(1/5) Attempting to Make a Visual Novel Theme

. . . Shady was returning to his dorm after classes finished for the day when he spotted something interesting; he saw the usually elusive Sihn standing in the courtyard of the school next to the fountain. Intrigued by this development, Shady made his way down to the courtyard and hailed Sihn as he worked his way around the small groups of students, awkwardly carrying the books from his last class. "Hey! What brings somebody like you to campus?" Sihn looked over to Shady, then solemnly bowed his head as he furrowed his eyebrows and let a sharp frown cross his face. As Shady approached him, it became abundantly clear that there would be no answer, so Shady tried to continue the conversation. "You like, here to like buy parts to fix your limbs or are you making some alliance to take over the place?" Sihn cocked his eyebrow at the comment, "...fine. I'll entertain a conversation with you considering that the list of topics you'll come up with will probably get progressively more awkward." Shady laughed, "That bad?" "Asking somebody about their prosthetic limbs or if they have plans for a coup d'etat is probably not the best place to start a conversation, so yes." Shady laughed again, "I mean, I only know a few things about you, so that's all I had, really." Sihn sighed, "Fair enough; my assistant seems to think that I need a girlfriend. I'm not sure why she thinks a cyborg that's engineered themselves for combat needs some kind of significant other, yet here we are..." Shady flipped around his backpack and started shoveling his books and loose papers in, "So wait, did you get a date?" Sihn sighed, "No, my assistant created an account for me on some dating site, then informed me I had a date when plans were set in stone." "What!?" "Yes, and here's the fine young woman now." Another student approached Shady and Sihn. "So, you wanted to grab a meal?" "Chatter over a meal would be nice; you can choose the venue. Would it be alright if my colleague joined?" As Sihn gestured to Shady, Shady grabbed his arm and spun him so they could whisper with some level of privacy. "Are you REALLY inviting me on your date right now?" "I figure if I have to suffer this embarrassment, I may as well take you with me; I've gotta repay you for letting them sink my ship." The woman spoke loudly to ensure they could hear, "That sounds okay! I like meeting new people!" "Excellent!" Sihn patted Shady on his backpack, pushing him a bit forward, "You can choose where we eat!" The three made their way to a nice~ish nearby restaurant and sat down to eat. The woman had been chatting a lot along the way with Sihn mostly just nodding along to the conversation, though she started asking questions once they sat down at the restaurant. "So, I heard you're one of the real strong guys at the school. What's your symbol?" Sihn sighed, "Broken, unfortunately." "Really!? How are you so strong then?" Sihn sighed again, "I'd rather not talk about that." "Oh...well, it's really cool that you're so strong without a symbol!" "I get that seems cool and all, but I imagine you have other questions." "I mean, I kinda wanted to know about your powers and stuff." Shady held back any expression as he thought to himself, "Man, she's asking about all the sore subjects in one shot..." After another few questions, a silence fell over the group. Shady endured for a moment as he watched the woman grow visibly agitated by the awkward moment. With no other ideas, he summoned a guitar and started playing a riff that was on his mind. As he played, Sihn and the woman both looked to his guitar and listened to the tune he was putting out. After he finished playing, Sihn rubbed his temple as he sighed. "Is a restaurant really the best place to be practicing your new sounds?" "Look man, I needed to do something to break the...haha! I've a song in mind and I'll call it Tension!" The woman gave a small clap, "That sounded awesome!" Sihn looked to the woman, "...you liked that?" "Hmm? Yeah! I love guitar!" "Really!? Well this guy's got a ton of music; it's kinda all over the place in terms of genre, but there's a little something for everyone." "That sounds so cool!" "Excellent, how about I ask a few things to get a feeling for what you like and come back to you with suggestions on what to listen to first?" "That sounds fun!" And so Shady saved Sihn's date...somehow. . . .

Alexander Sihn