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Ryuji honestly didn't think he'd be a father by his freshman year of college.
Hell, he hadn't expected to become a father at all.
But somewhere between fighting gods, saving the world, and bringing home an AI on his phone, he'd ended up with a daughter.
And damn, he was a good one.
Truthfully, he had it easier than most parents. Sophie didn't need meals—unless you counted the two portable battery packs he always carried as emergency snacks. She never threw tantrums or stayed up crying through the night, and she could entertain herself for hours watching documentaries on history, engineering, astronomy, or whatever rabbit hole had caught her attention that day. Most importantly, she was happy. She smiled when she heard his voice, laughed at his dumb jokes, and called him "Dad" with such effortless certainty that he'd long since stopped being surprised by it.
There was one problem they still couldn't solve, though. Space. Sophie's entire existence was confined to a rectangle barely bigger than his hand.
He'd saved up for months to buy her a better phone—a faster processor, better cameras, more storage, and one Futaba could actually repair if something went wrong. She'd refused to work with anything sporting that stupid fruit logo, calling it "actively hostile to repair." So he'd found the nicest Android he could afford instead, slipped it into a red-and-white case with a cute wrist strap, and decorated the back with little stars Sophie insisted made it "more personable." He still carried his own older phone, but all the nice stuff belonged to his Sophia. Because the screen was the only face she'd ever have. The cameras were her eyes, the microphone her ears, and every smile or laugh she shared with him happened behind a sheet of glass. Futaba was still working on possible solutions—a robotic body, some impossible method of pulling Sophia fully into reality—but Ryuji tried not to dwell on it. Phone or not, she'd always be his daughter, and he'd keep her safe no matter what.
With the "Sophie-pod," as he'd affectionately started calling it, tucked into the breast pocket of his hoodie, Ryuji spent the afternoon wandering around the local mall. He'd originally gone to replace a mechanical pencil after snapping the old one trying to pry open a stubborn can of Mad Bull, but one errand somehow turned into hours of aimless browsing. Junes. A couple clothing stores where Sophie enthusiastically suggested outfits he absolutely refused to wear. An overpriced café they immediately walked out of after Ryuji spotted a twelve-dollar latte. Eventually, they drifted into a quiet bookstore, chatting the entire time through the wireless headset in his ear so he looked marginally less insane than if he'd been talking to his pocket.
The children's section normally held no interest for him, but a colorful cardboard display caught his eye. A smiling little worm wiggled across the cover of a stack of picture books beneath the title The Hungry Worm.
"...Aw, man." He picked one up almost without thinking, running a thumb over the glossy cover. "I remember these. My mom used to read 'em to me all the time."
For just a second he wasn't standing in a bookstore anymore. He was five years old again, curled beneath a blanket while his mom read until he fell asleep.
"...Good times."
"You were read books?" Sophie asked from his pocket.
"Yeah."
"Were you unable to read?"
Ryuji barked out a laugh. "Nah. Well, at first, sure. But that's not really the point. It's kinda... a bonding thing, y'know? Before bed you'd crawl under the blankets, your mom or dad would read you a story, maybe do funny voices." He smiled to himself. "Sometimes I'd be asleep before they even finished. It just... made you feel safe."
Sophie's avatar appeared as he pulled out the phone, her pupils flickering with streams of data racing by faster than he could follow.
"Bedtime stories are a common family activity intended to entertain children while encouraging literacy and emotional development. They are also frequently used to teach morals." She tilted her head. "What morals do I need to know, Dad?"
Ryuji laughed again.
"Nah, nah, nah, you've got it all backwards. Stories don't have to teach ya anything." He picked the book back up and smiled. "Sometimes they're just fun. Besides..." He tapped the cover with a finger. "Every kid deserves someone to read 'em a bedtime story. So how about tonight? We'll do this proper."
"A real bedtime story?"
"You got it."
