Packing was the thing Rikyu hated most.

And yet he was so good at it. He should have been used to it by now. His uncle did it almost every year from when he was an infant to a toddler. And then when he learned the art of packing by the age of five, he did it by himself for the next several years until he finally packed for college and was there ever since.

Fortunately, the bag was small - it was a weekend bag he had just bought last week with his limited savings from the convenience store job he worked at.

When was the last time he had even been out camping? Maybe 10 years ago? When was the last time he'd even been out in nature? Maybe 15 years ago when he lived in the countryside with his uncle...

He was startled into reality when his phone rang. It was his uncle.

He hesitantly picked it up. Then answered. "Hello?"

The voice on the other side, somewhat similar to his but a little more husky-sounding, spoke calmly. However, Rikyu looked tenser than his usual stiff demeanor.

'Rikyu. Thank you for answering. I need you to check your emails as soon as possible. The bill for your knee surgery needs to be resolved by next week Friday at the latest.'

Straight to the point as usual.

"Yes... I understand. I already read the email -" Rikyu said as though he was about to continue, but thought better of it.

'Good. I am glad to hear. And how is your job? You have been saving?'

"Of course."

There was a long pause.

'What are you doing this weekend?'

"Oh, um, just studying. Not much different from usual."

'I see. And... how are you doing in general?'

Rikyu almost wanted to tell him that he went to a club and drank, then chewed out someone who was yelling in a restaurant some days later, but promptly stopped himself. Instead, he went with, "I'm okay. Not much has changed."

There was another pause, then Uncle said, 'well then, please stay in good health. I'll talk to you later.'

"Mmh. You as well. Later."

They hung up promptly. Rikyu placed down his phone on his desk. Lifted his glasses and rubbed his light brown eyes one at a time. Then he plopped down on his chair and stared at the rest of the stuff he had to pack. All he wanted to do was play ZERXO, but it was already 23:00, and tomorrow he had his job at 06:00.

However, he figured he'd at least open his game messages before turning off the computer.

Not much had changed except for one message from Crobo. It had a photo of a glitched out cat and words after it saying, "if you stand in the right spot and pet the cat enough, it can give you good loot! You should get it before they fix the bug >~<"

"Ahh screw it," Rikyu launched the game and turned his chair to face fully forward.

Immediately when he arrived in the main square of the town, Crobo came to meet him and said, "YOU! ABOMINATION!" Crobo was a Mech with a robot body, a screen for a face, and they had lots of useless looking wires attached to them. Whether or not they were a boy or a girl, Rikyu didn't actually know but also didn't really care since he was used to the nature of MMOs. They were just a cool robot friend they could hit the dungeons with as far as he was concerned.

Von Bane spammed the freaked-out emote.

"Jayyy-kaayyyy." Crobo did a wink emote. "Although it IS kind of an ABOMINATION you haven't been on in a few days. The guild was even thinking of kicking you at some point!"

"Wait... what?"

"OK OK I'm sorry, I know I promised to stop joking like this or it's gonna turn into a 'boi who cried woof' situation but it's so hard, I can't help it!"

"So... it was a joke. And also, you mean 'wolf,' right?"

"Yup. Yup to both."

Von Bane stood there silent for a long time. Crobo began to run in circles around him. "B-Ban? Banny-wan? Ban-chan? Are you angry?"

Finally, Von Bane made the laugh emote. "Pfft. I was actually worried there for a second, but as long as it was a joke..."

"Oh my god yeah it was a joke! It was a really bad one! I'm so sorry!!!" Crobo fell to the floor and it looked as though a ghost came out of them.

"It's okay. So where is this loot cat?"

At the exact same time, Crobo said: "So why are you up so late??"

Rikyu hesitated on the other side of the computer. He never knew which conversation to continue when he typed something at the same time as someone else with a different subject.

However, Crobo seemed to be waiting for his answer, which was slightly unusual since they never really talked about their personal lives beyond just vague statements.

Vone Bane finally said, "Ah. Well, just packing for a small trip this weekend. Have to do it tonight since there's work tomorrow."

"Gotcha!" Crobo replied. "And actually, that's pretty wild since I also have a trip. Nowhere special, though! Just to a prefecture nearby with some friends."

"That's cool."

And so the conversation was left at that.

Crobo finally showed Von Bane where the glitchy cat was and Von Bane got some surprisingly good loot. However, it didn't stop there. The two of them ended up scouting a nearby dungeon since 00:00 was the time when monsters would become "chaotic" and thus dropped more loot and experience points. At 01:00 was when fishing prizes went up in quality.

By the time they were finished, it was 02:00, and Rikyu absolutely hated himself.

When they were back at the town in the main square, Crobo suddenly said, "WOAH NO WAY, DIDN'T YOU SAY YOU HAVE WORK BAN-CHAN? I'm so sorry I kept you up so late." They hit the crying emote over and over again.

"No, no, don't worry about it! It was definitely partially my fault..."

"Alright, well next time I'll make sure you DON'T agree to my offers when we both know you should be a responsible human being and go to bed on time, heheh." Crobo winked. "Anyways, I'm off!" And with that, Crobo poofed out of the game.

Von Bane soon followed.

When Rikyu shut down his computer, he groaned and mumbled; "Why the hell I'm I becoming out of control these days?"

He immediately took off his clothes except for his boxers, then hopped into bed. He forgot to take his glasses off before falling asleep.