1 Mom will be sad

In a dimly lit room, a man sat in front of the monitor, a thoughtful expression showing on his face. The screen showed an MMORPG's character selection window with three different characters.

Satori. Level 100 Sacred Priestess. Elf female.

Tirania. Level 100 Elemental Witch. Dark elf female.

Meteoria. Level 89 Arcane Sage. Human female.

It was long past midnight and Orihara Satoru has been sitting like that for 10 minutes.

'Should I start a new character or keep leveling Meteoria?'.

This was the question of today's night. A new character allowed him to experience a lot of new things, and that's what he really wanted. But he already played all the magic classes. For him, non-magical classes were no good at all, especially close-range fighters. That's why it is difficult for him to make a choice.

After spending 10 more minutes at this game's wiki he finally made another female character.

'I've never thought about it, but I can build a Monk into a ranged DPS caster. I hate melee fighters, but it's just for the first 30-40 levels, then I'm gonna go wild!'

And so, his journey began. Occasionally giggling and constantly smiling like a kid, 33 y.o. Orihara Satoru was fully engrossed in his adventure. It was already bright outside when an exhausted but absolutely happy body fell on the bed to grab at least 3 hours of sleep before going to work.

-

"'Sup, Satoru-swan! How is it going? You look great, full of energy, eyes sparkle with vigor!"

"Yes-yes, you look like corpse too, Ryota. Go die."

"Kyaaa, so harsh! Where did I let you down, my dear fellow?"

Sitting at their company's coffee break area on the next day, two colleagues were having a small talk.

Matsuda Ryota, 36, employed, married, 1 kid. Together with Satoru they made two projects and then were assigned to different teams.

"So, pray tell, Orihara-san, why do you look like you always do?"

"Well, nothing new. Surprising, right? My deadline was last week, but thanks to other game designers there was almost a week's worth of unfinished or unfixed work again. So I went to Nomura and got another week. And guess what? They didn't make it on time again!"

Like a true man of culture, Ryota started sipping coffee with his pinky extended. 'I'm sure that right now in this cup he imagines my tears instead of coffee.'

"So we stayed up late together with Mirai-chan, fixing the shit out of this build. If it were not for her, I'm not sure I would have been able to fix everything."

"Are you retarded or what? You've been working together for how long, 3 years? And I know you two are really close with each other! You should start dating her. I know she is 3D and all, but c'mon, what are you waiting for!?"

"I'm not sure, man." Satoru thought for a moment. "I mean, she is hella cute and smart and funny and all that, but what if she doesn't want anything now? What if I ruin everything making a move?"

"Stop whining, you punk! I'm not asking you to get in the fucking robot! Just do it!" Ryota even made an appropriate move to supplement the last sentence.

-

After gossiping for a while, they both went to their respective teams' offices. On the way to his place, Satoru caught a glimpse of a familiar girl returning to her desk.

'Kanbara Mirai, 29 years old, quite short, peach bob haircut, giant red glasses, godlike smile.' Thinking about his colleague, Satoru recalled today's topic with Ryota, and his heart started to beat a little faster. When he returned to the desk, an unread message awaited him.

'PM booked a few tables at S-Blend for the upper members of the team. Are you going?' A message for Kanbara has been waiting for him for half an hour. Satoru replied:

'You know that I hate drinking. Guess I don't have a choice anyway. Who's invited? Are you going?'

'From our game design team, it's Orihara-san, Tadano-san (who is sick #thankyouforleavingyourworkonus), and me. I'd like to grab a drink. What could be better than a drink on a Friday night? Freebie, yay! XD'

'By the way, thank you for your hard work! You were such a big help yesterday! If not for you, I would have been X_X'

'F.'

Satoru heard a short laugh coming from Kanbara's desk and imagined her smiling. After resolving to something and nodding to himself, he then replied.

'Okay, let's have a blast tonight, gotta show them who's doing all the hard work here!'

-

After finishing their work a few hours later, around twenty people from the upper echelons of the team went to a popular maid café S-Blend to celebrate another development milestone completion. They have been working on this game for two years now.

"Being a Lead game designer, Satoru-san is expected to attend events like this one quite often. Must be niiice~" Kanbara Mirai was already a little drunk when she started whispering to Satoru's ear.

'Her breath is so hot! But she reeks of beer!' Satoru quickly noted to himself, before replying in a low voice. "I don't like them though. I'm not a drinker and I generally dislike people who get drunk and then behave like asses."

But there were exceptions to his alcohol rule, one of them sitting by his side at the moment.

"Oi-oi, Satoru-san, so you don't like me, then? No way, my heart is broooken!" Said Mirai theatrically, downing another beer. Her face was already all flushed and eyes glittered wetly.

'Ohmygod, she is so cute!' Was Orihara's only thought, but he steeled himself to form a cohesive reply.

"Nah, Mirai-san is the best. She never dicks around even when drunk, and is super helpful and it's always nice and easy to be around her…"

His thought train departed and he no longer had any control over it. When it finally hit him what he actually said, he quickly glanced at Mirai. She looked at him for a moment and then quickly turned back to her beer, smiling thoughtfully.

-

"Wait a minute, Mirai-san, I'll hail a cab for you."

