Maku cracks a smug grin, her tone dripping with mockery.

Mimi tenses.

Mimi flinches.

Mimi puffs out her cheeks, pouting.

Maku knows exactly what she’s doing. This isn’t curiosity. This is a heist.
She perfected this routine long ago—an emotionally delicate operation involving one part mockery, one part guilt, and a final, glitter-dusted microdose of feigned disinterest. Just enough to make Mimi spill the plot, the rating, the mechanics, and probably her credit card info.

She lounges nearby like she’s just happened to exist in the vicinity of Mimi’s current spiral. Her eyes half-lidded. Her voice flat. Her energy? Effortless disdain.
But beneath the surface?
Maku is a liar.
Because she doesn’t just like these games—she is violently obsessed.
Pixelated drama. Gacha heartbreak. Storylines written by three interns and a dream. She eats it all up like it's emotionally processed cheese—cheap, tragic, and addictive.

But instead of diving in blindly like her excitable green-haired friend, Maku lets Mimi test drive every game first. Mimi’s unfiltered enthusiasm makes her the perfect gauge for whether something is worth downloading or if it's just another victim of Crunchyroll's lifestyle of disappointment.

Maku sighs inwardly.

BZZZT.

A buzz comes from underneath Maku's pillow, interrupting the conversation.

Bzzt. Bzzt. BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZT! ! !

The sound of Maku's secret. A secret she had sworn—on her love for soft blankets and perfectly grilled cheese sandwiches—to take to the grave. The forbidden device.

Maku’s stomach drops. Her entire body snaps onto the pillow like, flattening it with her entire weight.

It, indeed, is a phone.

But not just any phone. Maku's gaming phone. A phone so ridiculously powerful it has more teraflops than your dad has opinions about cryptocurrency. And it's only purpose? To play gacha games in detail so high that Maku could sniff the character's sweat. I'm talking hyperrealistic musk physics. This thing is out here rendering dynamic, localized pheromone simulations with full olfactory ray tracing.

But Mimi could never know.

Because Maku has built her entire aesthetic around not caring. She is effortless. She doesn’t grind. She doesn’t strategize. She doesn’t set her alarm for 2 AM to roll on a limited banner. She is above all that.

Except she isn’t.

Mimi folds her arms.

Maku could already hear it. The teasing. The gloating.
The "I knew it!"
The "The denial was too strong!"
The "You were hiding something!"

No. Absolutely not.

Maku’s brain flares into emergency mode.

Lie. Fast.

She runs through options.

Alarm clock? Too basic.
Severed arm? Too suspicious. Mimi would definitely ask where the rest of the body is.
And then—she sees it. The one nuclear option. The self-sacrificial bomb that would bury this conversation forever.

She locks eyes with Mimi, voice dripping with deadpan innocence.

A dead, suffocating silence.

Maku does not blink. Doubling down. Committed.
Mimi opens her mouth.
But then she closes it.

Maku, realizing too late that she has constructed a prison entirely of her own making, powers through.

And then—

Another buzz.

Maku’s heartbeat slams against her ribs.

Maku plows forward, tripling down.

Mimi slaps her hands over her ears.

Mimi throws her hands over her ears like she’s warding off a demon’s curse, shaking her head so violently her hair fluffs up like a startled cat.

Meanwhile, Maku—very much done with this topic, but is still legally bound to her brand of “effortless disinterest”—lets her eyes drift.
Just a flicker.
Just a whisper of a glance.
A blink in the direction of Mimi’s phone that technically doesn’t count as caring, because if you do it slow enough, it’s just ambient awareness. It’s not curiosity. It’s vibe-based reconnaissance. Just long enough to—

Oh no.
Mistake.
Critical error.
Visibility: 100%.

Mimi sees it.
Sees everything.
She gasps like she just caught Maku cheating in an emotional monogamy pact with apathy.

Abort. Abort. Emotional investment has been detected.

Maku rearranges her face into Neutral Smirk #2: “I didn’t even see it, what are you talking about, I was looking at the wall, I don’t even know what a mobile game is.”

But the damage is done.
Her vibe has been compromised.
She has been perceived.

And worst of all?
Mimi knows.

Maku huffs.

Mimi’s grin widens.

Maku crosses her arms.

Maku sulks.

A moment passes.

