The familiar rattle of my alarm reverberates through my ears.

“Master, it’s time to wake up! Mayu wants to spend time with you! You wouldn’t want to keep me waiting, would you?”

This is the only reason I don’t hate waking up in the morning, having Mayu’s voice wake me up is the best part of my day. The official ‘Mayu Hoshinoka’ app was only released a few months ago, I have no idea what I was doing before that – those dark memories are completely erased from my brain now.

The app does have one caveat though - no matter how hard you try; you can never turn it off. If you leave the alarm going off for too long, then the voice change-

“Vermin, get your filth off this bed this instant! Not even these cheap sheets deserve someone as disgusting as you just sweating on them any longer than need be. I feel sorry for them, honestly. Now get up or I will have to remove you from the bed myself!”

I have no idea why the mean message is so much longer…

There are no settings to turn off that feature, although for some reason if you pay a few more dollars then you can make the message longer and more intense.

Exhibitionists.

It’s my fault for not getting to it sooner – it’s not like I wanted to hear it or anything, I was just so sleepy from staying up till the early hours of the morning watching Mayu.

Time to begin a new day! She should be just starting to stream now.

I go to my computer and bring up her Twitch stream, but nothing is there – not even a loading message or an image saying “stream starting…”

Hmmm, she must’ve gotten up late or something; she’s also prone to that sort of thing as well. As uptight as she pretends to be, she sure is a bit of an airhead sometimes.

Waiting. Waiting. Waiting.

Okay, I’m going to check her Twitter feed. It hasn’t been too long but I’m sure she’s posted an update or something.

I scroll through the treacherous pages of the bird app, a mysterious place where nothing is to be taken lightly. One moment you’ll be scrolling through some wholesome posts about someone’s favourite anime, the next minute someone is starting a war and before you can get to the end of that thread, some lewd post exposes itself right before your very eyes.

Thankfully, I know how to handle this place with tact and quickly make my way over to Mayu’s profile.

Nothing.

Not that I expected anything, I have tweet notifications on for her, so I don’t miss an update.

Why I even looked in the first place is beyond me, what is happening to me? I swear to god I wasn’t always like this.

Buzz. Buzz. Buzz.

The sound of phone notifications fills the empty void that is my apartment. The sheer volume of alerts I receive is both exciting and worrying…

I’m not exactly the type of person who gets a whole load of people messaging them all at once.

I pick up my phone and start perusing the messages.

1 Notification from Mayu Hoshinoka | Doki Doki Demons

2 Notifications from Mum

Ahhh yes, the only two people I ever get notifications from – I shouldn’t have expected any different.

I open up the tweet from Mayu.

“Sorry about the late notice everyone, the stream is cancelled for today – I had a previous engagement that I completely forgot about. We will do a catch-up stream late tonight when I get back!”

See? Total airhead.

The tweet is accompanied by a cute GIF image of Mayu holding out her hands in apology.

Instantly I’m okay with it.

I guess I’ll check what my mother messaged me about considering the stream is cancelled for now. Maybe afterwards I’ll catch up on some of the anime that I’ve been neglecting in favour of Mayu’s streams.

“Hey honey, just checking in to make sure you’re all ready for our lunch with Koiyomi and her family today?”

Oh shit, that is today! In all honesty, I wasn’t really planning on going because Mayu was going to be on.

“Please do make an effort to come, it’s been ages since you and Koiyomi last saw each other, and you both used to be the best of friends!”

Aaaaaaah, she’s got me there.

A twang of guilt hits my heart; not because I feel like I should go but because I don’t want to disappoint anyone there. Koiyomi and I were friends in grade school, she’s really the only good friend I’ve ever had in my life, but I think seeing her now after so long may be awkward.

I’m a completely different person and I’m sure she is too.

Not that it wouldn’t be nice to have a friend again, but I have Mayu now and for the most part that alleviates most of my need for companionship – as sad as that sounds.

I just don’t know how anyone else would compare.

Despite all these feelings, I get dressed as well as any hikikomori could when entering regular society, ignoring all my licensed merchandise clothes at a chance of my parents not thinking that I’m not a complete disappointment.

Maybe even Koiyomi will think I’m pretty normal too.

I check my phone to see the time and realize it’s already way later than I’d imagined – I’ve said it before, but I really shouldn’t have stayed up so late last night! Not that I have any regrets or anything, just noticing the fact that I shouldn’t have.

Thankfully the restaurant that we’re meeting at is just around the corner from my apartment.

Leaving the small apartment full of noodle boxes and stale clothes, I make my way through the corridor of the complex and down the elevator.

Everything in this place is so freaking neat and clean, sometimes when I’m all holed up in my room for so long, I forget that I live in a relatively nice place. Unfortunately, this makes it all the more awkward when I see other people who live here dressed nicely while I usually look like I’ve just jumped out of a garbage bin.

I try to navigate this place like I try to navigate the world, with my head down and my earphones in, trying not to inconvenience anyone along the way until I get to where I need to go.

One step after the other. I don’t know why but focusing on how I walk like this has the opposite effect than I want it to; you would think that concentrating on it would make it better but somehow when I’m like this, I usually forget how to walk properly and end up wobbling a little.

Heart rate rising.

It’s like when you try to focus on your breathing, and you feel like you’ve forgotten how to breathe properly or notice that you’re breathing really loud and wonder if it’s always been this loud.

That happens to everyone, right?

Ugh, who cares. Thankfully, I am just about here.

Dan Dan Ramen Retreat.

This place is great and has been a staple eatery my family has gone to for a long time, and now that I think about it, it was always a favourite of Koiyomi and her family.

Knowing them, they probably all still come here together all the time, which makes me tagging along after all these years even more awkward.

I enter the familiar ramen restaurant – a fine-dining interpretation of a relatively simple and common concept, which is what makes it the perfect place for family get-togethers. Within moments I see my family, accompanied by Koiyomi’s family at their regular table.

With just one exception.

Koiyomi isn’t there.

My heart sinks for a moment but there’s also the feeling of a weight that has been pulled off my shoulders. Other adults I’m already familiar with are easy to handle, other people in the same age bracket though? No way.

Heading over to the table, my newfound calmness of the situation is disrupted by a familiar voice behind me.

“Dun! Dun! Dun! I’m here!”

My blank stare travels across the room to Koiyomi – a girl standing just a little shorter than me a few meters away at the door of the restaurant.

There is something about her aura; from a cropped anime shirt that’s falling off one shoulder and the ripped black jeans - that tells me she is one of those anime fans that actively wear the clothing that represents who they are and manage to make it kind of cool.

What a strange creature.

As I am still reeling from her earlier introductions, my eyes dart to the pink highlights in her hair – there is no mistaking it. Her whole look screams Mayu and on top of that, the reminiscent sound effects overlaying her introductions match the exact voice she uses on stream.

There is no mistaking it.

She is…

She is…

A massive Mayu fan like me!