"Show me your textbooks," Christina asked after I stopped playing sulky for the camera.
Turns out we had the exact same ones, except for biology and chemistry. Hers were considered higher-level than mine. Not that it mattered much, since digital versions existed for everything anyway. Physical books were only handed out in case your parents blocked your internet access, or if, like mine, they refused to buy you a tablet because you already had a phone, even if studying on a tiny phone screen was a total pain.
Still, Christina managed to talk me into coming over to her place so we could knock out all our homework in bulk, or rather, copy off each other. Homework assignments were really just extra-credit points on top of our grades, like a constant stream of mini-quizzes. To me, though, it felt more like a punishment for zoning out in class: if you blinked and missed a chunk of the lesson, you were forced to write it out three more times by hand.
In the end, cutting the workload in half sold me. Traveling to Christina's took about thirty minutes each way, whereas slogging through all the assignments by myself would take at least four hours. The math made total sense. Plus, up until now, I'd only ever visited her place virtually.
I shoved my notebooks into my backpack and hit the road.
"Hey," Christina greeted me at the door. She had changed into a much more eye-catching robe, not the zipped-up kind, but a short wrap robe with a waist tie that ended way above her knees. Her legs were bare, and she was walking around barefoot.
"Aren't you cold?" I pretended to be deeply concerned for her health to mask my blatant interest in her outfit.
"We have heated floors."
A four- or five-year-old girl stepped out into the hallway, literally a mini-Christina, blonde with pale, slate-gray eyes. Definitely her sister.
"Hey there," I said, raising a hand and offering a friendly smile as she wandered closer.
Instead of saying hello, Christina's little sister kicked me square in the shin, let out a piercing shriek, and bolted back toward her room.
"Julie!" Christina barked after her, turning to me with a hurried, "I'll be right back."
While I was untying my shoes, a full-blown high-speed chase unfolded down the hall, accompanied by joyful childhood squeals, a fierce wrestling match during the apprehension phase, and tears of indignation over adults being physically stronger.
Christina and the kid practically collided with me in the doorway on their way back.
"Sorry," Julie mumbled, clearly feeling zero remorse but putting on her best "I'm deeply repentant for my bad behavior" face.
"I thought you said she wouldn't bother us." I ignored the tiny menace and finally allowed my eyes to drift up from Christina's legs to her face.
"I have no idea what's gotten into her," Christina said, looking visibly guilty. "She usually completely ignores guests and just plays with her dolls. Maybe she likes you?" Christina offered a small smile, trying to laugh it off.
"Great, so now I have a harem," I growled playfully, making it sound almost like "I'll tear 'em" as I gave Julie a hungry glare.
The kid squealed again, wriggled out of Christina's grip, and bolted into the other room. Judging by the loud thud and her muffled grunts, she'd crawled right under a bed or a sofa, muttering like an angry little adult: "Who even builds a house like this?"
Christina burst out laughing. I'd given her a brand-new threat, considering the whole "Boogeyman" scare tactic had stopped working on Julie ages ago.
We sat down to tackle our homework. I took Christina's spot at her desk, while she set up at Julie's smaller one. We decided not to split the work by subject, but just split the total volume in half. Surprisingly, our assignments were carbon copies of each other, without a single desync in the curriculum despite our different class schedules.
Half an hour later, Julie wandered back into the room, suddenly deciding that she absolutely, desperately had to draw right now. Christina was forced to shift over, her knees wedged awkwardly against the desk drawers, because Julie was throwing a tragic tantrum about how adults were constantly pushing kids around and stealing their stuff. Christina even started making excuses to me, insisting she was actually a super caring older sister who loved kids, and that Julie was wildly exaggerating because the only thing ever "stolen" from her was candy right before dinner. Besides, the kid had zero self-control. She could easily devour a whole kilogram of cookies in a single day and then pick at her food during actual meals.
"That's you," Julie interrupted my geometry problem, pointing her crayon at something vaguely resembling a boy on her paper.
"Looks great," I lied, mostly to prove to Christina that I'd make a totally decent father for our future kids. After all, we'd probably end up having them right after high school. UKARI had originally been designed to fix the demographic collapse of Japan's rapidly aging, high-tech society, but much like smartphones, it had quickly spread even to countries where cyberpunk was nowhere on the horizon.
"And that's Christina," Julie pointed to a triangle with a head, stick arms, and stick legs standing right next to "me."
"Why isn't the kid standing between us?" I nodded at the stick figure holding hands with "Mommy-Christina" on the far side, away from "me."
"Because you're not his real daddy," the little terror declared without a single shred of hesitation.
"Julie!" Christina gasped, horrified.
"And that's a taxi," Julie ignored her sister completely, continuing to narrate her artistic masterpiece to me.
"Your drawing is totally unrealistic." I poked my finger in the picture at the blank space between Christina and myself. "You should always put the kid in the middle for safety, so there's an adult on both sides."
"A car is gonna run you over anyway." Julie scribbled black pencil lines right over my stick figure.
"Julie!" Christina snapped again.
"You're gonna end up in the hospital and get amnesia," Julie continued the plotline, as if specifically trying to spite her sister.
"She just watched a K-drama with mom the other day," Christina scrambled to explain, blushing furiously.
"I came up with it all by myself!" Julie protested indignantly. "And then... and then... you guys are gonna get divorced!"
"All right, that is IT." Christina lost her last thread of patience and reached over to snatch the drawing away, but Julie immediately latched onto the paper with both hands.
"Hold on, hold on," I stepped in. "We won't get divorced."
"Yes you will!" Julie insisted, shielding the drawing with her entire body by literally flopping stomach-first onto it.
"Nope," I countered, dropping the ultimate punchline. "We're not married yet. You have to get married first, otherwise they won't let you get a divorce."
Julie paused, processing this. "Well... then you'll get married first, and then you'll get divorced!" she announced, finding a quick loophole.
Christina looked utterly mortified that she couldn't control her little sister.
"I'm only getting married if UKARI tells me to," I stated calmly.
Watching Julie's face, I could practically see her entire narrative worldview shatter. Ever since UKARI had been introduced, TV dramas had started showing "true, forbidden love" even more frequently. After all, once society guarantees you safety and security, people love to tickle their nerves with artificial drama. At least, that's how my mom had explained it to me when I asked her why nobody on TV ever seemed to just be happy.