Al finished his breakfast and walked to the sink. “Want some help with this?” he asked Anabelle.

“No, it’s fine,” she said, serenely.

Al looked at her profile and admired her petite nose and long brown eyelashes. He looked away when she looked at him.

“I like cleaning,” she explained. “It makes me feel like a Victorian lady.”

“Didn’t Victorian ladies have maids to do this for them?” Al commented.

“Oh, I didn’t mean lady in the sense of being upper class,” Anabelle clarified. “It’s just that women of that era had a sense of refinement about them, so I prefer referring to them all as ladies.” She looked up at Al as she spoke. She looked positively minuscule from his angle. She must have been no more than five feet tall. “That said,” she continued, “I like feeling like an old-fashioned house-wife, even if I’m no longer a wife, and I work a full-time job.”

“You’re a strange woman,” he remarked. In the instant after he said that, he worried that it might offend her and wished he could take it back.

Instead, she giggled. “I could say the same about you,” she said, casually, as her big doe eyes met his for a second.

He squinted at her, as though he hadn’t seen what she said correctly. “What’s your job?” he asked to change the subject and also out of curiosity.

“I’m a secretary for a big publishing company,” she told him.

“Publishing?” Al repeated. “Like books?”

“Yes,” Anabelle giggled, “like books. I was really lucky to get this position, because they’re one of my favorite publishers. You saw the books in my cabinet, right?”

Al nodded.

“They’re published by the company I work for,” she informed him. “I don’t have any connection with the authors or anything, but once in a while, I get to see a published novel before it’s for sale, so it’s nice.”

“That does sound nice,” Al smiled softly. He remembered he had that romance novel to continue upstairs.

Yui finished eating and met the others by the sink. “What do you wanna do today?” He asked, as he looked up at Al.

“I hadn’t really thought about it,” Al shrugged. “Maybe read. You?”

“I figured I’ll just stay home today to keep you company while you heal,” Yui said in a rather mature tone. “I’m not taking any appointments for the next few days. I need a break, too.”

“So you’ll just hang out here with me?” Al asked. “You’re sure you’re okay with that?”

“Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?” Yui looked up at him with his big sparkly eyes. Al almost couldn’t handle all these cute eyes around him.

“Well, you seem like a social type,” he nearly grunted. “Thought you’d want to go out later. Go to clubs. Make some friends.”

“Nah, it’s okay,” he locked his fingers behind his back and stretched his chest. “I mean, I wanna, but… that can wait until another day. Besides, I’ve already made a friend, so I’d rather just spend time with him.”

Al tapped his fingers together, nervously. For a second, his mind tried to convince him that Yui had made another friend and wasn’t talking about himself, but he knew that wasn’t the case. “Don’t you think,” Al paused as he meticulously planned his sentence, “you’d be better off making friends your own age?”

Anabelle had finished doing the dishes. She walked silently out of the room, grabbed her mystery novel from the living room couch, and went up to her bedroom.

“I dunno about that,” Yui put his little painted fingernail to his slightly parted pink lips. The gesture sent a little shiver down Al’s neck. “I don’t think age matters that much, as long as people get along. Don’t you think we get along?”

“…yeah,” Al swallowed. Maybe too well, he thought.

“So, let’s spend the day together, alright?” Yui said, as though this were the final offer.

Al nodded.

They went up to the bedroom.

“Does yoga count as a sport?” Al asked, as the thought suddenly popped into his head.

Yui laughed. “No, it doesn’t,” he replied, honestly. “But you like yoga?”

“Yeah,” Al said, “it helps me relax and stay fit.”

“Maybe I’ll try it with you some time,” Yui said, as he plopped down on the bedroom floor, in front of the boxy old television. “Wait a sec,” he paused and looked somewhat frightful. “Is yoga the thing where you stay in the same position for hours?” He made a sort of disgusted frown that showed his bottom teeth.

“Heh,” was the little half-laugh that Al emitted in response. “Yeah, yoga involves various poses called asanas, where you have to hold them for some time while maintaining a steady breathing rhythm. It also involves meditation.”

“That thing where you literally sit still and do nothing?!” Yui’s mouth opened wide in consternation, like he couldn’t bear to even think of doing such a thing.

“That’s the gist,” Al said, as he took a seat beside him. “It might not be the most exciting thing in the world, but… I was told it’s really good for mental health.” His mind flashed back to a certain therapist who recommended it to him. He shook the memory from his head.

“Ehh, I’ll think about it,” Yui said in a tone that, even in Al’s sheltered life, he had grown to know that it meant something akin to hell no. “I’mma play some video games,” Yui said, as he pressed the buttons to turn on the television and the game console. “Wanna join?”

“…Sure,” Al said, reluctantly. The last time he tried playing a video game was… Well, let’s just say that it was way before this particular game system existed.

Yui handed Al a controller. The older man looked at it like it was a piece of extraterrestrial technology. Al expected to play an old-school side-scroller, so he was surprised when Yui started the game, and he was met with a lush 3D landscape. 

