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Releasing a breath of relief, I left my bike inside the enclosed dark space known as our garage. With a simple glance around my surroundings, I noticed a bunch of tools hung up on walls and lying on tables. Some were even left on the floor. Various pieces of sawed lumber loitered around. Most of the time, they took refuge in the back corner at an upright position. I couldn't see much of anything else with what little light had been seeping through. Still, it was easy to tell that things were quite a mess in here.

Escaping the confines of the garage, I returned outside and headed for the front door. Slipping the keys out of my front pocket, I stared at them for a good while. They were identical for the most part, but give it a few months and you're bound to pick the right one. After all, I never changed the order they were in.

Separating the right one, I brought it up to the keyhole and inserted it inside. After a simple rotation, I was free to move the doorknob. Once doing so, I applied pressure and pushed the door open.

I was now in the safety and comfort of my own home. But that wasn't exactly a good thing. The silence that welcomed me inside was disturbing in a way. In fact, it felt as if silence itself poisoned the air I breathed. The poison wasn't deadly though. It just brought about a bothering aura of negativity and uneasiness.

Who knows? Maybe some would even consider that worse than death, given you lived in such a state long enough.

I tried to brush it off by shaking my head. After locking the door behind me, I immediately made my way to the nearby set of stairs. I heard my feet make a somewhat loud bump each time they climbed up a step. It wasn't long before they came to an end. At that point, I was already only a few steps away from my room.

Kicking my slow steps into a brisk walk, I approached the door to my room and opened it. I moved inside and closed that door behind me with only one thing in mind. My escape from the unnerving seclusion.

I dropped my bag near my bed in the corner and headed towards that escape. I grabbed a controller and pressed a button that sat in the middle of it. Afterward, I heard a soft but noticeable beep coming from the system nearby. Then, I grabbed the remote for the TV off the desk and turned it on. From there, I sat down on a cozy beanbag on top of the carpeted floor and stared up at the ceiling.

The reason it had been so quiet was that no one was home. I didn't have a big family, to begin with. My circle of family consisted of four members, including myself. At this point, there were only three. My sister had actually moved out not that long ago for university, leaving my mom, dad, and me in the meantime.

I wasn't sure whether she was living in an apartment or staying at the dorms. But there were times when I wondered if her place was as still, lonely, and quiet as this. She was always the social and talkative type, so I imagined it wasn't.

As for my mom and dad, I assumed they were probably out having dinner somewhere. It was Friday, so my guess wasn't too far-fetched. Even if they were home, I couldn't see this sense of loneliness exactly being lifted off my shoulders.

I was never too close to them, and it was hard to tell if it was my fault. It's not like they were strangers or anything. It's just that I usually stayed in my room when there wasn't anything I had to do for the house. I didn't find myself having lively conversations with them most of the time. We usually didn't even eat breakfast, lunch, or dinner together either. You know, the kind of things you'd see families doing on TV.

I had to admit that they were still the people I was closest to when it came to relationships. Kind of ironic, huh?

It wasn't as bad as this a few months back. Thanks to Chasing_Faith, I was able to tolerate it a lot more. Going out for some coffee or shopping alone wasn't bad either. After all, I was always able to text or call her, so that was a plus.

Remembering about her, I slipped my hand into my pocket and pulled out my phone. I noticed the percentage of the battery at the top right corner and found it to be fairly high. I moved on to my messages and looked at the conversation history I had with the last person I talked to. There, I reread the last message she had sent me.

I just got home, and I’m glad it’s winter break… I really need one… Can you get online?

I really need one.

It was that line that seemed to hit me pretty hard. Due to the absence of her usual emotes, I couldn't help but think that she had gone through some kind of bad day. I stared at my phone screen for a good while and thought for a bit.

Should I ask her about it? Or would that be too nosy?

I just wanted to be a good friend…and I guess I cared about her to an extent too. We only had an electronic connection, but I couldn’t help but consider her an essential part of my life.

Thinking this, I began to imagine my days with her had I known her in person. From what I knew, she was always this kind of girly girl. She definitely seemed like someone who could brighten your day. Anytime I had been going through hurdles, such as an exam or intensive physical labor, she'd cheer me on. Even if it was just a short call or a simple text.

Like Naomi, there was something especially about her that made me want to get to know her more. Unlike Naomi, doing just that wasn't exactly possible. As said before, we only knew each other through electronic means. And, that's the way it seemed things were going to stay.

I couldn't understand it all. On one hand, there was one girl I felt I could really get along with, but she was stuck behind a television screen. On the other, there was a girl I was able to somewhat relate to, but her skin was rock hard. Getting underneath that cold exterior was something I still questioned the possibility of.

Just as I felt a heavy sigh coming on, I heard a sudden notification ring from the TV in front of me. Something had popped up on my screen, and I turned my head to see what it was.

