.Hack//ZERO RE:1000
RE:1000[edit]
“Jun, dear. Would you like a potluck for dinner?”
At the sound of her grandmother Takie’s voice, Junka looked up and turned around.
Takie peeked through the door, having just come home from her job.
“Oh, hi.”
Junka gave a stunted response and placed her FMD on her desk.
Her skin was as smooth as a soft-boiled egg, though her cheeks hadn’t quite outgrown their puffiness. Junka wasn’t a grown woman, but rather, a young girl.
She had thin hair with bangs that stuck to her forehead, and was cut short enough to see the back of her neck.
Which was a tragedy in Takie’s eyes. She’d had hair down to her waist until just last year, and her grandmother had mourned the loss of it for a week.
Recently though, she’d finally started coming around to the look. Occasionally, she’d even draw portraits of Junka saying ‘your neck is so beautiful.’
But even though she’d grown eight inches this year, she was still one of the shortest kids in her class.
“Sorry, I’m feeling tired today.”
Takie lifted a hand to her forehead with a gesture of prayer.
“None at all?”
Junka sighed, but stood up to help prepare dinner anyways.
Though she had a standard six tatami mat room, she didn’t have many belonging for a young girl. There were no posters or stuffed animals, just a single computer which was still running.
With one last glance at the image on the screen, Junka turned off the game.
She went downstairs to the kitchen, and Takie started pulling ingredients out of a plastic bag from a supermarket.
“I’ll bring out the pot.”
Junka reached for the cupboard above the sink.
In this house, Junka and Takie were usually the only two at the dinner table.
“Mom working late again, today?”
“Yes, she is. As usual.”
Takie put emphasis on that last part.
Kyoko – Takie’s daughter and Junka’s mother – was an orthopedic surgeon.
Their house was in Mitaka, Tokyo, but Kyoko’s job was at a hospital in a commuter town an hour away. These days, she tended to spend less than two hours a day at home – not counting when she slept – and worked the night shift at least once a week, too.
But it had been that way since Junka was born, so she wasn’t glum about it.
These three women from three separate generations all lived together in this small shell of a house.
They had no men to help out, either. Junka’s grandfather had passed away long before she was born, back when her mother was still a child.
And all three of them shared the same surname: Nimura. Kyoko had lived in this house her entire life.
According to Takie, that was because ‘Nimura women are too strong’.
Junka felt that she said so in a self-deprecating way, however. She was simply resigned to the idea that they had to fend for themselves. So Junka never responded to the claim, she just gave her an awkward smile.
Of course, in the eyes of these adults, Junka was still a baby. A very honest and clever baby, but still a baby.
Although in truth, Junka was a rather unruly baby, even if she didn’t talk much.
After a lifetime of injury, sickness, and rebellion, Junka had barely turned ten years old.
Her classmates were always telling her that she should join the library committee because she read a lot and knew a lot.
And now that she was in her third semester of fourth grade, she had started attending a cram school to prepare for the junior high entrance exams next year.
The exam would consist of an essay and an interview, and while practicing for the interview, her teachers always told her that she should speak louder.
“Thank you for the meal.”
Junka set her chopsticks aside and bowed her head.
"Finished already?”
Takie raised her eyebrows in mock surprise.
If Junka had any fault aside from her soft voice, it was that she was an extremely light eater.
“I’m full.”
“Don’t give me that. You’ve been getting into your candy again, haven’t you?”
Takie almost never complained about her granddaughter’s choices, but in this instance, her tone grew more severe.
“Just a little.”
Junka had only eaten about a half cup of rice and barely more than a bite of her spinach and pork. It wasn’t exactly that she didn’t like the taste, she just couldn’t stomach more than that.
Most days, she got all of her calories from junk food.
But forbidding her from eating those kinds of things wouldn’t convince Junka to eat more at meals, she would simply refuse to eat at all.
Rice was like bugs to her.
At least, that was what Junka had said when she’d been forced into counseling.
Takie hadn’t known what to say when she heard that.
It reminded her that the world looked very different to Junka’s eyes than it did to her own.
Perhaps the world she saw was just that difficult to live in.
Eat dinner at the table. Finish the food you take off of your plate. And don’t poke at the food in disgust. As long as Junka followed those rules, Takie had promised not to force her to eat more.
No good would come from forcing the issue. According to the doctor, she would eventually grow out of this habit with time.
After all, aside from her light eating and soft-spoken nature, Junka was a relatively good girl.
But then again, neither her mother nor her grandmother knew who Junka was online. They didn’t know about Carl or the things she did.
Junka was gifted her computer two years ago.
She’d asked her mom for one as a birthday present.
Junka had expected her to say she was too young for a computer, but she’d allowed it surprisingly easily. And by the next day, she had a line up and running.
And soon after that, Junka had registered an account for The World.
She’d done the registration herself. It had been a simple enough matter by following the instruction manual.
And now, aside from rare exceptions when she was away from home, not a day went by where she didn’t log in.
And still neither her mother nor grandmother noticed a thing.
They had no idea how much time Junka spent playing The World, or the kinds of things she got up to while she was there.
And that was because she was careful to cover her tracks.
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