Yuto was a little dazzled by the spectacle, but he knew that was not why he had come. He was here for his phone, so he approached an employee and asked.
"Excuse me, do you offer repair services here?"
In front of Yuto stood a man with black hair, very thin, almost noodle-like, wearing a black uniform with additional yellow details. His right eye appeared to be made of metal, with neon lines similar to those Yuto had seen outside, running from his eye up into his head.
Strangely, he wore a rather old-fashioned monocle, very dark in both the metal and the glass. Yuto wondered if this man simply disliked people seeing his eye, even though, in Yuto's opinion, what little he could see at the corners looked quite colorful.
The employee briefly lifted his gaze from some kind of magazine he held, then closed it, folded it, and bent down to place it at the back of the desk that separated him from Yuto. After that, he stood up and said:
"Yes, we do offer that service. Could you tell me what's wrong with your phone or device?"
Somewhat excited to finally (or so he thought) see the solution to his problems, Yuto cooperated as much as possible.
"Well, you see, yesterday I was searching for something online."
"I see," the man nodded slightly.
"...And well, as far as I can tell, I left my device running in the browser while ... it was in my pocket, so it ended up opening all sorts of things along the way. I only noticed once I got home."
The employee nodded understandingly.
"That is quite common, don't worry. Just hand me your device, I will connect it here," he said, pointing at a bundle of cables for different devices sticking out from the side of the desk.
"I will check what it has, though honestly, I do not think there will be many issues based on what you said. Usually, only a couple of days' worth of data is lost. In the worst case I will have to reformat it, but your phone will still work and you can restore it if you had a backup."
Yuto nodded and handed over his phone.
The employee connected it and pulled the computer closer from the side of the desk. Yuto waited as he watched the man type at a slightly monotonous rhythm.
...
....
...
"Excuse me, about how long will it take to know what's wrong with my phone?" Yuto asked after a while.
Without turning his face from the screen, the man replied, "Oh, actually, the scan finished a while ago. This is the first case. I am just applying the company's antivirus now to purge all the infected files it installed."
"Oh, great… but how long will that take?"
After a short pause, still looking at the screen, the employee answered,
"About fifteen minutes more or less. I cannot say if you were lucky or unlucky, but although you did not download anything too serious, your device has quite a collection of viruses, which is why the antivirus is taking so long."
Yuto was left speechless for a couple of minutes. Then, growing impatient, his curiosity slipped out.
"By the way, why the monocle? Is it some kind of fashion, or is it related to your quirk?"
This time, the employee finally turned his face and looked Yuto in the eyes.
"It is actually a small medical device." He did not want to say more, but under Yuto's intense stare, he had no choice but to continue.
"My quirk is super clarity. It increases sensitivity beyond the normal human range and expands it slightly into different frequencies of my eye."
"So you can see things like heat and UV rays?"
"Not really, or at least not enough to be truly useful. I can only see something if it is very hot, and UV rays actually blind me. Who would have thought that seeing most of the rays the sun gives off would be a problem."
"So it's like an eye patch but very stylish with a robot theme?"
The man raised his brow.
"Do I look like a pirate? In a way, yes, though it only works against anything that is not regular light."
Bing.
The computer chimed, signaling the cleaning process was finished.
"Okay, your phone should be ready now. Test it to see if there are still any problems," he said, handing Yuto the phone while it remained plugged in.
Yuto began moving the screen around wildly to see if there was any delay in processing, then opened his browser to make sure it was empty so it wouldn't get infected again right after leaving, but while checking the state of his phone he realized something.
It was called "My Quirk," with an icon showing a rainbow spinning and blurring around a circle. At first, Yuto thought it was his photo app since it looked similar, but then he realized his photo app was in the search bar, not tucked away in some other folder.
He sighed in relief at catching another virus before leaving, which would have increased his debt. He turned the phone to the employee and pointed at it.
"I see the purge wasn't complete, because this application didn't have it before".
The man took the phone and with a few clicks on his computer managed to uninstall it, or so he thought.
Because when he handed it back, the app was still there.
"...Is this some kind of joke? Why is it still there?" Yuto asked, confused.
The man frowned deeply, grabbed the phone again, and worked with full concentration, eyes darting between the device and the computer.
Bing.
The computer chimed again. This time, after checking the screen and seeing nothing, he sighed in relief and handed it back.
"....It's still there, sir," Yuto said.
Suspicious, the man tried again but this time showed Yuto that the app was gone before returning the phone.
"See, it's deleted. But wait, do not turn your phone around while holding it."
As soon as Yuto held it, the screen flickered and the app reappeared.
With slight irritation, the man said,
"Kid, if this is some kind of prank with your quirk or coding, I recommend you stop. It's not funny."
Yuto, bewildered, tried to defend himself.
"I'm not doing anything, and it's not my quirk. My quirk is about resistance." He glanced around, spotted a small hammer and some tools at the side of the desk, and grabbed one.
"Hey, what are you doing, kid?"
"Just watch what I mean," he said, striking his own hand, causing cracks to spread from his fingertips to the first joints.
Clank
At first, the man was horrified, thinking Yuto had broken his hand during his shift, but when he saw the cracks and remembered what Yuto had said, he realized it was probably not an emergency injury.
Sighing in relief, he muttered,
"Don't scare me like that, kid. I thought I was going to get fired over a medical accident."
"You didn't believe me, so I had no choice but to prove it before being labeled a vandal," Yuto said, massaging his hands with a slightly complaining voice.
"There are better ways to do that than smashing your own hand. Anyway, if you didn't do this, then it means someone created a program that follows you for some reason, whether to steal data, extort you, or maybe just some bored idiot who thinks harassing people is fun."
"So what can I do in cases like this?" Yuto asked nervously, fearing the idea of a digital stalker.
"Well, the obvious choice is to inform the authorities and let them handle it. Another option is buying our strongest antivirus, the Shield Virtual Dragon-Gold X, though I doubt you can afford it," he said, eyeing Yuto in his school uniform.
"Because honestly, I suspect you can't, considering you're a student with part-time work or repeating failed classes."
"I'm not rep…"
"Save it, kid. The last option is simply to pretend nothing happened and hope it stays that way." He shrugged slightly.
Yuto thought about it. He knew he probably couldn't afford much, especially since he was already in debt, so he decided to consider his options later. But first…
"Thank you very much for your help. I'll figure out what to do once I'm home." He started to leave.
"Don't you think you're forgetting something?" the man said with a slightly severe tone.
Yuto froze for a moment until he suddenly remembered the kind of society he lived in.
"Sorry, but how much do I owe?"
With a slight smile, the employee replied,
"Considering I couldn't remove all the viruses, I'll give you a twenty-five percent discount. But it still took quite some time with the massive number of viruses, so that comes to…" He began typing in a keyboard and calculating in a notebook.
Fritz.
The sound of a printer was heard, and a receipt slid out from under the desk.
"About 2200¥ , with the discount included."
Yuto turned pale but pulled out his wallet, paid, and left.
Fiu.
The sound of the automatic door and bills being counted and stored was all that remained as he departed.
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