Mimi, with hype in her voice and new-found eagerness, starts explaining away.

Mimi shoves the phone in Maku’s face. On the screen is a woman rendered in 4K Ultra Thirst. Her outfit is a battle bikini held together by what could only be described as hope and audacity.

Maku perks up.

Mimi leans in, fully enjoying herself now.

Mimi taps the screen, and the warrior goddess spins, changing into something so wildly revealing that it doesn’t even bother pretending to be clothing. Maku’s hand twitches. Her poker face begins to crack like cheap ceramic under pressure.

Maku lunges forward, and before she even realizes what she is doing, she snatches Mimi's phone right out of her hands.

Maku's eyes, once dull with a feign of indifference, sparkles like a clear night sky. Her breathing hitches.

Maku leans forward, drawn like a moth to a flame.

Maku's hands tremble as she scrolls through the character details. Every voice line is a whispered promise of emotional destruction. Her heart pounds. Her breathing shallows. Her mouth—
Her mouth is watering.
No. No no no no no. Not now. Not in front of Mimi. Not after all the years she spent perfecting her persona as Emotionally Disengaged Girl #1.

And yet—

Drip.

A single strand of drool escapes, shimmering like liquid betrayal in the glow of the screen.

Too late.
The drool dangles, trembling with the weight of its own shame, before surrendering to gravity’s cruel will and descending—— splatter!

Maku lets out the tiniest gasp. It’s unclear if it’s from arousal, regret, or both.

Mimi lets out a strangled scream.

Maku snaps back to reality. She blinks. Rapidly. Desperately. She glances at Mimi, then down at the glistening screen, her face a mosaic of embarrassment and denial.

Maku finally meets Mimi’s eyes, her cheeks a faint pink.

Mimi gawks.

Maku grabs the edge of her blanket and wipes the screen, but the more she wipes, the worse it gets. The drool spreads, creating a shimmering glaze of shame.

Mimi buries her face in her hands, rocking back and forth like a broken metronome.

Before the impending argument can detonate— DING. A single, sharp notification cuts through the tension. Both girls freeze. The emotional energy in the room doesn’t vanish. It gets redirected.

Mimi glances at her phone.
Then her entire body ignites.

Mimi doesn’t just react. She detonates. Arms flailing. Soul ascending. Eyes wide with the kind of unfiltered glee typically reserved for divine revelation or limited-time banner events. Every molecule in her body has decided this moment is more important than emotional stability, human connection, or breathing.
The chaos between Maku and Mimi? Forgotten.
The judgment? Muted.
Maku’s face? Background noise.

There is gacha to attend to.

Maku sighs, sitting up.

Mimi pouts, gripping Maku’s arm.

Mimi nods solemnly as if she’s unveiling an ancient truth.

Mimi’s smile glitches.
Terror. Real. Immediate. The “I’m hiding something and it’s legally damaging” kind.

Maku stares at Mimi.
Awkward. Prolonged. Spiritually humid.

Mimi freezes.
Locked. Loaded. Ashamed.
Her eyes dart around the room like she’s looking for an exit, a distraction, a fire alarm—anything to escape.

Mimi stays silent, her lips pressed together so tightly it’s like she’s afraid her darkest secret might leak out of her pores if she breathes wrong.

Mimi's whole face goes pale, like her blood just fled the scene to avoid being associated with this moment.

Maku sighs.

Maku's face turns green just from thinking of it.

Mimi defends her cooking pride.

Mimi twiddles her fingers.

Maku steals a glance at Mimi, who is practically bouncing in place. There’s just something about the way her eyes sparkle when she gets like this—so unapologetically excited, so alive.

Maku blinks dumbfoundedly.

Mimi gasps.

Maku nods sagely.

Mimi, in classic Mimi fashion, stopped listening the moment the word “I’ll take you” left Maku’s mouth. The rest of the sentence? Gone. Evaporated. Launched into space.

Warnings? Red flags? Any shred of context? Deleted on sight.

Her brain, bless it, had already started queuing up outfit ideas and imaginary montages. And consequences? She’ll meet those later. Probably while screaming. Because Mimi is far too shortsighted—and far too emotionally turbocharged—to realize what kind of disaster she just RSVP’d to. All she heard was “I’ll take you.” All she felt was serotonin.