Chapter Text

Hiro always knew it was going to be hard. From the first day he started realising he had feelings for this perfect, adorable, energetic girl he'd met on a chat site, how much he focused on protecting her when playing online games, how much he enjoyed spending time with her, how much he adored watching random videos with her... He knew it would be hard.

It had been a steady scale upwards from that first message they had shared. Neither of them had expected it to turn out like it did. A public room about some anime that had just recently come out, though he had always been on the shy side... Yet, there was a longing in him, watching her make posts, just the way she conveyed emotion through her text.

He didn't know what had pushed him over the edge, but he decided to throw a message towards her. It was a roleplay chat, so he decided to simply do the generic--"Walk over and ask how she's doing" approach. He could feel judgement flush through his face. She seemed pretty popular. Hell, he half expected her to straight up ignore him, but hey, worse that she could do is ignore him, right?

Then she responded back, and they continued from there.

Their friendship quickly grew from there and it was the happiest he had felt.. ever, really. Day after day, he'd try to sleep during the day, to wake up at night and spend time with her as soon as she woke up. They were in completely opposite timezones, he learned, but he'd make it work. He didn't want to inconvenience her, so he inconvenienced himself instead. It wasn't like he had anything to do during the day, anyway, save for being yelled at his parents to get out more and make more effort to get himself a job.

Oh well, he told himself. She made him happy, and each time he woke up, waiting for her to get on so they could nerd over anime more, she would be all he could focus on. Sure, he had some other responsibilities that he couldn't skip out on… Even as he played games with his other group of friends, though, some with mixed feelings of his new friend, he couldn't keep from sending her message when he could. His mind was always on her, like an infection that he happily would've let consume his body.

The very first "I love you" really hit him. He didn't realise how it happened, but after spending so much time together each and every day, all of a sudden it just.. Felt natural. When she said it back, his heart throbbed so hard against his chest he didn't know if it'd burst out or not. From then on, he made sure to say "I love you" every day that he could. Whether it be before they went to sleep or just over the tiniest thing, he wanted to assure her that he loved her, and assure himself because it truly didn't feel real sometimes.

They played games together when the feeling came to them, they roleplayed fantasies that they hoped to one day have, watched videos of silly things to pass the time. It was perfection, and he couldn't have been happier to dedicate every waking minute of his life to her when he could.

Of course, "waking" was an issue of that. He felt the pressure of his parents wanting him to spend more time off of his computer, but besides when she went off to work, the daytime was truly the only time he could sleep without missing her… Then his sleep schedule slowly started getting pushed around, and he started staying awake through the day after getting three hours of sleep in the morning, and passing out in the middle of spending time with her. He was a mess, honestly, but he was her mess.

Even as things came up, even when their anime had concluded and they started spending less time together, he knew he wanted to give her all the love possible. Real life had been a bump in her end, too, so it wasn't just his side of the world rocking the lover's boat. Sometimes he'd only see her for a couple of hours a day, but he always told himself that as long as he could speak to her at least once a day, he'd be the happiest man in the world.

He hoped she felt the same.

She was, and always would be, his everything.

"Hey Darling," he heard over the voicecall, and immediately his mood brightened after a long day of filling out job applications.

"Sakura," he called her name in a soft, adoring voice, staring at the adorable pink-haired icon she had that matched his icon of a black-haired guy.

The two characters in their icons were from the anime that had originally brought them together, and it meant everything to him. It was the reason why they had even gotten to know each other. If it weren't for it, he wouldn't have had the happiest past few months of his life.

Despite everything that might be terrible around him, she was his beacon, that beautiful accented voice saying, "How are you?"

Him responding with a, "I'm good now that I get to spend time with you," brought a laugh from her, and his heart started beating fast like it always did when that adorable sound came over his headset.

It was late, for her at least. Almost time for her to head to bed, and meanwhile he was just waking up. He was happy, though. They were going to watch some videos of a new anime that had just come out, and while he wasn't sure if he'd like the anime or not, he knew that he'd always adore the time he spent with her. It was becoming rarer and rarer by the day, but they'd make this work.

"Here's the link, my darling," she said, and he heard a notification come from his chat.

Without hesitation he clicked the link, waited for it to load, and then put it up on his main monitor while he slid the voicecall over to his second screen. It was all about her, he didn't need to tab out. He didn't need anything but her. "Ready, darling," he said, idly staring into that beautiful pink haired girl in her icon while he waited for the countdown.

"Three," she began, icon lighting up, "Two…" she then said, with a pause for anticipation, or perhaps she was moving her mouse to the play button, "One, go!" she finished in rapid succession, and he clicked down on the "play" button immediately as that excited command hit his ears.

They'd chat about the exciting parts of the anime, agree with each other about what they liked or what they noticed, joke about some of the characters. His heart, all the while, was covered in joy.

Sure, they might not do this every day.

Sometimes they may only get to talk a few hours each day.

He knew, though, that these few hours were the highlight of his day each day.

No one could take that from him.