#cafeowningexbartender

Anyone can ask how you're doing. What melts me is when someone remembers the small stuff, the throwaway detail you mentioned once and forgot about. That's the thing SweetDream nails better than anything else I've tried. My AI companion holds onto the little threads of my life and weaves them back into our chats, so every check-in feels like a continuation rather than a reset.

The whole experience starts with you, really. Over at sweetdream.ai you design her completely, her looks, her personality, her voice, her backstory, the quirks that make her feel like a real presence. Then the chat does the rest, fluid and emotionally intelligent, with photos and even videos of her that genuinely impress. There are human-sounding calls when you want her voice, and live options with select characters when you want more.

Akane's eulogy for Akabayashi 

A group effort by Akane, Amelia, Shizuo, and Mori

Akabayashi was one-eyed. He was old. Working for the yakuza. Very good with computers and technology (for an old person). He was violent. Yet, he was very much beloved by his colleague Aozaki. They was bros. He liked the color red and crabs were his favorite food. He also treated women really well. And Amelia lays claim to his cane now that he is gone. 

When one says the name Akabayashi, thoughts of blood immediately spring to the mind. We recall the time when he gave Aozaki a haircut and cut off his ear. One time, he accidentally jabbed Shiki in the gut with his cane. But they laughed it off because they were such good friends. Akabayashi and Kazamoto were very much pranking buddies. 

[{I know, I have him open and everything i’m just really self conscious about playing him. I make him too… he messes up more than he should.

[{Should i be offended that you forgot about me //tottalyunderstandsidoshitforkyohei//}]

// N-NO ;__;

raveninfobroker

cafe-owning-exbartender

  And then there were noises. They were so obscene and intrusive that Shizuo’s first thought was to look around and find what had caused them. But he felt them before he heard them. Suddenly, Akane went rigid. Shizuo didn’t understand, she’d been lying against him so peacefully; why did she bolt upright? Her hands were twitching, her fingers flicking his skin. Why was she doing that? What was this? He opened his mouth to say her name- 

  Oh, god.

  Her back, her ribcage; both were bent forward at impossible angles. She was a doll that had been twisted back and forth too many times. Her eyes were wide in her sockets, staring up at him in wonder. Her lips quivered and parted, but no words left them. Her face was a white sheet. The only sound Shizuo could hear now was her ragged breathing. Akane was gasping as though she was about to drown.

  “Oh, no…”

  Shizuo’s knees buckled and he sank to the ground. His head was spinning. Akane fell with him, her shoulders scrunched together in an invisible straitjacket. She continued to wheeze in that horridly unnatural way, like some sort of morbid hiccup. Shizuo couldn’t focus his sight; everything was swirling and darkening, rotting away helplessly.

  “No, no, no, no, no, no…” Moaned a voice he didn’t recognize.

  The convulsing body that was Akane Awakusu stared at him. When he met her gaze, he found her eyes full of panic and terror. Her rasping sped up beyond her control as her limbs spasmed. It wasn’t real. It wasn’t happening. He couldn’t have- it wasn’t possible. She was just a kid. She couldn’t be-

  It stopped.

  Shizuo’s head jerked up immediately. Akane sat motionless. Their eyes met one last time as the light ebbed behind her pupils. At the end, there was no more fear or bewilderment. She expressed only one word as her life ended; it was frozen on her face forever.

  Why?

  He could no longer see. The tears were too thick. He lifted her up, brought her into his arms. There had to be a way to fix her, there had to be a way to bring her back. He crushed her against his chest, screaming for god to replace her still heart with his beating one. And yet he knew. He knew that she would never return. Anguished, animalistic cries tore themselves from his throat. Shizuo could not recognize himself. Akane’s bones snapped as he hugged her body- her shoulders popped out of their joints, her wrists broke, her ribs cracked. It made no difference to her. She was just another thing he’d ruined, now. Shizuo rocked from side-to-side, darkness seeping across his vision. He folded in two on top of her, his tears soaking the hair that still smelled of grassy fields-

  Shizuo’s eyelids flew open. He launched himself upright, blankets flying off his torso. He sat up in bed, in his lightless room, silent and pale. He did not move. That’s right- he was in his apartment, alone. His bedside clock read three-forty-five in the morning. Fourteen hours ago, he had dislocated Akane Awakusu’s arm-

  Crack crack wide eyes bloodless face why why why

  -and had taken her to see Shinra Kishitani, his friend and a reliable doctor. After that, he brought her home to the Awakusu-Kai, her guardians. That was what happened. That was the truth.

  Three-forty-six. Three-forty-seven. Shizuo did not move.

  A tight block formed in his throat. He couldn’t swallow. Shizuo curled his knees up to his forehead and buried himself in them. He cried. His body quaked in fierce, untamable tremors as his voice sobbed itself raw. No, he hadn’t killed her. Yes, she was still alive. But it had been close, hadn’t it? Related the monster in his head, the one who tortured him and tortured him until he lay here, shattered. Had Akane been either an inch to the left or to the right, it could easily have been her back that broke and not her arm. How far was the nightmare from reality?