[Shinji, I heard you stopped that meteor heading for Z City and made it disappear completely. Is that true?]
Shinji was lounging in the living room, tea in hand, lazily scrolling through his phone when the message popped up. Just as he expected, it was Lily again.
He tapped the screen and replied without much thought:
[What else could it be if not true?]
[How did you do it? I remember Lady Fubuki once said you're an esper too. So you used your powers, right?]
[Yeah, I did.]
He'd originally planned to leave it at "Yeah," but that felt too blunt, so he added a little more to soften the tone.
Now that he thought about it, Lily had been messaging him more often lately. Most of the time, it wasn't about anything important, just random everyday topics. It seemed like she was just looking for someone to chat with.
[By the way... don't you have any friends?]
[??? What's that supposed to mean?!]
Her quick reply clearly showed she'd been caught off guard.
[I meant it literally. You keep chatting with me, a total outsider, about stuff people usually share with their friends.]
Shinji wasn't trying to be mean. He was genuinely curious. As far as he was concerned, she barely knew him, yet she spoke to him like they were close.
Normally, Lily would reply in a flash, but this time it took a couple of minutes before her response finally came through.
[How can you be an outsider? You're already part of the Blizzard Group... Even if you won't admit it, Lady Fubuki has decided that you're joining us no matter what!]
[The fu-seriously?]
Shinji replied with just an ellipsis, then tossed his phone aside. He knew how stubborn Fubuki could be. Once she set her sights on someone, she never backed off. Let her think whatever she wanted.
"Hey, today's discount day. Wanna go grocery shopping together?"
Right then, a bald head popped in through the open window near the door.
"Sure."
Shinji gave a nod. For a change of pace, it would be nice to go out casually.
He and Saitama went grocery shopping together every now and then. It had become a sort of routine.
With his phone still in hand, he stepped outside to join Saitama. As they walked down the empty street, Saitama glanced over.
"Your phone was buzzing just now. Was that a call or a bunch of messages?"
"Nothing important."
Shinji shrugged and opened his phone to put it back on silent. He had turned it off earlier and forgotten to switch it back.
As he adjusted the setting, Lily's flood of messages lit up the screen. Most were memes or random, meaningless comments.
Still, he wasn't annoyed. He understood that girls her age could be like that, probably in middle school, or maybe early high school at most.
And of course, in this case, "high school" didn't mean college or anything beyond that.
Seeing that she'd spammed his phone with so many messages, Shinji figured he might as well respond.
[I'm out grocery shopping with a friend. I'll talk to you later.]
[Wait, you actually have friends?]
Lily replied instantly, attaching a confused meme.
[Why wouldn't I?]
Shinji fired back.
[I always thought you were the lone-wolf type who doesn't make friends.]
[...That's not entirely wrong, but I do have a few, at least.]
He paused for a second. It was surprising how much Lily seemed to know about him. More than he'd expected, honestly.
It was true, Shinji wasn't fond of socializing. More precisely, he didn't like meaningless interactions.
And what exactly counted as meaningless? That was something only he got to decide.
Like forcing himself to hang around the Tank Top Army just because they held sway in the Hero Association...
Or sucking up to Tatsumaki, the strongest hero aside from Blast (if you went by the webcomic), even though her personality was clearly awful...
Stuff like that felt pointless to him.
On the other hand, the way he got along with people like Saitama, Genos, or Bang was different. Those relationships were effortless. Nothing fake, nothing forced.
A thought suddenly occurred to him, and he messaged Lily again:
[Don't tell me you don't have any friends?]
She didn't reply right away. He guessed that silence meant he'd hit the mark.
It really was strange, though. Wasn't the Blizzard Group a pretty big organization? Even if she wasn't tight with everyone, it was hard to believe she didn't have at least one close friend.
Or maybe her standards for what counted as a "friend" were just unusually high?
[So what if I don't? You're so annoying!]
She finally responded.
"..."
Shinji had typed out a follow-up, [With all those people in the Blizzard Group, not even one close friend?], But after hesitating, he erased it. He didn't want to drag the Blizzard Group back into the conversation.
[No reason. I was just curious.]
With that, he turned off his phone.
He'd already switched his phone to silent, so it wouldn't keep buzzing randomly in his pocket.
"Someone messaged you, didn't they? You seem pretty popular. Always chatting with people every day... Are they fans or something?" Saitama, walking beside him, asked offhandedly.
"Not fans. Just a pro hero I knew from before," Shinji replied.
"Oh, so coworkers, not fans. By the way, did you sign up for some kind of texting service? Using regular SMS must be pricey."
Saitama actually sounded a bit curious.
"Looks like you still don't know about LINE, huh? It's an instant messaging app. You can just download it straight to your phone."
Shinji explained casually.
LINE had only started catching on in this world recently. Most people were still stuck using flip phones, and the tech progression here was all over the place. The timeline for what got invented and when felt completely skewed.
Given that Saitama had been living like a recluse for over three years, probably longer, he didn't need much. Reading manga, playing games, and watching TV were more than enough to keep him entertained. It wasn't a surprise that he didn't know what kind of apps people used these days.
"Is that so? Guess I'll check it out when I get home."
Right after saying that, Saitama suddenly came to a stop. "I was going to look into it later, but..."
Before he could finish, a kunai sliced through the air toward them from the distance.
Saitama raised a hand without even looking and casually caught it between his fingers. "Looks like that troublesome guy is back."
A moment later, Speed-o'-Sound Sonic appeared directly in front of them, eyes fixed on Saitama with a sharp glint.
"That guy looks kinda... familiar..."
Saitama stared for a moment, trying to remember. "Joint Panic?"
"It's Speed-o'-Sound Sonic!"
Sonic snapped, immediately correcting him.
"Hm? Seems there's an annoying extra tagging along..."
His gaze shifted to Shinji, standing calmly next to Saitama. "I came here to challenge Saitama to a proper one-on-one fight. I'll deal with the nuisance first."
"...?"
Shinji blinked, a question mark practically hanging over his head as Sonic suddenly targeted him with open hostility.