Reality Bytes

Build Practice

Yuya sighed as he studied the computer screen the next afternoon. His counterparts were all out of the house at the moment. Yuto was hanging out with Shun and Ruri, Yuri was at the movies with Dennis and Sora, and Yugo was having a riding duel with Rin. Yuya had opted to stay home and practice building in Reality Bytes.

At the moment, Yuya was working on a house that he'd envisioned in his head earlier. It seemed to be coming along very nicely, much better than anything he'd ever built before. It was quite large too, currently consisting of sixty-one rooms total with a symmetrical floorplan. The tomato-head hoped he would be able to finish it before his counterparts got home. He wanted it to be a surprise for them!

There was a knock at the door, and the boy jumped, frantically turning off the computer monitor to hide what he was working on. Then, Sawatari's voice called out from the other side of the door. "Yuya! Reiji and I came to visit you!"

"Oh, thank god, it's you guys!" Yuya sighed in relief. "I thought you were my counterparts, heh! Come on in!"

"Do you not want your counterparts in here?" Reiji asked as he and Sawatari walked into the room. Yuya shook his head. "Not at the moment, no. I'm working on a surprise for them, but I'm kinda struggling. Actually you know what? I'm really happy you two came by! Maybe you can give me some advice!"

"Oh, what are you working on?" Sawatari asked as he and Reiji sat down on either side of Yuya. The tomato turned the computer monitor back on, and showed his boyfriends the house he was building.

"Oh, that's quite nice!" Reiji said, impressed. Sawatari nodded in agreement, "Yeah, I can already see it's going to be amazing when you finish!"

"Thanks!" Yuya said, beaming with pride. "Thing is, I'm having trouble filling all the space without making it look like I just threw a bunch of stuff together." He was moving the camera around to show them the house, when he noticed something. "Ack! I forgot the doors to the saunas! Nooo!"

Sawatari chuckled as Yuya frantically added doors to the doorless saunas. "Wouldn't want anyone to get trapped inside!" the blonde said. Reiji raised an eyebrow. "How would they get trapped inside if there's no doors to enter in the first place?"

Yuya moved to an empty room on the second floor, and thought for a moment. Then he added a square stone platform to the center of the room, and then a second square, wooden platform diagonal on top of it, with a small wall in the middle. "What do you think of this for breaking up the space in this room? I'm thinking it could be a family mausoleum, where the urns of Folks can be placed on little altars over the generations, along with flowers, candles, and incense, and photos of the deceased Folks on the walls above their urns."

As he spoke, Yuya added little altar-like console tables with tablecloths along the walls, four on either side of the room and two on either side of the wall on the diagonal platform. He added little decorative urns, flowers, and incense holders onto the console tables and paintings on the walls. "This all is just placeholder stuff, y'know?"

"That looks great, Yuya!" Reiji said. Yuya beamed and moved up one level to a room directly above the mausoleum. "This room would be perfect for a seance room! It's right above the mausoleum, so if I just..."

He placed a diagonal square stone platform in position right over where the mausoleum platform was, then moved to a room on the ground floor and grabbed a table from it, which he placed on top of the platform. Upon closer inspection, Reiji and Sawatari noticed that it seemed to have a crystal ball on it. Yuya then added a little rung under the table. "There, what do you think?"

"That could work!" Sawatari said. "Just needs a little decorating, and it'll look great! What's up those stairs?" He pointed at a pair of L-shaped staircases in the room.