Al’s character was a furry little purple creature. Since Yui was player one, Al had to follow his lead, or else the camera would cut him off of the screen. It took Al a bit to even get used to using the control stick to move his little beast around every which way. In the old games he played, he only used the D pad to move left or right. 

The game involved picking up objects to find hidden treasures underneath. Al picked up a large rock, and when he tried placing it back on the ground, he pressed the wrong button and ended up throwing it and breaking the rock. Similar situations happened the next four times he picked up an object. Then, the hardest part was when enemy monsters showed up. Al’s fingers couldn’t figure out the right buttons to press for the right attack, and he often ended up taunting instead of blocking, and his timing was way off. He died multiple times in a short timespan, and each time, both of their characters had to restart from the last checkpoint. Al huffed in frustration.

“Yikes, I can practically see steam coming from your ears,” Yui said, as he looked at Al. “Not the game for you, huh?”

He was too frustrated to answer, but his expression said it all.

“Okay, we’ll try a different game,” Yui suggested.

Al took a deep breath. Then, an idea popped into his head. “I’d rather do something else, actually,” he said as he got to his feet. “You can play without me.”

“Oh, okay,” Yui said in a disheartened tone. Al walked out of the room, and Yui was worried that he put Al in a bad mood. He was about to go and check on him, when the door opened, and he was back, with a pencil and paper in hand. “You okay?” Yui asked.

“Yeah,” Al said, “I suddenly felt inspired to draw, so I asked Anabelle for some supplies.”

“Oh, good,” Yui said. “Is it okay if I play my game when you’re drawin’?”

“Yeah, of course,” Al replied. He looked around the room and wished that there was a good drawing surface. His options were a tiny bedside table with a lamp on it and a dresser with a bunch of toys on it. Timmy must have done his homework downstairs, Al surmised. He shrugged and sat on the bed, with his back against the headboard and his knees up. He realized he needed some sort of hard, flat surface between the paper and his knees. He surveyed the room around him. He saw the toy dinosaur box on top of the dresser and thought it was the perfect size for a makeshift table. But was it okay to use it? He supposed it couldn’t hurt. They were already living in Timmy’s room and playing his video games. He grabbed the box, returned to his spot on the bed, and started drawing.

About twenty minutes later, Yui took a break from his game and stood up and stretched. He walked over to Al and looked over his shoulder. “Holy crap!” He exclaimed.

Al nearly jumped out of his skin.

“Sorry, did I scare you?”

“Yeah, I…” Al’s heart was pounding. “I tend to zone people out when I’m focused. Or more like it’s easy for me to ignore my surroundings if I don’t feel any emotions around.”

“Huh?”

“If there’s noise around me, I can drown it out,” Al explained, while sketching soft shadows. “But if I feel emotions in the room, it’s really distracting. So even though I heard you pressing buttons and cheering, it didn’t bother me, since you’re…”

“Emotionless?” Yui suggested an ending to his sentence.

“Exempt from my perception,” Al corrected him.

“So, what, are you like… the opposite of a blind person?”

Al squinted at him.

“When someone loses a sense, they say their other senses get stronger,” Yui explained. “But you have a sixth sense, so are your other senses weaker?”

“Huh, I never thought of that,” Al looked pensive. “I don’t think they're weaker. I mean, my eyesight might not be perfect, but… I think it’s more that I just let my guard down more when I don’t sense emotions.”

“Cool,” Yui shrugged.

“I thought it sounded like a bad thing,” Al sunk down against his pillows.

“I think it’s fine… But seriously, what the heck?!” Yui gestured to the paper. “You didn’t tell me you could draw!”

“It didn’t really come up,” Al said, simply. “You asked what sports I play.”

“No, I asked for your hobbies,” Yui gave him a sidelong glance. “And this sure looks like a hobby! Is that Anabelle? Did you start the picture when you were downstairs?”

“Huh? No, I drew it up here,” Al said. He didn’t quite understand the assumption.

“You drew her without looking?”

“Oh. Yeah.”

“Yeah?!” Yui practically yelled into his ear. “That’s your response? You literally drew the spitting image of someone without looking, and you just say yeah?!”

“I just saw her a moment ago,” Al said, as though that explained everything. He had also been staring at her that morning, but he thought that part was best kept to himself.

“Al, that’s freakin’ incredible!” Yui couldn’t withhold his excitement. “It looks exactly like her!”

“You think so?” Al played with his hair as he looked at the picture.

“Absolutely,” Yui expressed, “she’s gorgeous!”

“She is, isn’t she?” Al was thinking of Anabelle, not the drawing.

Yui observed the picture closer. Soft, delicate pencil strokes created a realistic image of Anabelle looking to the viewer’s left. Her large eyes had a twinkle to them, thanks to Al’s intricate shading and attention to detail. He drew each individual delicate eyelash. Her features were softly rendered to create an illusion of depth. The drawing stopped at the collar of her dress, with only a little bit of lace indicating her clothing. “Yeah,” Yui murmured.