walked out only moments before. As much as he could empathize, he knew Nowaki was in need of help. You didn’t need to be a doctor to be able to tell that spending a decade trapped and alone in this world had turned Nowaki’s mood swings into full on bipolar. Nowaki was sick, and despite what he had said, there was no guarantee that Hiroki’s support alone would make him better.
“Hiro-san!” a cheery voice called form down the hallway, he grunted in response, which seemed to delight the taller man who promptly appeared at the door “breakfast is ready.” He grinned and walked back to the kitchen. Hiroki’s felt something warm in his chest, something he hadn’t expected to feel since this whole ordeal had started. He sighed and extracted himself form the covers. Even if he wasn’t what Nowaki needed in the long run, Hiroki was all he had and damn it he was going to try to help him. He cast his mind back to the darkest moments in his life and asked ‘how the hell did I get out of that?’. Hiroki remembered making plans, little goals and sticking to them the best he could. All Hiroki needed, was a place to start.
“Hiro-san I made macaroni and cheese because it’s literally the only thing I can cook here without setting the house on fire.” The brunette frowned at his plate, it looked…interesting to say the least
“I’m sure it tastes fine…” he replied half heartedly. Nowaki laughed awkwardly
“Yeah believe it or not in the real world I wasn’t actually a bad cook. But food here is weird.”
“Other than that pizza you mean?” Nowaki lit up at the mention of the food
“It’s just so good.” He closed his eyes, as if he could almost taste it from memory alone. It was goofy, but- and Hiroki would never admit this- kind of adorable. After finishing off his macaroni, the brunette caught Nowaki’s attention.
“So” The other man looked over at him “what’s the game plan?”
“What for?”
“Escaping of course. What have you tried, where have you been, how do we get around?” Nowaki put down his fork and lean back thoughtfully.
“I’ll tell you what I know. It might take a while if that’s okay with you?”
“Honestly, we haven’t really got a choice.” Nowaki nodded slowly, then got up
“Walk with me.”
~~~
They headed out of the house and down a sunny path, bordered on one side by a blue river and on the other by a fairly quiet road and houses. It almost looked like Japan, if not for the sea which faded into a wall of bright blue, neither sky nor water, simply pixels. Nowaki had been silent for most of the way, choosing to ignore the subtle(ish) looks Hiroki was shooting him. He noticed Nowaki was wearing almost the same outfit he had been in grand theft auto, black coat over black jeans, with a blue scarf adding colour to his ensemble. Only here it seemed a lot cleaner and neater, as opposed to the ruff street style it had been in the other game. Seeing the shorter man eyeing his ensemble Nowaki smiled
“Clothes are funny here, the style changes to fit the game, but the clothes stay pretty similar. You should have seen me in Marukawa knights, I looked so badass.” Hiroki frowned
“So that’s why I ended up wearing that fucking latex thing in the racing game.”
“The game had good taste.”
“Shut up. You said you were going to tell me everything?” Nowaki nodded wordlessly. He looked to his left and saw an empty bench. “Let’s sit here.”
“I… where should I start… Back in my first year or so here I worked for a group whose goal was to escape from the game. We called ourselves Frontier. Together we learnt about maps and glitches and the main menu. We even started to build our own map to get around the game. But the thing was, the longer we spent in the game, the less we remembered. I think I explained how glitches work already?” Nowaki asked as they sat
“Yeah, they’re like tunnels from game to game.”
“Exactly. They’re essentially shortcuts so you don’t have to walk from map to map. Some let you travel between games, others take you straight to the main hard drive, that matrix we were in before. Others are tricky to get through like the one in the racing game. Some only send you to other places within the same game.”
“Damn that’s… complicated.”
“That’s why we needed the map.” Nowaki paused, he was frowning “ We were part way through making a back up map when something happened in Marukawa Knights. The glitches started, now this is weird, glitching. People who went through certain glitches would come out the other end having forgotten all or most of their memories. Some people even got stuck in locations on the map. So we escaped, or at least we tried.”
“What happened?” he sighed, the memory still clearly weighed heavily on his conscience
“There were maybe…4 of us who managed to escape form Marukawa. One went crazy and disappeared back into Marukawa Knights. The other two went walked with me through…Portal. We made it out the other end, but I was the only one who remembered the real world by then. Did you see that red haired boy in the racing game?” Hiroki cast his mind back to the day before, vaguely remembering someone calling him a demon.
“I think so.”
“He’s been trapped in that game for years, thinking he’s a car technician.”
“That’s awful.” Nowaki lay his head in his hands
“I know, and it’s my fault. I abandoned them.” Hiroki put a calming hand on Nowaki’s shoulder
“It’s not your fault. We can always go back to Marukawa?” Nowaki froze up beneath him. “Nowaki?” he asked, concerned.
