As Tibaut was being pushed around he could help but remember his old friend from his own world.

"What are you smiling for? Have you never had this much private time with a woman? Hmm, hmmm?" Grace pestered.

She got uncomfortably close to his face in an attempt to tease but Tibaut remained unmoved.

"Oh shut up, I'm just remembering something from a few years back."

"Wow." She said in false shock as she held hands to her face. "You're so cruel thinking about other women while on a date with moi." She put her hand on her chest in faux pain.

"Shut up. (Tch, why do I keep meeting people that remind me of her?)"

----------------------------------------

It was 4 pm and Miguel was doing what any self-respecting NEET would be doing at this time, sleeping.

"Zzz..zzz"

He was enjoying his evening nap until he felt something irritate his nose. It felt hairy but he knew he didn't have a cat. In his dreams, he had a dog rubbing his tail on his face.

"Stop it, Apollo, I don't want dog fur in my lungs."

The golden retriever stopped and looked at him sympathetically.

"No matter how much you beg, I'm not letting you do that to me again."

The dog decided to take a new course of action and started rubbing his cold nose against his face.

"Hey, sto-, actually, as long as you don't lick me, you can continue. Ah, I don't know why but your nose feels so pleasant." The dog whimpered in joy and continued rubbing Miguel's face.

"Pft"

"Why are you laughing, boy?" He said. He started rubbing the dog's face and laughed.

("Wait a minute can dogs even laugh like that.")

And with that single thought, he was promptly woken up. The person moved their hand and Miguel jumped in shock at the intruder.

It took him a few seconds of staring but his brain finally caught with his eyes and told him who was standing before him.

"Louise?"

She had both her hands behind her back and was giggling at him.

"I've seen Alzheimer's patients with better reaction times."

Miguel started rubbing his eyes.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

"Do you also break into their houses?"

"Aw, man it seems like you are developing symptoms. Have you already forgotten you gave me a key?" She said.

She held the key out right in front of his face and jangled it.

"Last I checked you made it without my knowledge."

"But it's not like you've asked me to destroy it."

Miguel rolled his eyes and brought his attention to the more important issue.

"First off, why are you in my room?"

"Just felt like it." She said as she played with her short hair.

While Miguel appreciated her honesty, it honestly pissed him off she saw no problems with going into his room.

"What would you have done if I was stroking my hog, half a bottle of lotion in looking at something out of my special collection, huh?"

"Trust me, other than being drawings most of the things on your computer are pretty normal."

"..." Miguel remained silent and slowly looked over towards his monitor. It was on. There was even an eroge opened up. He felt time slow to a crawl and started breathing manually.

He looked her in the eyes but she didn't see what the big deal was. She looked behind and then back at him.

"Still, they do like mentioning being brother and sister a lot. Are you into that since you don't have a sister?"

She asked.

He buried his head in his hands.

"Did you?"

"You don't have a password and I wanted to check something out."

He really and truly felt like he wanted to die. He had lived alone for so long that he got fed up with using his password to open his PC, and he eventually just turned it off since he never thought anyone but himself was going to use it. He couldn't even blame her as he had the shortcuts in plain view on the home screen. The only thing he was grateful for was that real stuff was hidden deep in the file explorer.

He placed his hand on her shoulder.

"I hope you didn't use this one before you went to sleep." She commented with a smug look on her face.

He had the eyes of a man who had everything taken from him.

"Please, don't tell anyone about this."

She removed his hand and looked at him in curiosity.

"Why would I?"

Miguel thanked all that was holy she never considered the idea and breathed a sigh of relief. Still, he did feel awkward having a girl go through some of his porn but whatever, it already happened, he'll take better precautions next time.

He got up out of bed and stretched.

"So why have you visited me this time?"

"Let's go out."

Miguel turned to her in shock but she cleared up his misunderstanding.

"Not like that dumbass, just hang out with me for the day. I recently got laid off and I honestly could use a day to blow off some steam."

The excitement on his face dissipated and he couldn't help but feel slightly disappointed. Though, maybe it was a good thing his brother's ex-girlfriend wasn't into him.

"What am I, an emotional support dog?"

"I can scratch your neck if you'd like, Fido." She said with a smile.

"Still isn't this like, what, the third time?"

She shrugged her shoulders.

"I can't help it, my coworkers are handsy bastards."

"Did you also send this one to the hospital?"

"..."

"I can help you sue them if you want."

"No, it's just easier to get a new job. I don't want anything more to do with that dump."

("It's nice she can stick up for herself but it's honestly a miracle she isn't arrested with how she leaves those guys sometimes.")

"Anyway, you said tomorrow?"

"Yup,"

"So why are you here today?"

"To sleep here obviously."

"..."

"You have a whole other room you aren't using, surely you can let me enjoy the bougieness of this place until tomorrow."

He scratched his head while thinking.

"Fine,"

"And don't worry, I played your game over there at full volume and didn't hear a thing in the other room."

Miguel had had enough and pushed her out of the room. She seemed cheery at his reaction and didn't resist.

"Jeez, my brother really did open Pandora's box on me."

As he walked back to bed he looked into the mirror and realized why he had felt something cold on his face while he slept.

He looked into the mirror and saw the words: househusband, nerd and other tepid remarks on his face.