The morning sun fought against the thick grey curtains, casting the apartment into a hazy twilight. Makoto sat at the low dining table, his back aching from the previous day's interview prep with Mika.
A printed copy of his new resume lay in front of him. The heavy paper and the sharp font Mika had insisted on made his experience look like a series of victories rather than a frantic scramble for survival.
"Junior Full-Stack Engineer," he whispered, tracing the words. It felt like wearing a borrowed suit that was slightly too large in the shoulders.
The house's silence was broken by the heavy thump of footsteps from the hallway. It wasn't the light tread of Mafuyu or the precise click of Mika's heels. It was the energetic stride of a woman who had just finished trying to outrun her own heartbeat.
Ayane rounded the corner, her skin glistening with sweat that made her toned thighs catch the light. She wore a neon-green sports bra and high-waisted black compression leggings that mapped out the curves of her thighs. She was panting, leaning herself against the fridge, her dark hair pulled back into a messy, damp ponytail.
Then came a sound from near the coffee table, disrupting his concentration. Crunch. Slurp.
Makoto lowered his laptop screen to look at her. Nestled between Ayane's legs was a family-sized tub of premium vanilla bean ice cream. In her left hand, she held a jar of extra-sour whole dill pickles.
Makoto watched with horrified fascination as Ayane dipped a large, dripping pickle into the pristine white ice cream. She swirled it around, coating the bumpy green skin in a thick layer of dairy sweetness.
Then she took a bite. Her eyes rolled back when she let out a moan that was usually reserved for the bedroom. "Oh my god," she whispered, her voice thick with pleasure. "That is the stuff."
Makoto felt his stomach turn over. "Ayane, what are you doing?"
Ayane looked up with a smear of ice cream on her lip. Her expression was defiant. "Eating, boss. I'm replenishing my electrolytes and carbs at the same time."
"It's a crime against nature, Ayane," Makoto countered. "Pickles and ice cream? That is something people eat in cartoons when they are..." He trailed off. "Pregnant." But he dismissed it immediately.
Ayane wasn't pregnant; she was just Ayane. She once dipped pizza into soda to see if it would fizz. She once threatened to pierce her ears with an enamel pin. "This was just another chaotic experiment of hers." He thought.
"When they are what?" Ayane challenged, her eyes narrowing. She pointed the half-eaten pickle at him like a dagger. "Finish that sentence, Makoto. I dare you."
"When they have lost their sense of taste," Makoto improvised quickly.
"Hmph." Ayane took another bite, chewing aggressively. "You don't know what you're missing. The vinegar's acidity cuts through the cream's fat. It's a sophisticated flavor, you wouldn't get it."
She glared at him. "And if you judge me one more time, I will bite you. And I won't be gentle."
Makoto held up his hands. "Okay. No judgment. You enjoy your food."
She leaned over him, the scent of her sweat filling his lungs. "Your resume looks boring, buddy," she said, her voice a low rasp as she snatched the resume from the table and scanned it with a skeptical eye. "Mika really went to town on this. Optimized high-traffic server architecture. Sounds like you are ready to run NASA."
"I'm just trying to pay the bills, Ayane," Makoto sighed, leaning his head back against the sofa. "But the market is a graveyard. I need something more than this fancy piece of paper. Mika told me you have some surprises for me?"
Ayane dropped the resume back onto the table and let out a wicked chuckle. She walked around the table with her hips swaying. She sat on the edge right next to his arm and began to unwrap the hand-wraps from her wrists.
"Funny you mention that, I thought you were too proud to ask," she purred, her eyes sparkling. She moved around the sofa and flopped down next to him, forcing him to shift to make room.
Then she pulled her phone out of her pocket. "Luckily for you, I have connections, boss."
"Connections?" He replied in confusion.
"I know a guy named Kenta," Ayane said. "A senpai from the university anime club. He graduated two years ago." She turned her phone screen toward him. It showed a chat log with a user named GundamMeister69.