“Hiro-san, the game slot for Marukawa Knights is right between,” Nowaki shuddered “Portal 1 and Portal 2” he suddenly turned an unhealthy shade of pale green. Hiroki grimaced, unsure of what to say “Hiroki… I can’t. I can’t go back to Portal. Ever.”
“Okay okay we won’t, we’ll stay far away.” Nowaki took a moment to collect himself, then carried on
“We managed to learn one thing. The main menu is key. From there we can control the whole system. Only thing is, we need to get to settings, then override the administrator, and manually disable the virtual reality simulator.” Hiroki crossed his arms and stared out at the blue edge of the map in front of him.
“I don’t want to, you know, undermine the trouble you’ve gone through to get this far or anything… but that doesn’t sound particularly difficult.” Nowaki smiled sadly
“I know it doesn’t. But I’m a doctor, Hiro-san, not a hacker, or a computer programmer. I can only get so far before I encounter fire walls and viruses. And if you’ll believe it, of the people who managed to keep their memories long enough to join the Frontier, none of them were computer experts.”
“I see…” Hiroki paused, trying to process all of his thoughts. “Well, I’m no expert, but I taught these two kids in my school who were real geniuses with technology. They played a lot of games but they knew their stuff. If you showed me the settings, then maybe I can help you figure out where to start.” Nowaki gaped at him, as if stunned at the thought of actually taking action. Suddenly he grinned and stood
“Okay! Let’s go.”
“What right now?” Nowaki nodded enthusiastically, grabbing his hand and lacing their fingers together. Hiroki blushed and pulled his hand away only to have Nowaki grab his other hand instead. He grimaced
“You’re not going to let me go are you?”
“Nope.”
They wandered around the map a little until they found themselves in front of the library. Nowaki led him to the back of the building where, sure enough, there was a panda painted on the side of the wall.
“Shall we?” Hiroki groaned
“I hate this.”
“Hopefully we won’t have to do it for much longer.”
They stepped back as far as they could, then ran at the wall. It was the same scene as when they’d first glitched; darkness for a moment, then a flourish of bright green zeroes and ones as they passed through the game matrix, then Hiroki felt his feet slam down on to solid ground. Only Nowaki’s strong grip on his arm prevented him from falling flat on his face. When he opened his eyes he saw that they were floating in that blue space on the edge of Sims3.
“This is a weird one. You’ll see in a second.”
“What?” He replied, confused. His confusion didn’t last long however as somewhere in front of him, he saw the glowing images of panels and logos which could only belong to the main menu.
“Are we just drifting there?”
“Yeah the Sims is weird, one way in one way out. But that’s why I don’t ever stay here too long, no escape route.”
“Oh” Hiroki replied. Although they had walked practically the whole way here holding hands, Hiroki was still getting used to contact with the other man. He liked to take things slow because he got easily embarrassed. He was a sensible man after all. Now Nowaki was hugging him against his chest as they floated towards the main menu and the sudden lack of space between them was making him blush fiercely. It didn’t help that when they emerged from Sims3 and materialized on the main menu, they were back in their regular clothes. Now that he had seen it a couple of times, Hiroki couldn’t help but think how damn good the man looked in a doctor’s coat.
“It’s there.” Nowaki pointed in front of them, apparently oblivious to the smaller man’s anguish. “Make sure to brace yourself, there’s a bit of a drop on the other side.” The strange force which was moving them through this space was bringing them closer and closer to a discreet, monochrome square which simply read “settings” beneath a small image of a cog. Nowaki managed to angle them both through the small opening, and into a dark space. Hiroki, more concerned about their location than what was actually happening almost forgot to brace. He tensed up just as the two hit what felt like a cold metal floor. Dazed, he pulled himself to his feet.
“Nowaki?” Hiroki asked confused. Around him was only darkness. He couldn’t see anything. He jumped as something grabbed his arm but calmed down when he heard
“Just wait a little Hiro-san. The lights should come on soon.” Not a moment after he said that, fluorescent lights blinked on illuminating their surroundings.
They were standing on a grey metal walk way bordered by metal railings. Although the lights were quite bright, they still didn’t illuminate the walls around them or, to Hiroki’s displeasure, the pit beneath the walkway. He only had to peak over the rails for a moment to know that that cavern was miles deep.
“I find it’s best to not look down.”
“I agree with you there…” Hiroki tried to joke but he felt uneasy. Nowaki’s hand slid back into his own. Hiroki wasn’t blushing now.
“Let’s go.”
It felt weird, walking in partial darkness in this cavernous room. They were still holding hands, but in no way was this like when they had been walking together in Sims3. Hiroki got the distinct feeling that he was not supposed to be here.
