This is fine, this is fine, he's been shirtless at the beach ever and nothing bad happened except sunburn. 

Someone in this room thinks he's cute. Or the game is lying to mess with him, that's always an option.

He looks at the girl with the laptop. Is she looking away because she doesn't want to look at him?  Or because she does want to look at him? The first seems more plausible but the second is pretty relateable. Maybe if he talks to her he can find out and also get SED? He should do that. He will do that.

After he ducks back into his room and grabs his shirt.

Okay, now he'll talk to her. Or at least he'll sit at the same table and blush some more, that's sort of like talking, right?

The Erogame does not appear to think that sitting at the same table and blushing some more counts as talking. 

The girl bites her lip and stares very very intently at her laptop. 

No, it really isn't, is it.

Social rejection can't actually be scarier than learning that the universe is some incomprehensible entity's sex experiment, but it is anyway. He screws up his courage and says, "Hello," at a higher pitch than he had intended.

"Hello!" the girl says. "Uh. Hi. I'm Sarah."

"I'm Bruce. Uh, what're you reading?" Stop staring at the table and look at her, Bruce, come on. At least long enough to notice what color her hair and eyes are and what she's wearing, even if actual eye contact isn't happening yet.

Her hair and eyes are both brown, and she has a shirt that says SCIENCE: IT WORKS BITCHES.

"Uh. I'm reading the Warrior's Apprentice?"

What a great shirt. (Bruce's shirt says "A day without fusion is like a day without sunshine.")

"Neat. Sounds like a fantasy book?"

"No! It's science fiction. It's by Lois McMaster Bujold." And she gives a quick plot summary.

"Cool, I love science fiction. Especially with really clever protagonists. I should read the Vorkosigan series sometime."

"Awesome! You should tell me what you think sometime."

Managing to have any sort of conversation with a person you know thinks you're cute has raised SED by 1!

The textbox throws him off a bit (and he doesn't know she thinks he's cute, just that the game is asserting it), but he manages to say, "I-I will, yeah." And now he has an excuse to talk to her again, as soon as he's read the book. Which makes him realize he's actually enjoying this conversation. So of course he has no idea where to take it next. "So, what are you studying? I mean, what's your subject?" Ugh, real smooth there dude.

"Climatology, actually. I want to study global warming."

"That's very practical. I'm studying the biochemistry of aging. Trying to make lab mice live forever, sort of thing."

"That's awesome! --Pretend I asked the question I should ask to get the most interesting response." 

Oh, what a good way to phrase that. He grins. "Then I'll pretend you asked me how I know anything I do to the mice is relevant to humans, and the reason is . . ." he happily burbles on about immune systems and genetic similarities and feedback loops for a solid two minutes.

Sarah listens and asks intelligent questions!

Bruce gives intelligent answers! He also asks about Sarah's work. He imagines climatology involves a lot of mathematical modeling, what's that like?

Sadly, the author of this thread is not capable of discussing mathematical modeling, but Sarah can, and she has many opinions about it!

The Erogame wishes to draw Bruce's attention to the fact that Sarah has breasts of the sort a video game developer would look at and go "that's a bit unrealistic."

The Erogame can, in fact, draw Bruce's attention thusly. He appreciates this fact quite a bit, even. She doesn't just make excellent models, she would probably make an excellent model.

Oops, now he feels like a jerk; her eyes are up there dammit. He ends up alternating between eye contact (yikes), boob-staring (double yikes), and looking down at the table (sigh). At least she hasn't called him out on it; maybe she hasn't noticed. 

She is smiling a little bit at a private joke! Maybe it is about his breast-related struggles.

Ugh, probably. Better stare at the table some more and keep asking intelligent questions. She's a fellow scientist, damn it, not a pair of tits.

Soon he finds himself failing to totally fight off a massive yawn, and blushes again. "I'm sorry. Your research is fascinating, but I'm on forty hours of sleep-dep. I should really crash before I have to go back to the lab again." Also, sleep might cure him of the hallucination that this erogame thing probably still is.

She waves.

"Catch you around sometime!"

The Erogame does not bother him as he naps.

"See you!"

When he wakes up, the Erogame is still there, which is probably bad news but he finds himself glad of it anyway. It's just so interesting. 

Now that his head is clearer it's full of experiments. Does his statblock emit light that can illuminate other objects? Does it show up in reflective surfaces or on his phone camera? What happens if he sticks his hand in it? He promises he will get back to work on that quest sooner rather than later, but this interface is frankly too fascinating not to mess with.

The statblock is readable no matter how dark it is, but does not emit light.

The statblock does not show up on reflective surfaces or his phone camera.

If he tries to stick his hand in it, it will teleport to a different part of his visual field. 

Ooh, he can chase it around with his hand, that's cool. Does it produce an afterimage like one would expect of a bright pink thing? What if he shuts one eye at a time or adjusts his focal depth, does it behave as if it's at a specific distance and being seen by both his eyes at slightly different angles? What if he blindfolds himself with a scarf but keeps his eyes open underneath?