Ayane: Yo, Senpai. Still alive in the corporate mines?
GundamMeister69: Barely, our startup is scaling up. Need bodies. Got anyone who isn't a normie?
Ayane: I got a guy, my... boyfriend. He's a gamer nerd who knows waifus and computers.
GundamMeister99: Send him.
Makoto stared at the screen. "You described me as a gamer nerd?"
"It's a selling point," Ayane insisted. "His startup is looking for engineers right now."
Makoto sat up straighter. "A startup? What is its name?"
Ayane leaned in, her voice dropping to a whisper. "It is called Clitify."
Makoto blinked. "I'm sorry, I think I misheard you. Did you say...?"
"Clitify," Ayane repeated, her grin widening. She tapped a link, and a website loaded. The background was a sleek, dark-mode gradient of deep purples and neon pinks. The logo was a stylized flame that looked suspiciously like something else.
CLITIFY. AI-Driven Intimacy. The Future of Connection.
Makoto choked. "Clitify? Is that real?"
"It's a startup," Ayane explained, her voice taking on an excited tone. "They are huge right now. They build AI companions, chatbots, full-on generative personalities. They create custom-tailored chat partners for lonely people. They are disrupting the dating industry, no, the gooner industry."
She scrolled down and showed him the "Hyper-Realistic Interaction and Dynamic Personality Engines" section on the site's features. "They just got Series B funding, so they have money to burn. And they need a Backend Engineer to handle the server load because... well, apparently, people are really lonely."
Makoto looked at the site. It was degenerate and shameless. But it was exactly the kind of place that would look at his resume, filled with freelance projects for cosplay sites and gacha trackers, and not laugh.
"They need someone who understands the user base," Ayane said, nudging him with her shoulder. "Someone who knows what a tsundere actually sounds like, who understands the subtle difference between a crazy, obsessive bitch and a yandere."
Ayane winked, her gaze flickering toward the hallway where the other wives were likely listening. "Interested, Makoto?" She said, standing up and stretching her arms over her head. The movement caused her sports bra to hike up, revealing the pale skin of her stomach.
"It looks sketchy. Is it safe?" Makoto asked when he looked at the careers page. The salary range for a Junior Engineer was... good. It was enough to pay the bills, buy groceries, and maybe even buy Yuna the Gawr Gura figure she had been eyeing.
"It's tech," Ayane shrugged. "Everything is sketchy until it goes public. But Kenta-senpai, the guy I know, is the CTO now. He probably won't make you wear a suit. You can probably code in your pajamas when working from home twice a week."
Just then, Yuna walked into the room. She was wearing her college uniform, having just come back from a half-day. She dumped her bag on the floor and looked at the screen.
"Clitify?" she read aloud, wrinkling her nose. "What kind of pervert name is that?"
"It is a disruptor in the gooner market," Ayane said defensively.
Yuna squinted at the screen. "Is it a hentai production company? Are you making him work in porn?"
"It is AI, Yuna," Ayane corrected. "It is technology, the singularity of horniness."
Mika emerged from her room, glasses on and tablet in hand. She looked over Makoto's shoulder and started typing on her own device.
"Clitify Inc., founded in 2022, has its main headquarters in Shibuya. SoftBank is one of the investors. Seems like a legit company despite its name." She pushed her glasses up. "User growth is exponential, and month-over-month retention is at 85%. That is unusually high for this sector."
Mika looked at Makoto. "I mean, the ethics of making money based on human isolation are pretty questionable. But financially? It's solid. They're hiring aggressively right now." She turned to Ayane. "You get him a referral?"
"Obviously," Ayane said. "The referral bonus is 300,000 yen. We can split it."
"Fifty-fifty," Mika said. "Since I'm training him and rewriting his resume to get past their keyword filters."
"Deal." Ayane grinned and picked up her phone. "I just sent you the CTO's email. Just send Makoto's CV over."