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Nighttime was the right time for computer work. The wee small hours of the night, post-midnight but pre-dawn, were where Yukio spent much of his productive time both making a living and making mischief. Some of his best, most successful coding gigs were done at night; it was also when he cut loose and hacked his way into various companies, organizations, and databases. He rarely, if ever, stole anything – he wasn't one of those kinds of hackers who launch ransomware attacks or steal personal identities. Yukio was the kind of hacker who found the challenge of getting past a computer system's security the main enjoyment of hacking. And he hadn't found a system or network yet that he couldn't break into. Sure, there had to be some he couldn't crack, and he knew this, but he didn't care.

He sat in ugly pajama pants on a cushion on the floor of his flat, his bare back resting against the kotatsu in the middle of the living room, black-tipped fingers flying over the keyboard of his working computer. A furry hat with long floppy bunny ears – his preferred "coding hat" – hid most of his long blue hair as he worked, and the large liquid-cooled tower of his working setup whirred softly in the stillness of the apartment. Yukio's head, however, was anything but quiet. This was a hacking night, and his mind was filled with code.

Part of the fun of hacking was sharing one's victories with other hackers, and to that end Yukio had Discord open on his second monitor, lurking on a private server for a group of hackers he knew. He'd never met any of them in person, mainly because he 1) didn't know where they were in the world and 2) wanted to preserve the anonymity that made this all so appealing. Nobody used their real names, just hacker nicknames; his, of course, was Buster, same as his DJ handle.

Yukio kept half an eye on his Discord app as he worked, tiptoeing through a government contractor site for the lulz. He was half-following the conversation going on in #general when he saw a familiar handle pop online, and he switched gears to the chat app and launched a DM.

hey I whaddup, how is life treating you this fine evening?

Yukio laughed softly at the response. He'd been watching the tango between Kiki and Rael too – most of the server had been – and it was pretty clear they were crazy into each other. Good on them for finally meeting up.

I haven't seen either of them at all. maybe they had too much fun this weekend at the con

He sent the message and sighed. Maybe he'd find that kind of relationship someday. He'd thought he had it once, til she went off with another DJ and broke his heart. Then he thought of Abbey… he really liked her a lot, and he thought she liked him too. At least they were good friends. She was so much fun…

Shaking his head to focus, he typed another message to I.

it's never too late for hacking, my friend. gotta catch them when they're sleeping, right?

Now they were getting to the meat of the night's activities. Yukio cracked his knuckles, adjusted his bunny hat, and replied.

good point, I will have to try this hack i'm on during the day, cuz right now I'm in the belly of their back end lul

Yukio thought a moment, and hopped to the hacked contractor's contacts to see if he could find anything interesting for I to try and get into. This site had been no challenge at all, but maybe… Ah, there was a likely target.

in a government contractor site rn following connections. there's one called omega industrial. wanna try your hand at them?

He almost wanted to ask I to share his screen – he didn't know much about the other hacker, only that they had much more experience under their belt than he had. Not that he was any slouch himself, but he could always learn something…

Seeing I switch to voice chat, Yukio did the same, moving floppy bunny ears out of the way to accommodate his headset. "Yeah, I have no clue," he replied, lowering the mic closer to his mouth. "I found them in the contacts in Outlook of all places – took one look at that name and decided they were incredibly hack-worthy based on that alone."

He went back into his hack and started erasing his trail, carefully picking up any bread crumbs he may have left going through the contractor's servers and databases. The goal was to get in and get out without getting caught AND without leaving a trace – that's where the real challenge was. Those hackers who stole peoples' personal information used brute force and always left some signs of their presence behind, but the most he ever left was the occasional calling card, just to let the IT team know they had an exploitable lapse in security. Doing them something of a favor, if he was being honest with himself. Yeah, that was it.

"You'll have to let me know what you find. I'm dying of curiosity now." Finishing up, he backed out and scrubbed the site's address from his history. No sense leaving any evidence on his own system. He thought for a moment, trying to figure out what to do next, then decided to visit a favorite target of his: the Destiny City University databases. Maybe that would be a solution to his lying-to-his-parents problem: hack his own information into the system to fake a graduation.