“Nowaki. What are looking for?” His voice was hushed
“We rarely came here, especially after we realized we couldn’t get through. But if I remember rightly…” he trailed off as they approached the end of the walkway. “Here we are.” He stopped them in front of what looked like a blank computer monitor. It wasn’t particularly old, like one of the gaming PCs companies had brought out a couple of years ago, but it was rather bulky as if something had been added to the back.
“Is this it?” Nowaki nodded.
“Try turning it on.” Hiroki bent down and tapped the keyboard. A few seconds later the screen beeped and lit up. Even if the computer seemed modern enough, the operating system was ancient. A single word, ‘password’ appeared on the screen with a blinking dash beside it.
“Imagine it, Hiro-san. Imagine getting this far, discovering a way to escape from reality to reality, game to game, imagine setting up an organization, losing people, going through the kinds of horror’s only Portal could throw at you, only to realize the thing standing between you and freedom is a password.” Nowaki’s voice had turned cold, as if he was speaking through gritted teeth. Hiroki looked up at him, his heart heavy. Nowaki was looking straight past him, eyes filled with contempt and trained on the computer. Hiroki felt a shiver crawl up his spine.
Nowaki probably wouldn’t last much longer in here.
Hiroki turned back to the PC. He typed in the obvious passwords but to no avail. He moved around to the back of the monitor and looked around for the cables. Sure enough there were 3 cables plugged into the back; green, red and black. He tried to find the ends but he saw that they trailed off the edge of the platform and down into the pit.
“Damn those must be the world’s longest extension cables.” He said aloud. He heard Nowaki chuckle but otherwise the man did not interrupt Hiroki’s investigation. He was thankful for that, as it was taking up all of his concentration to remember the basic hacking lesson he’d gotten in secret from his pupils. First get to an error screen. Fuck it, he thought, as he yanked out the red cable.
“You know… when I still had people to discuss this with, we had decided not to randomly yank out cables from a machine we knew nothing about.”
“Welcome to my world brat.” Hiroki groaned as he examined the screen. No change. He put the red one back in, then pulled out the green. The lights in the whole room shut off.
“Good job.”
“Shut up” Hiroki snapped, using the limited light from the computer to plug the red wire back in. He pulled out the black wire. The screen flickered, then all of a sudden an error screen appeared.
“Great.” Hiroki leant towards the screen “No what do I do next..?”
“Um Hiro-san…”
“Just a second.”
“Hiro-san turn around”
“I said wait I think I have an idea.”
“HIRO-SAN”
“WHAT?”
Nowaki was staring, mouth agape, at Hiroki’s body. Frowning, he looked down to see what the problem was. He stifled a gasp. His teacher’s clothes were gone, replaced instead by a set of pale blue button down pajamas which were a few sizes too big and smelt like antiseptic. More startling however, was the blood which was beginning to seep from what looked like tears on his wrists.
“N-Nowaki what the hell?”
“I don’t know this has never happened before.”
“What do I do?”
“I don’t know plug in the black wire?” Hiroki scrambled to the back of the computer and shoved the wire back in. A sharp pain shot up his arm, making him gasp and clutch his limb. Nowaki rushed to his side and pulled him up, away from the computer. The screen was back on the password page, waiting for them to try again.
“Let’s get out of here.” Hiroki stuttered, trying to stop the blood flow with his hands. “We can try again… again later…” Hiroki’s body suddenly began to feel heavy, almost like he’d been drugged.
“Hiro-san!?” Nowaki cried out in alarm as he felt the shorter man slump against him.
“Nowaki I can’t stand, my body feels so heavy…” Nowaki scooped him into his arms and carried him hurriedly away from the edge of the walkway and the computer.
“Keep your eyes open Hiro-san, keep looking at me.” For some reason, Hiroki just couldn’t go along with Nowaki’s plan this time. Hiroki closed his eyes and let his exhaustion overtake him.
~~~
When Hiroi finally awoke, it was to the sound of a clinical beeping and the feeling of a hand holding his own. He pried his eyes open to observe his surroundings. He was lying in what seemed to be a hospital room, albeit rather bare, with a heart moniter and IV hooked up to his arm. The gashes, had been bandaged up too. Hiroki’s eyes trailed over to the man sitting next to him. Nowaki looked at him, relief in his expression
“You’re awake.”
“Yeah…” Hiroki said as he tried to sit up, the movement sent a wave of dizziness over him, and he almost lost his balance.
“Woah woah woah take it easy, sit up slowly.” Nowaki helped him into a sitting position, propping pillows behind him. Hiroki lifted his bandaged arm to his face so he could examine it; a faint pinkish stain told him that the cuts were real. He looked over at the doctor
“What happened down there?”
