simple. Far too simple to keep her mind from drifting away, thinking of what she should say to Akira and every possible way it could go wrong. Thankfully, Futaba was not without recourse--in particularly troubling times, whenever a video game wasn’t enough to take her mind off of things, she had developed a technique to keep her mind preoccupied: program the game she was playing in her head.

Old games like this were usually done in assembly code, right? Programming at the lowest level was always a daunting task. She reduced the images on the screen to values in her mind, loading and unloading their numbers as she blasted her way through pixelated space. How did they handle animations, she wondered. She assigned values to each pixel to representShadows. A face that knew the weight and responsibility behind his actions. However, the usual transformation into an arrogant smirk hadn’t happened. He merely wore a look of quiet resolution, which made his reply suprise her all the more. “Yes.”

The relief Futaba expected did not come. Emboldened by his answer, she pressed further, her voice nothing more than a breathy whisper. “I want to hear you say it.”

As she spoke, a weight seemed to disappear from his shoulders. A light flickered behind his eyes, and a small twist played upon his lips as he closed the distance between them until he was just a step away. He looked more like the Joker she knew. He spoke softly, as if his words were not meant for anyone else but