TFW You Are the System

5 Kids, this is why you stay in school

The blond boy looked at Jia Xinyue in confusion. He tilted his head as he wondered out loud-

"Is it broken?"

Jia Xinyue immediately started to cuss.

[Broken!? Your mother's broken! Your whole family is broken!]

With a deep sigh, Jia Xinyue made the highly difficult decision of sacrificing her pride and tried to select option 2 on the blue window. As soon as she thought to select option 2, the window disappeared.

The blond boy looked up as another blue window appeared in front of him.

"System 57..." He said, dragging out the syllables.

Suddenly, his whole face lights up in childish glee.

"Nice to meet you! My name's Kian!" He said, sticking a slender hand out to Jia Xinyue.

Jia Xinyue was pleasantly surprised to see that she could finally move again. She stared at his hand for just a bit too long, trying to figure out what he had been saying.

Kian's hand fell a little bit at her reaction, making her feel guilty.

She tried to shake his hand but as her muscles still felt like they were on fire, her movements ended up being stiff and robotic. Gingerly, she shook his hand as the two shared an awkward silence.

Jia Xinyue then attempted to stand up. Which resulted in her falling straight back down to the floor.

Embarrassed, she quickly tried again, only to be left with the same scenario- get up, fall.

Kian wondered whether the system he got given had bugs...and how he'd be able to file a report for the developers to fix...

After watching Jia Xinyue fall for the 5th time, Kian finally came over to help, only to be pushed back by her.

Kian: ....Maybe System 57 really is broken...

Jia Xinyue finally managed to crawl into a standing position after multiple embarrassing attempts.

Surprisingly, Jia Xinyue was around 10cm taller then Kian. She had always been tall for an Chinese woman. Many of her friends told her to become a model. She tried. Never made it past the second round.

Kian looked even younger then what she had thought! No longer a bunny...more like a baby bunny! She leaned even closer to Kian, which made him turn bright red.

"Your eyelashes are so long, I'm envious." She stated, still staring at his features.

Of course, Kian couldn't understand a single bit of Chinese.

Which led to their first problem as a system and host.

Figure out how to understand each other!

"Can. You. Switch. To. English." Kian said, carefully pronouncing each word for Jia Xinyue to hear.

Jia Xinyue understood, but didn't really know how to answer. So, she just simply shook her head.

Just because she knew some English doesn't mean she's fluent! She barely remembered anything but 'Hello' and 'Thank you'!

Ah... Really should've paid attention in class... Too embarrassing.

Jia Xinyue turned around, and stood there, shocked.

There were hundred of blue windows, like tabs on a PC. They stretched up far above what she could see, seemingly endless just like the space. From what she observed, the closest one to her had the words 'Settings' on it. Sighing in relief, she made her way over to the massive window and tapped Settings.

For a holographic screen, it felt surprisingly hard, and cold to the touch. Electric blue light whizzed across the screen, sending faint pulses of light.

When Jia Xinyue paid closer attention, she heard a faint humming sound.

Quickly, she searched through the settings, trying to see if there was anything to help her understand Kian.

Kian. Oh no.

Jia Xinyue turned around to where Kian had been standing. He had completely vanished!

[...]

[I guess I can find him later...]

She turned back to the wall of windows. With so many windows, there had got to be one to locate one's host. All she had to do was to find it.

Maybe there would be a window to search for other windows somewhere...

Jia Xinyue turned her attention back onto the Settings page. Scrolling down, she comes across a tab called 'Language'.

She sighed in relief as she clicked on the tab.

There was only one option available, which was 'Auto-translate all languages'.

Jia Xinyue assumed that now anything she said would be in English to Kian, and anything Kian said would be in Chinese to her. If that was how it worked.

She needed to test out this theory, but to do that, she needed to find Kian again.

[He can't be too far from her... ]

Jia Xinyue wondered if her host was an idiot. It had been 2 hours, and she still hadn't found him. Either her luck was just really bad and she was going in the wrong direction or he was just really fast.

During this time, however, Jia Xinyue had discovered a lot of different windows. She had also accidentally stumbled across a way to tie different menus to her.

She had literally stumbled on flat ground and hit a button on a window about random flora in Jiang, which made it hover ominously behind her. Jia Xinyue experimented a couple of times before finally getting the hang of it and proceeded to head back and grab the Settings menu.

Now, she had a few important menus trailing behind her. Jia Xinyue was secretly proud of the format as if she stood still, they almost looked like wings.

Wings that pulsed with a electric blue light, wings that glowed slightly, turning the area around her a darker shade of blue.

Unfortunately, she never found a menu that allowed her to see where Kian was. She did find a menu for customizing a body and another menu for maps, which she figured could be useful in the long run.

Her legs ached from the constant walking, added on with the pain from earlier, she was dead tired.

Jia Xinyue flopped onto the ground, heaving a deep sigh. Maybe she would never be able to find Kian again, and she'd have to spend the rest of her life here waiting.

[How long do systems even live for? They can't be counted as living though... but I'm still human.]

She rolled onto her back, staring at the endless white space that stretched out on top of her. She wished that it was the night sky instead, with her looking up at millions of stars and galaxies to be explored.

Born too late to explore the world, born too early to explore the universe.

Suddenly, Jia Xinyue heard a ZAP! She would check out the source of the sound, but she was too tired to.

"Feel free to take my soul anytime, Death." She said out loud.

"Death? I thought systems don't die. And hey! I understand you now!"

Jia Xinyue looked to her right.

Kian stood there, looking a little sheepish as he scratched his head lightly.

"Where were you?" Jia Xinyue asked icily, making Kian shiver.

Kian sat down next to Jia Xinyue. His eyes started watering and his bottom lip quivered, tugging at her heartstrings.

"I'm sorry..." He said, sniffling a bit, "I went out for a bit and forgot to come back..."

Jia Xinyue had wasted two, almost three hours, looking for someone who had forgotten about her existence, and went off to play on his own.

Her eyes softened upon seeing his pitiable figure. She leaned over and pinched his cheeks, hard.

"Thats what you get for not telling me." She said coldly, but her chilly expression had finally left and she smiled at Kian.

"Wow," Kian murmured, "I never knew AIs could be so realistic."

Jia Xinyue, upon hearing this, gave up. She flopped back onto the ground and went to sleep. No more explaining, she's done enough of that in the past day. She can explain later.

"I think it broke again..." Kian cried out upon seeing her 'broken' body.

But Jia Xinyue couldn't be bothered to listen, and fell into a deep sleep.