It was an invitation from Chasing_Faith. She had invited me to an online private session on the game we used VR to chat in.

I grabbed my controller and accepted it. Immediately after, I strapped on the required headset as the connection formed.

After waiting for a rotating cursor to stop moving, my complete surroundings morphed. I heard the distinct sound of an ocean. I took a look around and found that I had been on some kind of ship. From what I was able to see, the ship looked like one of the ones you'd see on a cruise ad. But I wasn't given the chance to fully explore as someone greeted me as soon as I had loaded in.

“Hi.” Her avatar raised her hand and returned a light wave.

I observed the blue-haired girl with cutesy pigtails in front of me. Her wardrobe hadn't changed much from the last time we met here. Stylish headphones hung around her neck above her sleeveless dark blue hoodie. Black spats hugged her thighs, reaching just before the midpoint towards her knees. Following the rest of her legs, I caught sight of the dark high-knee socks she wore. Finally, her canvas shoes blended well with the overall color of the outfit.

“Hey,” I answered. “What’s up?”

“Nothing really,” she responded before returning a depressive sigh. She then went on to turn her head away from me and plant a gaze over to the endless ocean beside her. “I don't think you want to hang around and just talk about me the entire time.”

“I don’t mind.”

“Mmm,” she mumbled a little. Her hands pulled away from my sight until they hid behind her back. “I just had a bad day today…”

So, I was right?

“A bad day?” I repeated. “It's the last day of school for you, right? What's so bad about that?”

“Well…” she paused and then turned around. The hands she had been holding behind her back revealed themselves to me. “Believe it or not, but things didn't go as smoothly as I had hoped…”

She took a slow walk towards one of the private cabins inside the already empty ship. I followed her inside before I decided to continue with the topic on hand.

“What happened?” I asked, feeling my voice take an earnest tone.

There was a moment of silence.

“I made a mistake…”

“Mistake…?

“It was so stupid…" Inside the cabin, she fell onto one of the beds by the window. "I can’t believe I thought it would ever happen. I’m so dumb.”

There were times when she tended to blame herself for stupid things in a playful manner. Simple things like forgetting that she had homework to do or leaving the light in her kitchen on. This time, it sounded like she had been completely genuine about it. I couldn't help but worry that something much more serious might've happened. Something I couldn't really imagine.

“What?” I asked. “What is it?”

“N-nothing…” She sat up on the bed and proceeded to sweep it all under a rug. “Forget about it. I…don’t really want to talk about it… I just want to…distract myself.”

"Well, I’m here if you do," I offered. "I don't know what happened, but if it's something serious, it might be better to get it off your chest."

"Mm." The tip of her fingers curled inwards until her hands nearly balled up into fists.

I didn't want to put any kind of pressure on her, so I decided to leave it alone for now.

“Sorry…” I apologized. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

There were a few seconds of stillness until I heard sniffling coming from her end. At that time, I forgot about the virtual scenery around me and focused on the girl in front of me. Her hands rose towards her face and soon covered the area around her eyes. It was only a matter of time before her avatar mimicked the facial expressions she was making in real life. It looked like she was trying to stop herself, but she was having a rough time trying to do that.

As she tried to get a hold of herself, she attempted to speak at the same time.

“Y-you know…” she said, her voice clearly on the edge of breaking. “I…” She then released a short sob. “I could really use a hug right now.” She expressed in a half-laughing half-crying voice.

My heart immediately dropped when I heard that.

“I…” I could both feel and hear my voice dial back onto a tone of empathy. “I’m sorry, Faith. I wish I could…” I paused for a moment to try to gather the right words to tell her. But, hearing her try to keep her sobs in distracted me from thinking with a clear mind. “Unfortunately, the most I can do is just be here to listen to you and keep you company, you know…? There's only so much VR can do.”

“Yeah… I know…” She sniffled between her words. “It sucks…”

“Yeah… It does…” I could only agree in response.

“I’m sorry.” I heard her headset fumble around, leaving me to imagine that she was wiping her real tears with her real arms. “I'm probably making things awkward. Forget about me. Are you still in the mood to do something together?”

“Hey, don't worry about it. I’m up for whatever you want to do, Faith,” I assured. “It’s all up to you.”

“Okay,” she replied and spent a moment to herself in brief silence. “Let's take a look around and see what we can do. If I’m just not feeling it anymore, I’ll let you know?”

“Yeah.” I nodded. “I just want you to know that I’m here to talk.”

The short and soft giggle that escaped from her eased the somewhat tense nerves I had been feeling.

“Thanks,” she expressed.

From whatever deep sadness she had been submerged in, her avatar raised her head and stretched out a warm smile.