"Not always – sometimes I do, if they're like a government agency. I'm really careful around those guys. Their contractors though are fair game." Yukio knew that if one of this little cadre of hackers went down, they all would, so picking and choosing targets was done carefully. Everyone here knew he liked to get into government systems, considering that sort of target to be great sport; but he was exceedingly careful not to leave a trace.

"Screen sharing would be great," he nodded at his monitor. This should hopefully be good, finding out what this Omega Industrial was about. "No, there wasn't anything interesting. The usual legal things, foreign diplomatic correspondence, that sort of thing. You know, typical government bullshittery."

Settling back to watch I work, Yukio popped open his long-forgotten bottle of Ramune and took a sip. He knew the other had been around awhile – probably a bit older than he was, since he'd started hacking when he was around 17, so about five years now. Definitely more experienced, at least. His friend could get into sites and systems that Yukio could only dream of cracking. Watching I was like a master class in getting in, getting out, and not getting caught.

"Should be a piece of cake for a coder like you," he said with the trace of a smile in his voice. "These government contractors usually are." He figured it would be a challenge for I, but not a big one, unless they'd set up traps and whatnot to catch hackers trying to break in. Of course, that was all dependent on what they were trying to hide, if anything. Yukio secretly hoped that they were working on something super fun. Well, fun to a hacker.

Glancing at his watch, he saw that it was indeed nearly two. That would put I somewhere in this timezone, he thought idly. Wonder if his companion for the evening was local…

"Come on, it's early yet," he teased. "I have at least a couple good hours in me. Maybe more." Of course, he didn't have to work to a set schedule – he did his non-hacking work whenever he felt like it. His clients didn't care, as long as it was done right. And Yukio always got it right. Still, having I on a schedule meant that he still had time to get into DCU's system and find out what would be needed for graduation. With luck, it would be easy for him to craft a believable curriculum that would allow him to fake a diploma. It wasn't like he was working on his post-grad or anything; a bachelor's in CompSci should be easy to do.

"It's true, my job is anything but normal," Yukio smirked, watching on his monitor as I carefully lock-picked his way into Omega Industrial's computer. systems Truly a master class in hackery. "I try to keep fairly normal hours so I can talk to my clients about their scope for the projects I work on, and show them what I've done so far, but yeah, most of my actual coding gets done at night." The little group of hackers knew he was a DJ as well, and he was sure they wondered on the regular how he managed to get everything done at night – plus patrol as Spei, Moon Squire, which of course they didn't know about. It was getting a bit tight scheduling-wise, but that was why he used a scheduling app to keep track of what needed doing when.

"Yeah, it was really nice you got that job. Doing odd jobs can be so stressful." As he well knew. Luckily he had enough regular client work now and a reputation as a good, fast, reliable programmer that he didn't have to sweat things overmuch. And big companies didn't usually credit the contractors, which kept his work out of the eyes of his systems-analyst dad.

Yukio shrugged, even though he knew I couldn't see him. "Some university. Gonna maybe change a few grades if I get in that far. Which should be easy." It wasn't exactly a lie, either – he just didn't state which university he was hacking. "I got out of that other place like a knife out of a perfectly-done cake. Not a trace left behind."

"Oh, I have regular clients, and they pay me promptly, so I'm not as stressed as I could be," Yukio shrugged. He didn't mention that they paid him more than the going rate for freelance programmers because he was That Good. Between those gigs and his DJ gigs, he made more than enough to live comfortably; the monthly stipends he got from his parents paid for the flat he lived in. "You know, plus I do work as a DJ, and those gigs can pay pretty well too."

Yukio was a strange bird and he knew it: an introverted extrovert was how he described himself. He enjoyed people, enjoyed hanging out and talking with them, deeply enjoyed making them happy with his music, even enjoyed flirting to a certain extent (they had to be heckin cute for him to flirt with them). But he much preferred doing things like wandering Destiny City and taking his tea at his favorite tea shops by himself. It was easy to mistake him for an introvert, which he embraced – kept people on their toes around him.

"Oh, I don't go to school, I'm done with that s**t, you kidding? I quit DCU a long time ago." Which was true, only he didn't want to go into detail of his reasons. Too embarrassing. Caught up in his own thoughts and memories, he didn't realize he'd let it slip what uni he'd been at. "I'm going in to change some kid's grades because I can." He smirked again. Maybe it would end up being some kid who wasn't doing well in a course, maybe it'd be some slacker. He didn't care.