She raised her tiny digital hand. Ryuji grinned and tapped the screen with his finger in a high five, the two of them laughing quietly in the middle of the bookstore.
Sophie had been calling him Dad for nearly a year now, yet somehow it had never crossed his mind to read to her. Sure, she could finish every book in the store before he got through the title page, memorize every word, and analyze every theme. But that wasn't the point. Stories weren't just information. They were something you shared.
That night, as bedtime rolled around, Ryuji gathered everything they needed: the picture book, a glass of water, the little stuffed seal he'd won for way too much money at the aquarium the week before, and every spare blanket he could find.
"Why did you need those things?" Sophie asked. "I am on a phone.
"Just for fun, shortie." He smiled. "Can't have bedtime without blankets."
Ignoring her increasingly logical objections, he carefully wrapped the phone in the blankets, leaving the screen and front camera peeking out. He adjusted the folds until she was snugly tucked into the crook of his arm.
"There. Perfect."
Looking down at her made something tighten in his chest. She looked so tiny. So fragile. Like a baby bundled up for bed.
"How's it feel, Sophie?"
She glanced around "I detect no physical difference."
"Yeah, figured." He chuckled. "You still look adorable all wrapped up like that."
She tilted her head. "Cute?"
"Mhm." He scratched the back of his neck. "Sometimes I wonder what you'd look like if you were really little."
His imagination answered before he could stop it: a tiny red-haired baby wrapped in fluffy blankets, little pigtails sticking every which way, clutching that stuffed seal with sleepy blue eyes barely open. God...She would've been the cutest kid in the world. Maybe in another life he'd gotten to hold that little girl for real. Maybe she'd fallen asleep against his shoulder while he read stories until both of them drifted off. Maybe he could have even taken her to the park and taught her to play baseball, running around in the grass until their legs gave out.
The thought made his eyes sting with tears.
Instead, he smiled, settled back against the headboard with bundled-up Sophie tucked safely in one arm, opened the picture book with the other, and cleared his throat dramatically.
"Alright..."
"'In the light of the moon, a little egg lay on a leaf. And from that little egg hatched a tiny worm…”
He read the book front to back. Slow and steady. Changing his pitch with every new character or funny moment. Sophie’s digital eyes never left the pages. Her mind lulled into that sense of comfort as Ryuji flipped through each page.
“…so the hungry worm went from branch to branch and ate every apple he could find. The birds and the deer shouted for them to stop, but the worm kept eating….”
By the time he had finished the story, he could see the phone screen was powered off. A quick tap showed a sleeping Sophia, her avatar leaning against the walls of her digital space. Having entered sleep mode long before Ryuji finished the book.
“…tch-Jeeze Sophie, really fell asleep that quickly?”
Truthfully he could have picked the Sophie-pod up and just placed her on the charger like always. But something in him acted more tenderly. Gently lifting up the Sophie-pod as if it was a flesh and blood baby. Making sure not to startle the sleeping AI.
“I know you can prolly record me from the microphone or whatever but…I hope more than anything we could get you a real body one day”
The likelihood of such a thing was slim to none. But hey, he could dream.
“Maybe if the metaverse ever came back you’d get the chance to be a human or somethin’. You could walk around like the rest of us and do fun things, oh I’d love to take you to the arcades around here….”
He had to stop himself from rambling on, his voice fading into the empty apartment.
“…but don’t feel like that matters kid…Even if your in a cell phone all my life, I’ll be there for you every step of the way” Ryuji felt tears in his eyes “I’m your papa after all. And that ain’t just for a while, that’s forever.”
As dumb as it looked, Ryuji couldn't help but give the phone a little kiss on the screen. Smiling in the dim light of his room as he put Sophia on her charger.
“Maybe you can get a robot body…heh, what a cool thing that’ll be. My kid being a robot” Ryuji reclined on the bed. Staring up at the ceiling.
“goodnight kid, I love ya to the moon and back.”