The walk back to the apartment felt like a marathon in a furnace. Every time a car's headlights swept over the sidewalk, I pressed myself into the shadows of a doorway, my heart hammering a frantic rhythm against bruised ribs. I was a walking disaster; covered in industrial lubricant, smelling of dumpster juice, and leaking actual blood from the gash on my shoulder.

  I finally reached our floor, fumbling with my keys with slick, shaking fingers. I slipped inside and leaned against the door, letting out a breath that felt like I had been holding it ever since I fell out of that window.

  The apartment was dim, lit only by the soft, violet hum of Yuna's computers. The air hit me immediately - it was warm, heavy, and carried a scent that made my brain short-circuit. It was lavender, yes, but underneath that was a sharp, salty, almost musky scent. The smell of someone who had just done something...

  "Kurumi?"

  Yuna scrambled up from her gaming chair. My brain, already frazzled, stalled out completely. She was wearing a white, too-large t-shirt - with a massive, blushing ahegao face on it. It was so big that it swallowed her shorts, and she was visibly glowing with a fine sheen of sweat across her body. Her hair was a mess, damp strands sticking to her forehead.

  "Oh my god, you're bleeding," she gasped, rushing over. As she moved, the thin fabric of the shirt swayed, offering glimpses of leg and hip that made my circuits sizzle. I tried to categorize her state as "high-stress management exhaustion", but the way her chest was heaving and the flush on her neck made me uncertain.

  "I'm fine," I croaked. "Just ... a bit of a rough landing. Nice shirt," I croaked, trying to find any topic that wasn't my own bleeding shoulder. "I always figured you for a woman of taste..."

  Yuna froze, her hand hovering near my waist. She glanced down at the blushing, wide-eyed face caught mid-orgasm on her chest as if she'd forgotten she was wearing it. A fresh wave of heat climbed up her neck.

  "It was the only clean thing in the hamper, okay?," she snapped, though there was no real bite to it. "I've been stuck in this chair for eight hours, monitoring your patrol and then this investigation. I didn't exactly have time to do a load of laundry while you were busy playing 'head in a bucket' for the Internet."

  She looked away, her fingers fumbling with the hem of the shirt, drawing my eyes to her pale thighs. "Besides, the fabric is really breathable. It's ... it's for thermal management. My computer puts off a lot of heat."

  Thermal management, I thought. Right. Because nothing streams 'professional cooling solution' like a high-definition ahegao print.

  Yuna grabbed my hand, her skin hot and slightly damp against my oily palm. "Come on. Bathroom. We need to get you out of this suit and cleaned up."

  The bathroom was small and quickly became humid as Yuna turned on the shower to warm the room. I stood on the tiled floor, shimmering in my oil-slick suit.

  "I can do it," I said, my voice cracking. "I just need to ... to pull the shoulder straps..."

  "Don't be a brat, Kurumi. You're shaking, I can help," Yuna scolded me as she stepped into my personal space. She reached for the top of the suit, her fingers grazing the sensitive skin of my neck.

  Because there was no zipper on the leotard, she had to hook her thumbs into the neckline and peel it down. The vacuum-sealed vinyl let out a sticky, wet groan as she forced it down over my shoulders. She had to use her weight, her knuckles grazing the sides of my breasts as the suit slowly gave way, exposing my torso to the damp air.

  "It's so tight," she whispered, her breath hitching.

  "She dropped to her knees on the bathroom floor to finish the job. I froze, my back against the cold tile wall. With the suit pulled down to my waist, Yuna had to grip the oily fabric and tug it down past my hips.

  The friction was agonizingly slow. As the suit cleared my thighs, Yuna remained on her knees, her face mere inches from my lap. I was standing there, completely exposed, my heart thundering so hard I thought I was about to have a stroke.

  I looked down and my breath stopped. Yuna wasn't moving. She was staring up - literally from between my knees - her gaze traveling from my bare groin, up over the curve of my stomach, to my breasts, and finally meeting my eyes. Her face was a deep, blotchy red, and the musky scent coming off her was overwhelming me.

  "There," she panted, her voice a ragged ghost of itself as the suit finally hit the floor. "See? I told you ... you were ... perfect."

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  The memory of the sounds from the vent - the rhythmic and frantic slap of flesh, the moans - flashed through my mind.

  She's just... checking for injuries, I told myself in a desperate, pathetic internal scream. The sweating? It's from her computers. The musky smell? She's probably trying out new perfume. And the way she's looking at me right now? She's just ... a great friend. An amazing manager. Wanting to make sure that I'm perfectly fit for tomorrow's adventures.

  "Yuna, I-"

  "Let's get that shoulder cleaned," she interrupted, standing up so fast she almost tripped. Her movement was frantic, her eyes darting away - unable to meet mine - as she grabbed the first-aid kit.

