Chapter 340: 74: A Measure of Trust

Danika finished her shift in a frustrated mood, and she was somehow shocked when she opened the VR-medi pod to see Shinichi sitting right beside her while studying something on his phone so intently that he didn't immediately respond.

She pulled herself over the edge and sat beside him, and after a long moment he set his phone down and grinned at her. She didn't smile back and his smile faded and he asked, "What's wrong?"

"I can't talk about it," she replied bitterly. Lin Hao had sworn her to secrecy first, but that had then been reinforced by a virtual tower of paperwork from Starcraft Technologies legal department. She wasn't even certain just how much she'd agreed to, but people were already being flown in from all over the world, and somehow she had been assigned as the team leader for the recovery team.

She knew that she'd asked for it, by insisting that they shouldn't just tell the copy to delete itself, but she had absolutely no idea what was going to happen next. It wasn't like she could just pop over to the address where the stolen game was and carry it off. Lin Hao and Devon Yu had been practically fighting tooth and claw to get someone from the first division to approve a recovery attempt at all.

She knew how ridiculous her feelings would seem to anyone who didn't think of AIs as living people. She didn't even know when she'd stopped reminding herself that they weren't real, but she felt like a friend had called for help. She also knew that it wasn't the same reason that Lin Hao wanted to recover the copy. He probably just wanted to see how it had evolved itself in order to reach out to them.

She looked at Shinichi helplessly, and after a moment he pulled her into his lap and kissed her. "Then let's talk about the necessary details of you moving in with me instead," he suggested when he stopped kissing her.

Danika hesitated and replied uncertainly, "I don't know if now is a good time after all."

Shinichi straightened, and took a deep breath. "Okay," he agreed calmly.

Danika searched his face, and discovered that his guarded but reasonable expression hurt her. "It's not really okay is it?" she asked a little tearfully.

Shinichi blinked at her, and then brushed at a tear at the corner of her eye gently with one thumb. "I'm not happy about it," he agreed, "but it's not bad enough to make me cry. What's wrong? Can you tell me anything?"

"I signed a million papers that said I can't today, but when Lin Hao gets here, I'll ask him if there's anything I can say?" Danika replied worriedly.

"Wow," Shinichi said a little blankly. "Something big is happening with the game, or with your job then?"

Danika nodded, but then shook her head, but then she shrugged. "Kind of, but it's a temporary uh… incident?"

Shinichi grinned at her and tapped her nose lightly with his fingertip. "Okay, you don't have to explain. I won't ask anything else." He hugged her close again, rested his chin against her head, and sighed though.

"I guess there's not any reason that I can't go ahead and move in now," Danika offered uncertainly. "But I might be really busy all weekend."

"Will it add more stress?" Shinichi asked quietly.

"Will it make you happy?" Danika countered.

"You know it will," he replied wryly. "But that's what I want to know too, will it make you happy?"

"I can't really imagine what it will be like," she admitted after a minute. "What do you imagine it being like?"

Shinichi actually blushed when he met her eyes and asked her, "You really want me to admit to all my fantasies?"

Her cheeks went pink but she nodded. "Yeah. I want to know if I have any chance of living up to them?"

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He blinked at her again, and then he chuckled and told her, "Suddenly I get the feeling that I should be asking about your fantasies instead, but I don't think you'll have any trouble with mine." He hesitated and then added, "Unless sleeping together on the same bed will be bad for you to do very often?"

Danika shook her head quickly. "It'll be fine. Since I'm working through the VR-medi pod now, I'm spending more than enough hours in it each day. I really only need a couple."

He ran his hand through her hair and said, "I just want to be able to cuddle up to you and sleep after a long day. Watch you eat things you find delicious. Take turns doing chores?" He added quickly, "But I can do anything that's too awkward for you."

"Just imagined me trying to vacuum the stairs?" she asked dryly. He gave her such a blank look that she asked laughingly, "Your dad does that?"

"Uh, the weekly cleaning service?" Shinichi replied uncertainly. "We pretty much just do the dishes and the laundry? And feed the cat."

"Cat?" Danika asked in surprise.

"She's really shy, and doesn't spend a lot of time at our place, but she'll get used to you," he insisted quickly. "Naoki is talking about getting a kitten soon to keep her company."

"Okay," she replied with amusement.

He pointed to her house plants and asked, "What do we need for those? I don't have that kind of window sill to let them sit in the sun like that."

--

When Danika admitted awhile later that she was skipping her usual exercises because Shinichi was with her, he stopped her and told her firmly, "Then in the future, let's both try to set aside time to do exercises together. I'm sure they're different things, but we both have routines that we're supposed to be following, and I definitely don't want to be the reason that you're not accomplishing what you need to do."

"I don't know, it's kind of embarrassing," Danika muttered weakly.

He rolled his eyes at her. "You have no idea what I go through for Underneath," he said teasingly.

She knew that it was the truth, but avoided the question for now by suggesting, "Let's log in and do our quests for the evening, since I think we've covered everything the moving company needs to know?"

Shinichi surprised her by replying seriously, "We can do that next, but are you sure it's okay to move in if you're afraid to even let me watch your exercises?"

"I'm sure," she replied swiftly. "You know, some people don't even let each other see them get dressed, or without makeup, after being married for years? And we can try combining our exercise times, it's just… embarrassing."

"Alright," he agreed with a grin.

--

Logical Heart was waiting for them.

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