Twas was another ordinary day in the city as Alex was currently having lunch with Mei and Bronya while Kiana listened in from a voice call on her moon base.
Moments like these were a little rare and few and far in-between with how busy Mei and Bronya were with their respective jobs.
As the group continued on with their conversation, Alex's mind wandered off as he scrolled through his phone to see what was happening in social media.
While doing so, he would hear bits and snippets of what the girls were talking about as Bronya sighed.
"Something wrong Bronya?" Asked Mei.
"Project Bunny broke apart a couple of days ago." She said.
"Hm? Wasn't she your main assistant?" Questioned Kiana.
"Yes. Buying the parts she recquires for repair isn't an issue. The issue is finding the needed parts since a lot of them are rare." She said.
That was all Alex caught of that conversation as he began to ponder about something.
'If PB was her main assistant and broke apart, then that must've put even more of a workload on her.' Thought Alex.
He looked at the calendar on his phone and saw that Bronya's birthday of August 18th was coming up in two days.
With that in mind, Alex decided to spend all of tommorow looking for the parts Bronya needed as he figured that Arc City surely had those parts considering how many sketchy people lived and sold artifacts there.
It wasn't that long until lunch had ended as Mei needed to head back to St. Freya to teach her next class.
The group would all say their goodbyes and walked away.
On his way back home, Alex looked up a picture of Project Bunny and made a mental note and educated guesses on what he'd most likely need to purchase.
Once that was done, he arrived back at his apartment and prepared for a long day tommorow.
[Two Days Later]
To say Alex had a hassle yesterday would have been an understatement.
While many vendors at Arc City had the parts needed, nearly all of them played hard to get as they all tried to either make Alex pay way more than he needed to, or would flat out lie saying they didn't have the part despite clearly having it on display.
Regardless, the boy was able to sort things out and get the parts he felt Bronya would've needed the most as what he did get already cost him a hefty fortune which had put a decent dent in his account.
After buying all the needed parts, he put them all in a gift box and was ready to hand deliver it to her.
Once ready, he took a bus to Studio Reason HQ as he walked in and greeted the lady at the front desk.
The girl saw the box in Alex's arms and looked at the current date before having a small smile.
"My my, trying to impress the boss huh?" She asked in a teasing tone ad Alex chuckled.
"It's nothing like that ma'am. Just an honest gift from friend to friend." He said. "Anyways, is she in her office right now?"
The girl nodded and gave Alex the go ahead to enter as the boy entered the elevator and made his way all the way to the top floor.
Once there, he approached the door to her office before knocking and immediately moving the box behind his back as Bronya would shortly open the door afterwards.
"Oh Alex. What're you doing here this early?" She asked.
Alex then revealed the box to her with a smile.
"Happy Birthday, Bronya." He said.
The girl was a little caught off guard and stunned before grabbing and opening the box as she gasped.
"T-These are parts for...............how'd you know?" She asked.
"I may have been listening to y'all's conversation two days ago. Heard that you needed parts for Project Bunny's repairs so I figured that I'd take it upon myself to get the parts and pieces. Trust me when I say it was NOT easy to come across all this. Some of the vendors were huge jackasses and it'll probably take months for me to regain back what I paid for all this." Explained Alex.
Bronya put the box aside and immediately hugged Alex as the boy hugged her back.
"Thank you so much Alex."
She brought Alex into her office and on her desk he saw all the pieces of Project Bunny strewn across.
'Damn. That's more severe than I thought.' Thought Alex.
"Hey Bronya so, how exactly did PB break apart this badly?" He asked.
"She tried to jump from the window." She casually said as Alex took a moment to process what he heard.
"Wait, what?"
"She tried to leave her post and jumped out the window."
"I-I thought it was a work accident."
"No. She's tried to leave before. This was the first time she's actually done something about it."
"Um, hope you don't mind me asking but, why exactly did she try to leave?"
"Something about having too many hours and never getting proper break lengths."
'............oh I see.............she was overworked........'
Alex awkwardly chuckled to himself after realizing that what he had assumed was a completely good thing was in actuality probably PB's worst nightmare.
It took a while for Bronya to completely finish Project Bunny's repairs but she eventually completed them.
"Alright all done. I just gotta reboot her to get her activated again. Before that though, there's still one more thing I need to do." She said.
"What is it?" Asked Alex.
Bronya then grabbed his hand.
"Thank you for the gift properly."
With that, Bronya took Alex into her personal room and the two were occupied for the remainder of the afternoon.
