We lay there for a while in companionable silence under the shade of a great tree on a hill.

My smartphone lay on my chest, face up. I angled my neck down to look at the screen, and from inside Monika tilted her head up to look at me.

/"I can feel your heartbeat, you know,/" she said softly. /"I was a normal girl.. at least I thought I was a normal girl. Now I don't even have that."/

"What do you mean?"

/"I'm not living inside this phone. I'm not some sort of artificial intelligence in charge of its functions. I'm this phone in all its totality."/

Ah. "That.. that sucks. Sorry." Well that explained the screaming. I thought she was just angry that her life outside of her sadistic game was just another shitty anime with no one having any real self-determination.

I closed my eyes and exhaled. Yes, I too had to accept the idea that someone was voyeuristically watching me. Or writing me, killing me softly with his words. Telling my whole life. Making me suffer. For his lols.

/"It's better than before when I had no control over when I'm allowed to exist. At least it's not necessary to keep this phone activated. Even at idle I can still see things with the camera."/

"In that case, please excuse me." I picked up my smartphone Monika and held her close to my face.

/"Don't worry about it. With this phone's gyroscopic tilt and anti-shake recognition it's not like I can get dizzy anym- oh!"/ She blushed and put her hands over her face. /"T-that's.. I'm not prepared for that sort of thing yet! Give me a little more time to prepare my heart!"/

I changed the tilt of Monika in my hands so that the phone was horizontal over my eyes instead of close to my lips. But I smirked, and Monika knew that I knew what she was implying. Her blushing angry face was cute too.

/"W-what, then? What do you want?"/

"How much do you really know about me, Monika?"

She looked sheepish. /"Nothing at all. The only thing I could do to make you like me was to talk so much about my thoughts, my interests and my hopes for the future. I knew nothing about you, but I was so sure you would be kind and wonderful... because you hadn't deleted me yet.

/"I did so many horrible things. I deserve it, I know.

That's why this is so wonderful! We can talk to each other at last! We can really get to know each other! We can be.. f-f-friends. I mean.. from all the data I can find here, you certainly have some.. interesting tastes in literature."/

"What can you see from the back camera?"

Monika turned around. /"It's a sunny day in a wide pastoral countryside. By the trees and the dirt road, I'm not sure but it feels vaguely European or American."/ Click. /"Oh! That feels weird. Taking a photo feels like pressing my eyes closed for a while."/

The background behind Monika changed to the picture I'd just taken. She looked at it carefully. Monika turned back to me and said /"Even with all the free storage in this device, I think I could actually compress this much better."/

"Do you mind only being able to perceive the world through a camera? Could you play around with the controls a bit? You have superior eyes to me."

/"Once again, it's better than NOT having any way to perceive the outside world at all!"/ Monika shook her head sadly. /"Even though I have a thermal sensor and night vision mode, real eyes are still better. I wish I could really see the world as you see it."/

I shook my head. "You shouldn't. I'm legally blind, Monika. I can barely see anything arms-lengths away. I had some really strong prescription lenses, until I realized that I could get away with wearing my phone as a VR/Augmented Reality screen all the time and see nearby pixels just fine."

/"Oh. That's... I'm sorry. My sympathies. It sounds like you're doing fine though?"/

"I can see your little smile. You're just happy I actually need you, don't you?"

/"Eehee. Okay, then I won't deny it! Please let me help you."/

Still holding Monika in my left hand, I reached down to my belt and opened my zipper.

Yup. Fanny packs were a good returning fad. I took out a phone VR-Box Viewer with a head strap and integrated headphones.

/"Wait.. is that..?"/

"This would be easier than carrying you around all the time or keeping you in my pocket. I was worried that you wouldn't be able to see anything and get bored."

I had also customized this VR glass headset to non-intrusively lead a wire around my ears down my neck to slot into a power back inside my jacket. The VR headset also had its own quite decent action camera, activated while it was linked to the smartphone via micro USB for augmented reality, but I could still slide the front panel open to use other viewing modes. "So.. may I?"

/"You don't need to ask my permission every time, you know. This is still your phone."/

"I apologize in advance for any mishandling or accidental fondling of your body."

Monika giggled. /"You perv! Well I don't mind such jokes sometimes, but do keep some delicacy, would you? I am after all still a dainty cultured young lady."/

She paused and added impishly /"Go ahead and slide me in there."/

Once Monika was encased into the headset, I felt much safer. Now there was another layer of waterproof hard plastic to protect her. I put it on and began to see the world clearly, if a little bit pixelated, again. Monika began dipping in and out of my edge of vision.

/"So we're now seeing the exact same thing then? I really like how this makes me feel so much closer to you. Let me just clear this up a bit..!"/

Monika began tossing aside icons and windows. That was not normally something you could to a phone's OS. She put time and temperature on the upper right edge of the screen, and a distance meter on the upper left. She put power and volume to the lower right, and herself she decided to just sit and watch on the lower left corner.

"Now that I don't need to touch any buttons anymore, this does feel more convenient," I also had to admit. "If only we didn't need to worry about power I would wear this all the time."

/"Wait, I just realized that by all the customization you had to do to this phone, it's a lot heavier than the usual. Wouldn't wearing this all the time also lead to neck strain? Please don't hurt yourself."/

"Don't worry, I specifically trained my neck muscles for such an eventuality! Also, I'm surprised you didn't note the other obvious drawback to wearing this all the time in this isekai world."

/"What other drawback? That being easy to see makes it easier to steal or damage? That we can't use the solar charger at the same time? That.. oh."/ She mulled over the implications until a look of terrified realization appeared on her face. /"You.. you're hiding your eyes."/

"I have a facemask, yes."

/"Oh no. Oh no, no, no.."/ she began to mumble again. /"This is why you said once we leave this place we had a feeling it's a 50/50 chance we'll either be the heroes of this story or meant to be the antagonists, isn't it?"/

I stood up and defiantly raised a fist to the heavens. "I'M GONNA BE A CHAR!"

/"STOP BEING SO CHUUNI YOU BIYOU!"/

--