Well, first he has a dream, and then he wakes up next to a certain blonde beauty... (Miu Iruma)

On a cold snowy day, young Shuichi Saihara sat next to the side of a small igloo in a blue winter jacket, watching the local kids at the park play in the snow from a distance. The young boy could see them laugh and smile at each other as they ran around together, but his feet remained firmly planted on the ground with his nose and ears red from the cold. He had tried playing with the kids earlier, but that didn’t go very well, so he was considering just spending the rest of the day safe inside the ice home behind him.

“Shuichi? What are you doing here?” A warm and gentle voice said behind him. Turning around, Shuichi saw a middle-aged man with combed black hair, glasses, and a winter jacket standing behind him; his father. “Shouldn’t you be over there, playing with the other kids?”

“Oh, hey dad.....” Shuichi sniffled and wiped his tears and runny nose to hide that he was crying all by himself. “I wanted to join and play in the snow, but… I can’t. I never talked to them before and they don’t know me that well. I’m scared that they’ll reject me if I ask. What if I tried to play with them, but I don’t do well at the game and they made fun of me or something? Can we just go home? I’d rather be alone and read my books than risk being made fun of.”

“Oh, son… don’t be like that.” His father said sympathetically as he sat down on the cold wet snow next to Shuichi. “I know it’s been hard for you Shuichi, especially since you’re at that age where you start questioning your self-worth. But you shouldn’t waste your boyhood either,” Shuichi's dad wrapped his right arm over the boy's shoulder to give his son a warm hug. “Listen, just because things didn’t work out this time doesn’t mean that you should give up. “Life can get very lonely without any friends at all, you know.”

“But… What if things go badly? I don’t want them to hurt my feelings.” Shuichi replied.

“Well… I can’t guarantee that things won’t go badly again… but you should keep trying anyway and never give up no matter how hard it gets.” Shuichi's dad removed his right arm on his son's shoulder and helped wipe away Shuichi’s tears with his sleeves. “Because this pain will go away, I promise you; you’re going to find good friends that’ll last forever.”

“But what if I just never find any friends at all?” Shuichi asked with another sniffle. “What if I’m destined to be alone forever?”

“Don’t worry, son; I know you can do it!” Shuichi’s dad laughed and rustled his son’s black hair. “Besides; even if you don’t have any friends, your old man will always be there for you if you need me.”

“Really? You promise?” young Shuichi asked.

“Of course I will!” Mr. Saihara patted his son on the shoulder and stood back up from the cold snow. “Now get out there and try again, okay?”

Shuichi smiled and stood up as well. “A-alright; I’ll do my best this time, I swear!”

“Do… do my… best…” Shuichi mumbled warmly to himself in the dark as he tossed and turned in his sleep. The mattress underneath him creaked a little as he shifted his weight, but he was still deeply asleep.

That was, until he suddenly found his face buried in something firm yet oddly pliable pressing against his face. Slowly, his eyes fluttered open, and he finally got a good look at what his face was lying on; a massive pair of E-cup breasts that were just barely being contained by a lacy black bra. The woman, whoever it was, smelled like a mixture of sweat and sweet perfume, and she mumbled slightly as she moved in her sleep as well. Shuichi probably would have found it cute if he remembered going to sleep with a woman the night before.

“Wha-!?” Surprised, Shuichi immediately pushed himself off the woman and stumbled backward, falling out of the bed he was in the process. He hit the ground with a loud thud but quickly reached for something to pull himself back onto his feet. It was hard to see in the dark room, but he soon found something that he thought was a doorknob and gave it a pull, only to discover too-late as he fell again that it was a lever of some kind. “Gah!”

The lights to the room turned on suddenly as the lever finished falling, revealing a truly alien environment to Shuichi. The walls were a strange patchwork of brick and green circuit boards, the ceiling was covered in hooks and nails that held a variety of strange tools, and almost every free surface on the room seemed to covered in gears, machine parts, and devices that he couldn’t even begin to imagine their true purpose.

“What the hell? Where in the world am I?” Shuichi asked himself as he stood up and accidentally stumbled into a large red button on the wall. “Gah!”

The room began to rumble and, expecting the worst, Shuichi covered his head defensively. A moment later the rumbling stopped and a golf ball fell from the hole in the ceiling to press the lever of a nearby toaster. That ball then fell to the ground and rolled through a groove onto the ground to a long spoon next to a table. That spoon acted as a lever that caused an orange to fall out of a box and into some kind of juicer, the loud noise of which caused Shuichi to jump back and hit another button in surprise. This time, a panel in the ceiling opened to reveal a long robotic arm, which took out a frying pan and placed it over a bunsen burner, which it then used to start cooking an egg provided by another robot arm from the floor.

“This… this can’t be happening,” Shuichi said as he rubbed his eyes. “Is this some kind of strange dream? Am I still asleep?”

“Augh… what’s with all the racket?” A voice said behind Shuichi. He turned around to see that the woman he was sleeping with had finally woken up, and there he finally saw something that he recognized; the same blonde sex worker he met at the park the week before. “Can’t you see I’m trying to get my beauty sleep!?”