  I shut my mouth, face burning. I'm being a creep, I decided. The fight messed with my head. She's my best friend. My only friend. If I suggest she was ... doing anything, I'll ruin my friendship with her - and nothing is worth that.

  As Yuna leaned in to dab the antiseptic, her fingers brushed the edge of the wound. I flinched, not from the sting, but from the sudden, sharp snap of a violet spark jumping from my skin to her thumb.

  "Ow! Kurumi!" Yuna pulled back, shaking her hand.

  "Sorry! I - I'm low on juice. I think. It's just glitching," I stammered. My heart was thumping against my chest.

  Yuna didn't move away, though. She reached out again, her touch even slower this time, almost hesitant. When her fingertips met my skin, another spark jumped - smaller this time, a tiny crackle of purple light that illuminated the space between us. Neither of us pulled away. She let her hand linger there, her thumb stroking the uninjured skin of my collarbone.

  I felt the charge traveling through me, but it wasn't the cold, sharp energy of the EMP. It was something heavy and thrumming, full of heat. Yuna's eyes tracked the tiny arcs of electricity as they danced over my collarbone, her pupils blown wide. For a second, I thought she was going to lean in - to close the gap - but then she blinked, the spell breaking as she reached for a bandage.

  "You did good tonight, babe," she murmured, her voice still a little shaky as she taped a bandage on my shoulder.

  Babe. I squeezed my eyes shut. It's just slang. Like 'dude.' She probably calls the drone 'babe.' I'm just an emotional nerd who's spent too much time without human contact.

  "Thanks," I whispered.

  She stood back, her shirt clinging to her own sweaty skin, the sharp nubs of her nipples tenting the fabric. "Go get washed up. I'm going to start trying to decrypt that drive you took."

  I spent twenty minutes in the shower, scrubbing the oil and confusion away. When I came out, wrapped in a towel, Yuna was huddled over her monitors.

  "By the way," Yuna called, her eyes not leaving the screen as she tapped a few keys. "While you were scrubbing off the dumpster juice, I checked the final tallies for the night. Even with the stream cut early, the Voltana fan club just hit a new milestone."

  She turned the secondary monitor toward me. It was a chaotic dashboard of graphs, heart emojis, and scrolling comments.

  "We gained another two hundred followers tonight," she said, a hint of her usual professional pride returning. "That Bin-Queen clip already has forty thousand views on the meta-boards. And GachaGod sent a message asking if you'll sell the recycling bin as a signed prop."

  I groaned, pulling the towel tighter around my chest as I slumped onto the couch. "They're all perverts, Yuna. Why are they like this? I almost got captured by a killer robot and they're arguing about the crushing pressure my thighs are capable of generating."

  Yuna's gaze drifted from the monitor to my thighs, then back again. Her expression softened into something unreadable. "They aren't arguing, Kurumi. They're ... appreciating. You have a very 'high-engagement' silhouette. I'm just giving the people what they want."

  "And what do you want?" The question popped out before I could stop it - or even consider it.

  Yuna's hand froze on the mouse. The blue light of the monitor made her sweaty skin seem to shine even brighter. "I want you to stay safe," she said quietly. "And I want you to be happy. Now be quiet, the news is starting."

  On the TV, a news report was showing grainy black-and-white footage of a figure falling out of a window from a very familiar-looking building.

  "S-Korp officials have issued a statement regarding the break-in at the decomissioned Apex Logistics site in Sector 12 earlier tonight," the reporter droned. "A gang of highly skilled trespassers allegedly bypassed corporate security, triggering a localized electrical surge that destroyed legacy data archives and may have led to the release of hazardous industrial chemicals into the sector's water supply. S-Korp is downplaying the theft, claiming the site contained only 'worthless historical logs', but they have issued a fifty thousand credit reward for information that leads to the arrest of the gang in question. Shown here is the apparent ring-leader of the gang, seen leaving the scene of the crime."

  Leaving the scene of the crime, I grumbled to myself as I watched the pixelated gray-scale Kurumi fall out of the second story window into a dumpster on repeat. "What crime?," I scoffed. "It was an abandoned building."

  "Exactly," Yuna agreed. "Something is fishy here. Nobody offers that much money unless there's something else going on. There's got to be some kind of a cover-up or other shenanigans." She turned to look at me. Her eyes were back to being sharp, golden orbs, though her cheeks were still a rosy pink. "Just act normal. You have a double shift at Za Bay Pizza in six hours. Get a little sleep, go to work, deliver the pizzas. Be the shy, awkward Kurumi that everyone thinks you are. If you hide, you look guilty."

  I looked at my bruised reflection, then over at the leggings and polo that had become my pizza delivery uniform.

  "Normal," I repeated. "Right. I can do normal."