We stuck around the ship we had been on and explored around a bit instead. I had guessed she wasn't in the mood to be around others she didn't know. So, we spent some time on our own messing with different parts of the ship. We came across simple games through our exploration, such as ping pong and bowling. We even found a section of the ship that housed different kinds of board games. Were cruise ships actually like this?

After what felt like a few hours had passed, we gathered at the top of the ship where several lounge chairs were. The troubled attitude she once wore seemed to be long gone. Instead, she continued to carry on the bits and pieces of conversation we had from earlier. They'd range from anime she had been watching recently and silly things she'd see from her side of the world.

To be honest, she'd even bring up topics only girls would normally ever care about.

"Oh my gosh. You know the worst part about staying in all the time?" she'd say with an excited yet slight tone of annoyance. "I recently just got these cute little boots that I've been dying to wear for winter. School's already out, and who knows what I'll be doing for winter break? Probably just spending it with you online, haha! Haah. Oh well, maybe I can wear them when I go back..."

I was sure that most guys weren't wired to find this kind of talk interesting to hear, but I didn't mind. Talking to her in the first place was good enough by itself. After all, she had some kind of talent for making any boring subject worth listening to.

In response, I'd laugh and even feel a bit sorry for her.

"Hey, I didn't even ask you, did I?" Her eyes shifted toward me as her hands stretched out behind her on the lounge chair. "Do you have any plans for winter break? Maybe your family has somewhere they want to go?"

"Doubt it," I responded almost immediately. "Knowing them, I'm sure they'll just be sticking around home. At most, we might go out to eat or something. That's about it."

"Heh. I guess we're in the same boat, but it doesn't matter! We can have our vacation right here!" she assured with an enthusiastic wink of her eye. Afterward, her head made an unexpected turn in the other direction. "Oh! I think my mom just got home! You know what that means? Dinner time! Ohh and maybe some hot cocoa!"

"Man, I haven't eaten since lunch at school," I answered, feeling a little jealous. "Guess I'll just take a look around the fridge for myself. If I'm feeling picky, I can always go out and get some fast food or something."

"Too bad technology hasn't advanced to the point where we can share our real food over the internet huh?" she teased as she playfully slipped her tongue out at me. "That'd be totes amazing. Guess it'll only be a dream."

"Yeah, whatever. Go and get your dinner."

"I'll be back online later tonight, okay? See you then!" She lifted her hands and returned a piece sign with each.

Within a matter of seconds, her avatar disappeared shortly afterward. As for me, I logged off as well and removed my headset.

Returning to the real world, I left my room and headed downstairs. Taking a gander out the front window, I noticed a car parked out in the driveway. I figured my parents had come back home at some point during my time with Chasing_Faith.

I guess I didn't hear them come in.

In that case...I might just have some dinner after all.

I made my way to the fridge and took a swift look around. There, tied in a plastic bag, I found a few boxes. I pulled out the bag and placed it on the kitchen counter. After searching through the bag, I found that they had been leftovers from wherever they had been.

I released a light sigh.

It was better than nothing, I guess.

That night, after feeling my body bury itself within the comfort of my bed and fluffed-up pillows, I was ready to pass out. I was already getting a few deep winks of sleep until a sudden yet soft vibration snapped me out of it.

I heard a bundle of groans slip underneath my breath, but I had no means to budge. The buzzing didn't stop, and it seemed it had no intention to. At some point, I finally opened my eyes in response.

My vision was a bit blurry at first, but I was able to see a light flashing from the phone on the nightstand. The continuous rattling of my phone was starting to get under my skin. With a heavy yet tired sigh, I turned my body as much as I could to reach for the phone.

Who the hell was calling me at a time like this?

I lifted the screen of my phone and took a look. It took quite a long moment for my eyes to adjust to the light coming from the screen. When they did, those same eyes almost popped out of their sockets. I was getting a call from Chasing_Faith, and I didn't bother taking up any more time to answer it.

“Hello?” I spoke.

“Hey…” I heard her return.

The way she answered made me feel a little worried. It was in the middle of the night, so I couldn't expect her to be all chirpy. At the same time, she sounded like something had been bothering her. After all, that could've been the reason why she called me so late.

“What’s up…?” I asked her.

“Sorry…did I wake you?” she apologized.

“Well…kind of.” I tried to brush it off with a little chuckle. “But, don’t worry about it. What’s going on?”

“I'm having a hard time getting some sleep…” she admitted. “I can't stop thinking about what happened today…”

“Oh…” I was at a loss for words. She didn't want to talk about it when we were online earlier today. I didn't know what else she might've wanted to hear. “I’m sorry… I don’t know what to say.”

“It’s okay,” she assured. “I think I just need someone to talk to for a bit.”

“Yeah, sure.” That was a favor I was able to fulfill. “Anything you want to get off your mind?”

