2 Roommates & Best Friends

"What are you still doing here?"

A girl's voice was heard. She walked into the dim lit room and opened the curtains of the window. A bright light was shining into a young man's face.

"AHHH! The light!"

He screamed while rolling around for a while.

It was a mostly black coloured room with a bed for two persons together with a red blanket a cushion. In the back a black shelf with multiple books and manga could be seen while on each half of the room a desk with laptops and work material was placed.

The man stood up and swiped his eyes tiredly. He grabbed his phone next to him and looked at it for a while.

"Why did you wake me up? It's still in the middle of the night, Naori?"

"Middle of the night??? What are you talking about, Itsuki, it's already 1 pm!"

These two are Naori Tsubochi and Itsuki Nakamori, 25 years old. They are both college graduates. Naori was the most popular student back in school with her breath-taking-beauty and Itsuki was the quite-handsome-but-never-made-any-friends-guy. While Itsuki does jobs like hacking, checking security and doing some jobs for big companies sometimes, Naori works part-time as a waitress in a nearby restaurant. Coincidentally they are a couple.

How did it came to this. They were both childhood friends and after highschool, the one confessed to the other and it happened.

"Stop screaming ,geez."

An annoyed voice was heard clearly through the whole apartment.

This is Kiyoumi Inamori. He was in the same school and college like the both of them but one year older than them. In the end he moved in with these guys. He works in a nearby net-cafe but the most of his time he spents in the house doing whatever he wants. He might look handsome but he always says , having a girlfriend is annoying.

"Come on , lunch is ready."

This is Yoshihiro Teramura. He's three years older than Kiyoumi and he works for a company producing computer chips but Yoshihiro works from home for the development departement. He's like the parent in this whole house with the other three.

Shortly all assembled in the kitchen sitting in their places eating a bowl of rice with vegetables.

"Why can't we eat meat?" Kiyoumi asked.

"It's not healthy." Naori and Yoshihiro both said.

"Hey, I had dream." Itsuki searched his place in the conversation.

"Really , what was it about?"

"When we cleared the 100th floor."

"Really, again?"

Yoshihiro Teramura, Kiyoumi Inamori, Naori Tsubochi and Itsuki Nakamori. OR rather known as "Yosh","Inamori","Naori" and "Itsuki". They were top ranking members in the past of the game "AETHER". But soon after that new E-Sports were created and with the financial supports and spending a lot of time playing , these new players conquered the game.

The so called "second-generation". The were from the "first-generation". Players who played since the beginning of the game. But after that they were kicked from the throne and others followed in their foot steps.

"But months after that they added new floors uptil 250. Where are they at the moment?" Yosh asked.

"I believe 223." Naori whispered.

This was always a depressing topic between them. They spent their sweat and blood to become the best but they're private life barged in while these E-Sports teams got everything they needed to survive.

"Mhmm, but 223? Not long and we'll take the top again." Itsuki said and grinned.

Everyone nodded in aggrement and kept eating. They finished and placed their bowls down.

"But now , Itsuki will wash the dishes. Kiyou and Yosh have work and I have my shift later so I'll clean and will leave." Naori shouted suprising everyone.

Kiyoumi looked and clock and shoot up running outside in his flippers while Yosh excused himself going back into his room.

Naori sighed and searched for the vacuum cleaner. The last one still sitting in the kitchen was an Itsuki starring a hole in the ceiling. He stood up and washed the dishes.

He ran back into his room when he finished and turned on his PC. He opened a game and in big letters the word "AETHER" was seen. After the loading screen finished a character with a black cloak and a black hat like the ones from the military outfits stared back at him.

The name was seen in the top corner of the game. "Itsuki". A dragonic spearmaster. Earned 52 first kills on the server and was ranked 1 for 6 months.

It's personal attribute is {Barrier}. He creates through skill damage a shield proportional to the damage and his HP. Everyone would think it's quite bad. Because you need a character with balanced stats to get the best out of this ability. You would need high Strength and Magic to achieve high damage counts but HP was also a necessary factor for higher shield points. But shield is like a additional HP line, so Magic Resistance and Defence to be able to take all the dmg.

"This brings back the memories of the old times." Itsuki whispered.

"Not long and we will show them all that we are not a shooting star but the sun of the universe."

"Stop talking to yourself creepily and do something useful." Naori said when she looked into the room.