Summary: One painfully shy Rinko meets one boisterous Ako. Pre-canon
Author Note: I couldn’t fully call it a collection until there were 3. This drabble collection will slow down a bit now, thank you everybody who has read and commented so far! The only mmo I’ve played for any amount of time is ffxiv, so a lot of my mmo knowledge comes from that. This takes place about one year pre-canon.
Word Count: 1100
When she wasn’t practicing piano or doing homework, Rinko spent her time playing video games. She particularly enjoyed mmo games, which was short for massive multiplayer online games. It required strong internet and a subscription, but her parents supported her hobbies.
Helping out the townspeople was one of Rinko’s favorite parts of the game. They were easier to handle than other players, always giving her easy to understand instructions and reacting positively to her efforts.
As for other players, Rinko didn’t talk to them much. When her parents purchased the game, they warned her against talking to strangers online. They didn’t really need to have bothered, Rinko would think as she saw another player dancing in the main plaza, she couldn’t possibly approach a stranger anyway. Each time she tried her fingers would freeze on the keyboard, message half typed, unable to hit enter.
Even so, some parts of the game still needed to be completed with others. Specifically, that meant dungeons. Despite not talking with anyone, Rinko played as a healer. She cast buffs to protect the others and healed them if they were wounded. It was a terrible feeling when someone died, and even when she revived them she struggled to respond to their words of gratitude.
Without in game friends, RInko often joined the random queue for dungeons. It would match her with two dps heroes and a tank. The whole group would then be thrown in to a dungeon, which usually took around an hour.
One day, after waiting a couple minutes in the random queue, Rinko was matched with a group for one of the mid game dungeons. She had run it before, but was looking for a specific piece of loot. It had a high drop chance, so she could probably get it in just a few runs.
The dungeon loaded quickly, Rinko being transported to the starting point with the others. Almost immediately, a message appeared in a party chat box in the lower left corner.
Dgwk963: hey everybody!!!
A glance at the party list told Rinko that this user was their tank. They were using a female avatar, one decked out in black plated armor and wielding a sword and giant shield.
Dgwk963: im so excite for this dungeon! its so dark and mysterious!
Rinko wondered how that username was supposed to be pronounced. Without any vowels it wasn’t even a real word.
Dgwk963: have you run it before?
Yes, Rinko answered in her mind, she had run the dungeon before. She clicked the text box, typed in the word, then stopped.
Her hand hovered over the enter key. Was she really going to reply to this message? Who was this person? What would they say in response? What if they asked her to carry them through the dungeon? Did she really want to talk with them? Rinko pulled her hand back.
But wait, another small part of her thought, what’s the worst thing that could happen? They quit the dungeon? Another player would just be matched in. It’s polite to respond, especially since it’s a simple yes or no question.
Rinko replaced her hand on the enter key, fingers shaking as if she’d just finished performing a difficult sonata, and pressed the key.
Pppshiro: Yes
Rinko’s internal dilemma had barely taken a few seconds, but the others had already left the starting spot. As she rushed after them, a response came.
Dgwk963: thats so cool!!!
Dgwk963: this area looks so great!
She had already responded once, where was the harm in responding again? She still took a deep breath before tapping the enter key.
Pppshiro: I agree
As the group moved through the dungeon, their tank continued to message in the chat. Rinko found herself more at ease as the dungeon went on, responding in longer sentences and with less hesitation at each sent line of text. She even asked how to pronounce their username, which they said was udagawa963. That didn’t really make sense to Rinko, but to each their own she supposed.
They soon reached the final boss, with their tank expressing amazement at its design. As cool as it was, it soon fell to the group’s efforts. A notification flashed on Rinko’s screen; the item she wanted had dropped on the first run.
She smiled, dismissing the notification. The two dps members left quickly, but the tank stayed behind to say goodbye. The smile slipped off Rinko’s face as she bid the other player farewell, watching as they left the dungeon.
Rinko was the last to leave, teleporting back to where she’d been before. She opened her inventory and equipped her spoils, admiring the new item. The chat box, remaining from the dungeon, brought her eye back to it in the corner. The conversation she’d had, one that she’d been able to hold without panicking, was still there.
She clicked the user’s name, Dgwk963, and pulled up their profile. They’d been playing for a month or so, weren’t in a guild, and didn’t have many achievements. But their account was still young, so that was expected.
There was a box on the screen that said, “send friend request.” Rinko hovered her mouse cursor over it, again asking herself questions.
She’d held a conversation with this person; they seemed nice. That could’ve been a façade though. What if she sent the request and they tracked her down in game to turn her down? It was unlikely, but it could happen.
But none of the bad things she’d imagined earlier had happened when she replied to the chat message. Maybe something good would happen; maybe they would accept her friend request.
A notification pinged while she was thinking, drawing a surprised gasp from Rinko.
“Dgwk963 has sent you a friend request” popped up in the upper right corner of her screen. Rinko clicked the notification, opening the request.
It was a standard friend request, with a button to accept or decline as well as a blurb written by the sender.
“you were really cool!” Was what the blurb said.
Rinko didn’t hesitate to hit accept.
End Note: So for Ako’s username I took her full name, got rid of the vowels, and added some numbers. Rinko’s is a music pun, ppp is pianissimo, the softest dynamic in music, but quieter, along with the beginning of her last name.