She returned a light sigh. Then, I began hearing some kind of ruffling in the background. It was almost as if she had been moving the sheets of her bed.

“Besides wanting to completely wipe my memory of school today? I don’t know. I guess I was just looking to distract myself long enough until I fell asleep.”

“Hm.” I thought to myself for a while. “Well, we can talk for a bit like we were doing earlier. Tell me about anything else. Maybe think about things that make you happy? What's something you wish you could do right now? Something that immediately brings a smile to your face.”

“Hm…” she pondered on her end. Then, she reacted with an unexpected giggle.

“What?” I asked, curious to know what came to her mind.

“Well…” she began. “I couldn't help but remember what you told me earlier. I hope this doesn’t sound weird. I kind of thought how awesome it would be to have breakfast together in the morning. It'd be a win-win situation for the two of us. You get to eat, and I get to have someone to chat to, hehe.”

“Oh, really?” That had caught me off guard.

“Hehe, yeah.” She sounded a little embarrassed about it. “Well, who knows? Maybe we'll be able to do something like that sometime in the future."

I found myself laughing at her optimism.

"I think it's going to be a while before we can actually share our food online, Faith."

"Well...I'm not just talking about eating online..."

My heart stopped for a second after hearing that particular sentence from her.

"What do you mean?" I couldn't help but ask.

"You know..." She paused with her words as if she was fidgeting with them. "Maybe when we're a little more grown up, we can actually, I don't know, meet up for once?"

I didn't know why, but my heart almost ceased to be completely from listening to that. I made sure to replay her words in my mind before responding to them.

"What? You mean...actually meeting up in real life?"

"Too weird?"

"N-No! Well, it's just that I never actually considered meeting up with someone that I only knew online."

"Think about it. We'd be awesome friends, wouldn't we? Why wouldn't we get along IRL? After all, I'd totes be down to share some of my food with you!"

"Yeah, I get what you mean. The thing is, I've heard horror stories that come from people meeting up with others like that."

"Oh, come on. You think I'm some crazy middle-aged woman out to kidnap unsuspecting teenagers?"

"N-No... But you have to admit, we don't even know what each other looks like."

There was a sudden silence coming from her end.

"...what if I sent you a picture then?"

"H-Huh?!" I nearly fell out of bed.

"Yeah. And you can send me one too."

"H-Hold on." I sat up on my bed and gripped the base of my phone with both of my hands now. "Where the hell is this coming from?"

"Hehe." She found my reaction funny to hear. "What? You have something to hide?"

"Of course not. It's just..."

"It's fine." She said, putting my speeding train of thought to a stop. "I actually don't even know where I was going that. We were just talking about the possibility of meeting up in the future. Still, I think you're an awesome friend, and I don't see why we wouldn't get along if we met up. I get it. We don't even know what each other's faces look like. To tell you the truth, I'm a little scared to send you a picture. It's not that I don't trust you. It's just...I personally need to get some feelings of mine sorted out. It might just be a girl thing. I don't know. But I want to make a promise to you. Some day down the line, I'll send you a pic of me, even if it's not until we're more grown up. If what we have is real, then I can't pass up the chance of meeting you in person, should I get that chance."

I had listened to every word she told me. The picture she painted was nice, but was it something that could actually happen? Knowing my luck, I was afraid of the exact opposite happening. I wasn't sure what to say at that point. My mind felt blank.

"...did I go too far there?" I heard her ask.

I shook my head, despite her being unable to see it. "No. Not at all. I think it's a great idea too."

"Don't forget that if I send you one, you have to send me one too!"

"Y-yeah..." I answered in a soft tone. It was hard to tell why I felt so hesitant.

Was it fear or embarrassment?

“Hehe," I heard her giggle. "I should probably let you get back to sleep now. You sound really tired.”

She was probably right. I hadn't been thinking straight since I had been woken up from the middle of my sleep, after all.

"We can keep talking tomorrow if you want. What about you? You feeling better?"

"Mm-hm," I heard. "You've got a way of taking my mind off things. Plus, it feels like I've got something to look forward to now, hehe. Let's totes talk tomorrow, kay?"

“You bet,” I promised.

“Kay! Good niiiight,” she sang before she hung up.

I turned off the screen of my phone afterward and placed it back down on the nightstand. From there, I stared up towards the ceiling and found an active train of thought running through my mind.

She called me to try to get some sleep. Now, in an ironic turn of events, I felt too troubled to sleep. I couldn't escape the thoughts that were constantly popping in my head.

There was no doubt that the girl I knew was an amazing person. But, what if, for some reason, things turn out differently should we end up meeting in real life? To be honest, it felt like a gamble.

Hanging out with a person that you especially got along with face-to-face was a better deal. But, at the same time, losing that bond with that person for whatever reason made the pain of it so much worse.

I didn't want to go through something like that again.