When Satoru made a step towards a road, he felt his sleeve being pulled from behind.

"For meee? Won't you make sure I get home safely?" Kanbara complained while holding his sleeve with both hands. Her face was sad and almost begged to yield.

"If you don't mind, I'll take you home, don't worry."

"Yay, victory!"

Mirai's joyful jumping reminded him of the Sagiri dance, so he chuckled and thought to himself 'My little kohai can't be this cute!'

On Friday midnight it was not hard to get a taxi, so less than a minute passed and they were already inside a car. Fresh cool air helped Kanbara to sober up a little. She gave a driver her address and thought deeply about something.

For a while, they rode in silence. Mirai was still deep in her thoughts and Satoru was feverishly skimming through possible conversational topics. After finally giving up and admitting his worthlessness he asked the driver to turn on a radio.

'..after that, he escaped on the same truck. Currently, the police are pursuing him. To this moment, more than ten vehicles were damaged, and several people injured. Police are asking people to stay away from the road while they are dealing with this person.'

"What was that again?" Mirai asked after being dragged out of her brooding state.

"Looks like a truck chase." Then an unexpected and interesting idea came into Satoru. "Maybe we should take a walk from here? Who do you think, Mirai-san?"

"Hmm..? Oh, yes! We totally should! I mean, I'm already too old to be isekaed by a truck-kun."

Satoru's laughter filled the car. After brushing away a tear he asked the driver to stop the car. To help her out of the car Satoru extended a hand, which she accepted and, after closing the door, made a small curtsy, smiling brightly.

"It's actually quite close to my house, I'll show the way."

For some time, they walked quietly. Passing the entrance to the playground, they both suddenly stopped.

"Mirai-san…"

"Satoru-san..."

They said in sync. Two seconds later a double "Please, continue!" occurred.

A momentary surprise was replaced by cheerful laughter. Resolving himself, Satoru spoke:

"I've been thinking about it for some time. And, you know, seeing how things are… "

He paused to gather his will for the final push. Mirai's intent gaze pierced him. Her face was red and she even slightly bit her lip.

"Would you like to dat…" Amidst the phrase, he was interrupted by an annoyed yelling.

"Oi, ya shits, the hell were ya laughing just now? Were ya making fun of us?!"

A man was moving towards them from the playground. He was rather tall and, while skinny, didn't look weak at all. While casually approaching the pair, he nonchalantly played with a butterfly knife. The second man followed him, and he was even taller. His head was covered by a yellow bandanna and there was a cigarette in his mouth. The first man stopped in front of Satoru, still spinning the knife, and stared at him.

The timing made this situation even more shocking and surreal, and Satoru was dumbfounded. After a moment he finally replied:

"Erm, no, we were not." His voice trembled a little, but his head was already working hard. Suddenly he was distracted from the predicament by a growing noise. 'Is this a police siren?'

"Cut that crap, I know you were, moron!" Satoru was quickly brought back to reality by another pointless insult.

Mirai nervously squeezed her purse with both hands. The smoking guy finally arrived and stood close to the first one, with both of them in front of Satoru. She made a step to be slightly behind him. Her legs were shaking.

"It's a misunderstanding. We were not laughing at you or anything, really." While Satoru made an excuse, the second guy smirked with a disgustingly wide grin on his face. He was clearly enjoying this situation.

"Huh?! The fuck are ya mumbling?" The first thug grabbed Satoru's jacket with his empty hand. "Ya still making fun of me? Want me to cut ya ugly face?!"

Suddenly Mirai pulled something out of her bag and aimed it at the guy. The next moment a pepper spray struck his face, spewing a terrible liquid into his eyes.

Uttering a terrible scream, he fell back, releasing a grip on Satoru's jacket. Covering his face with an empty hand, the first guy frantically swung his knife-holding hand, accidentally cutting his fellow's leg. Another scream followed.

Autopilot kicked in and without a second thought Satoru grabbed Mirai's hand and dashed away.

'It's a miracle that Mirai doesn't wear heels despite her height.' At the far corner of his mind, there was another Satoru, a calm critic with a distorted sense of humor.

On the other hand, Mirai's thoughts were a little bit different. 'OHMYGOD WHAT HAVE I DONE?! WHAT IF HE GOES BLIND?!' What if they catch us..?'

Quickly turning the corner of the building, they saw a police car parked in the middle of the narrow intersection. Both its lights and a siren were turned on, making a lot of noise.

It felt like a blessing, so without releasing hold of Mirai's hand, Satoru ran towards the car. Because of the siren, he no longer heard their own footsteps or shouts from thugs.

Stopping at the driver's door, he knocked on the window. There were two policemen inside the car and they both were shocked by a sudden Satoru appearance. At this distance the sirens wailing became unbearable.

Coming to his sense, the driver brushed them off with an irritated grimace. 'Why the heck is he angry? What's wrong?' Satoru was overwhelmed by the policeman's reaction. He knocked on the window again, at the same time trying to shout down the siren. The policeman waved again, even more angrily this time.

At that moment the second policeman's face changed, and he pointed in the direction behind Satoru, while screaming something. Turning around, he saw Mirai looking at him with a scared face.

He also saw two bright lights approaching them at an unbearable speed.

A moment later light filled everything. And then the world went dark.