Zhou... Sho...
"Wait, you're Sho? But you're only nine!"
"So?" Zhou asked indignantly, looking a little hurt by the exclamation.
"Sorry, I didn't mean it like that. But how long have you been playing?"
"A year or so," Zhou mumbled, looking down and drawing into himself again. Toshiro felt a pang of remorse for unintentionally pushing Zhou back into his shell. He decided it would be best to keep encouraging him.
"One year!" He whistled. "But that makes you—" he shook his head. "Wow, that's impressive. Most of the ranked players have been doing this for years on end. And you just—a year! You must have some incredible talent." And he meant it.
Zhou remained hesitant, but slowly he looked up and his expression morphed into a shy smile. "I just picked it up a little, here and there."
"And you've only been using the headsets in the gaming cafe? Not even the high quality ones. Zhou, you really are brilliant."
Zhou shook his head. "It's really not much. I practice a lot. I don't have much else to do, anyway," he said wistfully.
"Nobody really does," Toshiro shrugged. "It's basically the only entertainment now, the Oasis."
"Yeah."
They fall into a subdued silence, but not entirely uncomfortable.
"Wow. So all this time—" Toshiro grinned. "We knew each other all this time."
"I guess so." Zhou nodded quietly, but Toshiro's enthusiasm was contagious enough to have an effect.
"That's crazy. But, no, I'm forgetting, the whole reason we came back was so you could try out the headset. Go ahead, log into your account, try it out."
Zhou slipped in another smile before putting on the headset. Toshiro watched quietly to ensure there wasn't another startle. Once he was satisfied that there were no further issues, he grabbed a book from his shelf in another room, the soft sounds of his footsteps absorbed by the wooden floor. After he returned, he settled in a comfortable lounge chair in the corner of the room, legs crossed as he thumbed through the pages to the place he had left off.
He didn't know how long Zhou had been playing, but he'd made it through another hefty chunk of the novel before he heard Zhou gently setting the headset back down on the table.
"You read? Books, paper books?"
Toshiro, surprised that Zhou had spoken without being prompted, glanced down at the half shut volume in his hands. "Oh. Yes. It isn't all that popular anymore, is it?" He chuckled. "But back in Japan, my grandfather has a large collection, and I guess I picked up on the habit too." He shrugged.
"I go to the library, sometimes," Zhou offered. "They don't have a lot of physical books either, but there's a few. Textbooks, too. Those are useful."
"You don't go to school?"
Zhou shook his head. "I don't have any documentation. And it's better to go unnoticed, anyway."
"Oh." He wanted to ask what exactly had brought Zhou here and what he was doing alone, but he didn't want to push it. "Well, did you like the headset?"
"Yeah, it was great! The quality is so much better, compared to the ones from the cafe, it's like you barely even notice that it's virtual and not real. I wish—" he hastily stopped himself, then switched the subject. "Um... you said you have more books? Could— could I see them, maybe? If you don't mind."
"Yeah, of course! Come, the study's right here." Toshiro led him to another room, mostly empty except for the shelf tumbled with books tucked in a corner against the wall. "Is there anything that interests you? Go ahead, take a look."