Virtual Reality

1. Introduction

Maya Shimizu clapped her hands together and made a quiet slap sound, "Arigatou Gozaimasu!" And began eating dinner with her family.

Maya Shimizu was an awkward teenage girl with long black hair with scruffy bangs that sometimes got in her eyes and a thing for oversized clothing, food, and not being social. She wore big black rimmed glasses and when she wasn't in her school uniform she usually jeans, converse, a button down and a sweater, but occasionally she mixed it up. Maya didn't speak much to people and almost always was listen to music through her headphones. Because of this, and other reasons, she didn't have a lot of friends.

Maya looked down at her pasta and twisted played with it. She stared at her light and dark blue jumper, her dark blue eyes half lidded. She seemed a little out of it.

The black haired girl was suddenly startled by her Father's voice. "Not hungry?" He asked, but he asked in Japanese. Maya was half Japanese (dad's side) and half American (mom's side), so sometimes talking in Japanese wasn't uncommon.

Maya shook her head and replied with a quiet "Not really," also in Japanese. This went on for quite a while, Maya and her dad having a long conversation in Japanese. Then Maya noticed her mothers face had a combination of emotions, but mostly confused and surprised. Maya's mother spoke some Japanese, but very little.

"Maya, did you happen to learn that from all the anime you've been watching?" Her mother asked, sounding a little concerned.

"Possibly?" Maya hesitantly responded while twisting a small lock of her pitch black hair around her nimble finger.

"Don't you think you should maybe stop watching it so much?"

"No," Maya responded quickly. For Maya anime was one of the things she truly loved and was one of the few things that inspired her and made her feel happy. Maya wasn't that popular and didn't have a lot of friends and wasn't good at a lot of things so she wasn't really in any clubs. So, anime filled up her free time, and she wouldn't rather be doing anything else.

She finished up her dinner as best as she could and tried to take her mind of school  the next day by thinking about anime. One in particular, actually, which was called Separated. It was her favorite anime of all time. It was about two boys named Megumi Sora and Takashi Kou (Maya really hated this character), and a girl called Aiko Sachi who have all been friends since childhood. In their third year of high school Megumi Sora and Aiko Sachi start to fall in love. But, Takashi Kou got jealous and stopped them from being together.

But, despite how much she loved it, Maya hated the way it ended. Being her OTP, Maya wanted Sora and Sachi to be together. She would give anything for them to have a happy ending.

After she was finished with her pasta, Maya put her dishes in the dishwasher and skipped back to where she usually was, her bedroom.

Her room was very plain and simple, white walls, brown floor boards, gray carpet, gray covers and bedsheets and a desk and dressers on opposite sides of the room. However, there was on thing in particular that stood out. Maya had anime merchandise literally everywhere. She had posters, figurines, and even cosplays everywhere. And, Maya even wore baggy anime tees to bed. Maya was completely and utterly obsessed, but she didn't care. It made her feel happy like nothing else did.

Maya plopped down on her bed and got comfy, and then opened her laptop. She hugged a pillow to her chest and began watching Separated, for what seemed like the millionth time. Putting her hand to her mouth, Maya nibbled on her thumbnail and watched the screen intensely, only having to read some of the subtitles.

Her favorite movie was almost over and it was late into the night now. Her room was dark except for the glow of her laptop shining on her face. She paused her movie, sighed and looked at her OTP, Sora and Sachi. "I wish you two were together..." she whispered putting her hand on the screen where they were. But to her surprise, Maya's hand didn't just stop at the screen, instead, her fingertips went through the screen. Maya's eyes widened and immediately took her hand away from the screen and used the other to slap her laptop shut. "HAHAHA NOPE IT WAS JUST MY IMAGINATION!" The female blurted out. Maya put her computer away and crawled into bed, trying to convince herself what she just saw wasn't real, and she was just imagining things because she was tired.

"It's just my imagination, it's just my imagination," Maya repeated to herself quietly and soon enough, drifted off into a blissful sleep.