Nowaki looked at a loss
“I…I don’t know, honestly. I couldn’t say anything and be 100% certain.” He took a seat at the foot of the bed “Although I do have one theory.”
“Go on?”
“Hiro-san, when you entered the game, were you in a public place?”
“Yeah, my school.”
“That makes sense… that makes so much sense!” Nowaki leapt up suddenly pacing around the room, mumbling too quiet for Hiroki to hear
“hey hey, what makes sense?” Nowaki looked over at him, a spark in his grey eyes
“You’re in a coma.”
“I’m in a what?”
“Those pajamas you’re wearing, they’re hospital clothes. The tears on your arm too are exactly where an IV drip would connect.”
“But I’m here? How can I be in a coma?”
“Hiro-san, what if it’s only your consciousness which is here, and your body is still in the real world?”
Hiroki opened his mouth to protest but shut it almost immediately. It wasn’t… impossible. In fact, it almost made sense.
“What about you?”
Nowaki took a little longer to reply than previously. Then, in a matter of fact voice he said
“I’ve probably been abducted then.”
“What the hell?”
“I say I, I mean we… The VR console must have been a trap to lure us in here. The fact that I’m still here makes me think that whoever is running this thing is keeping our bodies alive for some reason… I can’t imagine what though.”
“But… If I’m not here, then how am I wearing hospital clothes? How do I have injuries from the real world?”
Nowaki’s grin returned
“I think you triggered something, when pulling out those wires, you managed, however briefly to reconnect with the outside world. And your… character, updated.”
Hiroki looked down at his clothes and suddenly a though rushed into his head. Of course he was in hospital. Because way back in the beginning, when he tried to power down the computer with ‘Marukawa Knights: the quest’ on it, he felt the wind get knocked out of him, as though his brain had been knocked out of his body. And as though his brain had been knocked out of his body, he watched himself fall to the ground in third person. He saw his own body fall next to two smaller figures he hadn’t seen upon entering the room. He couldn’t register who they were before he had blinked into a world of zeroes and ones. He felt a hand on his shoulder, rousing him from the memory.
“Hiro-san what happened?”
“I remember… I remember how I got here. Before it was just binary and then I opened my eyes in the zombie game. Now I remember. You’re right, you’re 100% right our bodies are still in the real world.”
“If you remembered that from only touching the wires…”
“…Then maybe we could find one of the former tech employees and bring them to the settings? If they get their memories back like I did, then we might have a way out after all!”
Nowaki was practically glowing with a relief he hadn’t felt in years. Hiroki could see an invisible weight lift off his shoulders at the thought of finally being a step closer to escaping. Overcome with emotion, it seemed, Nowaki pulled Hiroki into a tight hug
“I can’t believe we managed this much… in only a few days.” Hiroki felt a smile tug onto his lips
“We make a good team I suppose” Nowaki pulled back and looked at him happily
“You think so?” Hiroki averted his eyes, ignoring the blush which was creeping up his cheeks
“Yeah”
He felt a hand caress his cheek and lift his head so his face was only inches away from Nowaki’s. His thumb was rubbing circles into the smooth flesh. Hiroki’s eyes flickered down to his lips then back up to his eyes. The younger man smiled and closed the distance between them only briefly. The kiss was quick but reassuring, just enough to let Hiroki know that the promise of something later was definitely on the cards.
“We should get back to the sims, I bet you don’t want to walk around everywhere in Pajamas.”
“Good plan.”
“Can you stand?” Nowaki stepped away from the bed to give Hiroki space. After a few cautious steps with only a little support from Nowaki, he was surprised to see that he felt almost entirely back to normal. Together with the doctor he walked through the hospital which Nowaki informed him was
“Hospital Simulator 2000”
“I’ve never heard of it”
“Well it was sent to my hospital on a trial basis, it never really took off though”
“I wonder why..” Hiroki replied sarcastically
“I liked it!”
“Of course you did.”
Nowaki led him to a cupboard which had been marked with a panda. With Nowaki holding Hiroki only a little tighter than usual, they ran through the door.
As they ran through the matrix filled with zeroes and ones, something caught his eye. He turned to see a spec growing larger in his peripheral vision. As it came closer, he realized that it was a person. A person who, apparently knew who he was as it shouted out to him as they passed
“Kamijoh-sensei!?” The voice was instantly familiar as one of the students from his class.
He opened his mouth and called out
“Takahashi?” but the boy disappeared before the word even left his lips. He felt his feet connect with the ground not a moment later. He whirled around to Nowaki, who’s eyes were as wide as his own.
“There is no way one of my students is in the game.”