Freaking Liu, Lucas grumbled internally. He had forgotten how different the two sisters were. While Yu Hua was supportive, caring, and patient, Liu was always pushy and never read any social cues. Too bad I didn’t reach her voicemail. He suddenly realized that he was still stark naked from having just gotten out of the dive machine. A lot of people would wear bathing suits while using the device for the sake of modesty, but he had never bothered with it since he was just gonna be in an apartment alone. Truth be told, he hadn’t even worn anything in the past two weeks, and most of his clothes were still dirty. Lucas groaned to himself as he went into his bedroom and rifled through his stuff.

The game exercised his body for him, keeping him in perfect shape, so he was much thinner than when he had bought most of his clothes thanks to the excessive amounts of time he had been spending in the pod. He hadn’t been fat before, but he hadn’t been sculpted like a marble statue back then either, and he felt a little awkward as he threw on a pair of pants and an Oxford shirt that passed the smell test since the outfit was way too loose on him. Maybe I can just text her that lunch is too much, he thought, considering his options for complete evasion. I mean, I am hungry, and she . . . His inner monologue trailed off as he thought back to the phone call.

She had sounded a little desperate, and she had mentioned that her dad had cut her off emotionally too in some of the earlier messages that he had actually listened to. He knew that her mother already disliked her for not “doing as well as Yu Hua,” so he imagined she didn’t get much comfort from that quarter either. Since he had been completely ignoring her, she was likely alone with nobody to blame but herself. The thought actually made him feel a bit guilty as he paced back and forth through the empty apartment. They had been close before the accident, and he knew he was one of the few friends she had.

Fine, fine, it’s one lunch, Lucas thought, caving and deciding not to send out the cancellation text. He had already put on clothes, and he needed to eat anyway since he often opted for the machine not to inject him with nutrients. The only remaining issue now was that he didn’t know how to host someone in his apartment. The crappy wooden chairs had been picked up at discount from a megastore along with the small round table. The three items had been bundled together and advertised as a “college starter pack” and weren’t even made from real wood. No matter how realistic the veneer was, he knew that the bits of furniture were particle board based on just how light they were.