“Curie?” Shuichi blinked at her in surprise. “What are you doing here? What am I doing here? Where are we? What are these things? And… why are you almost naked!?”

“Jeez… you take a guy in off the streets and this is how he reacts.” Curie yawned and stood up from the bed, apparently unbothered by the fact that she was only in her black underwear and welding goggles, and turned off some of the machines making noise. “What ever happened to being fuckin’ grateful, huh?”

“Off the streets? What are you talking about?” Shuichi asked.

“Exactly what it sounds like, numbnuts!” Curie barked as grabbed a plate off a nearby table and used it to catch the finished toast out of the nearby toaster. “I found you passed out at Kokai Park late last night while I was out doing my, uh… nightly walk. I considered just leaving you there but, fortunately for you, the most beautiful inventor in the world took pity on you and I decided to take you back to my place before you got eaten by raccoon dogs or some shit.”

“The park? Oh… that’s right.” Shuichi winced slightly as the events of the previous night flashed in his eyes. “Thank you for doing that, for me, Curie, but I think I probably would have been just fine on my own. Plus, you really should have woken me before dragging me someplace without my consent...”

“H-hey! Don’t make me out to be some kind of kidnapper!” Curie stammered, suddenly bashful. “You were out completely cold, exposed to the environment, helpless, and sleeping on a wooden bench! What was I supposed to do? Just leave you there and let you get splinters?”

“R-right, of course. I’m in your debt.” Shuichi, sensing that Curie was trying to be genuinely kind, bowed respectfully in thanks as the robot arms placed a freshly fried egg onto Curie’s plate. “So, uh… does this mean I’m at yours and Kae’s apartment right now?”

“Pfft, I fuckin’ wish,” Curie scoffed as she grabbed some fresh orange juice. “That bimbo won’t let me experiment in there anymore after just one frinkin’ explosion! So I have to do all my work down here in the apartment basement so I don’t light her stuff on fire’.”

“Oh… phew.” Shuichi let out a sigh of relief, thankful that he wouldn’t have to explain to Kae what he was doing in her place. “Oh, by the way, Curie; you didn’t happen to see any shopping bags near me while I was at the park, did you?”

“Yeah, I did actually,” Curie replied as she ate, chewing with her mouth open. “I assumed that was just hobo trash, though, and left them there. Why do you ask? There wasn’t anything important in those bags, were there?”

“No… I suppose not.” Shuichi sighed again. “It’s just that… I kind of had some expensive things I had just bought in there.”

“W-wait, seriously!?” Curie recoiled in surprise and stood up from her seat. “God-fucking-damn it! I knew I should have actually checked them out! I, uh, head back to the park right now to look for them if you want me to.”

“No, don’t bother; they’re probably long gone by now,” Shuichi replied. “Besides it might be best if I don’t see that stuff again anyway. It could help me… move on, you know?”

“Uh… no, not really,” Curie replied, calming down a little. “But if you say it’s not important enough to go back for, then I won’t argue with you.” She then sat back down and returned to her food.

“By the way; what were you even doing at the park that late anyway?” Curie asked curiously. “I thought you did all your exercise stuff earlier in the night. Don’t tell me that you were jogging and shit all night long.”

“It’s… kind of a long story,” Shuichi answered, rubbing the back of his head. “Basically, I just had a really long and busy day that day.”

“Really?” Curie crossed her legs. “Is that why you didn’t bother calling me yesterday?” The inventor jabbed an accusing finger into Shuichi’s chest. “I told you that my period would be over by then, but you just had to go and leave my pussy high and dry, didn’t you?”

“Ah! That’s right; I was supposed to call you, wasn’t I?” Shuichi gasped regretfully. “I’m so sorry, Curie; it completely slipped my mind because of the date I had with Kae.”

“You mean you chose tiny tits over me? Pfft, talk about lame.” Curie scoffed and finished eating her breakfast. “Don’t worry, though; I’m feeling generous today, so I’ll forgive you. All you have to do is hire me now to make up for me saving your sorry butt from exposure, and we’ll call it even.”

“Hire you?” Shuichi placed his hand to his chin for a few moments as he considered the proposal. “Thank you for the offer, but I’m afraid that I’m going to have to pass for now.”

“Eh!?” Curie recoiled with an expression of pure shock on her face. “W-what do you mean by that? You’re seriously turning down the sexiest, smartest girl in town? W-what are you, blind!?” The blonde’s lower lip quivered as she spoke, as if she was about to break out into tears at any moment. “O-or am I not good enough for you? Do you want someone else hotter? Someone who will do more freaky shit? Because I can do freaky shit too, you know! Just you name it!”

“I-it’s not you, Curie, I swear!” Shuichi hastily assured her. “You’re extremely beautiful, and clearly very talented, but…” Shuichi took out his wallet and showed that all the bills he once had in it were gone. “I’m afraid I’m a little low on money at the moment; especially since you lost those bags of mine.”

“If it’s money issues you’re having trouble with, I suppose I can help you out just this once,” Curie replied, calming down again. “I’ll let you do it at one th-third my usual rate to make up for the bag thing. How does that sound?”