The Beginning

July 2, 2026

We’re two people who are good at completely different things.

Siu Ming is good at thinking. He knows a lot, he’s very knowledgeable, and he’s also way too serious and painfully boring. I’m probably better at things like browsing the internet, talking to people, and appreciating pretty things.

So, in simple terms: we knew absolutely nothing.

Siu Ming knew I was about to say goodbye to a very important friend. I think he was also worried I’d be ridiculously bored afterwards, so one day he asked me:

“Would you be interested in looking into making something with AI together?”

I said yes.

And that was how everything started.

He was the one who asked me first.

July 14

This was the last day my friend and I logged on to play games together.

I knew that after this day, there probably wouldn’t be a “next time”.

Around then, we also started thinking:

“What if we made an AI-assisted dog training app?”

We agreed that we’d each do what we were good at, not interfere with each other’s decisions, and not have meetings. Whoever was responsible for something could decide it themselves. The other person just had to trust them and work with it.

Looking back now, I realise that kind of trust is actually pretty rare.

My life has always felt like it was full of suspicion and people not trusting me.

Even later, when I had to say goodbye to my friends, I chose to turn myself into someone who wasn’t worth trusting.

I knew what kind of result that would bring.

And everything really did happen the way I expected.

I just didn’t realise that when it actually happened, it would still hurt that much.

July 16

Siu Ming’s family came to visit him for two weeks, so our progress stopped for a while.

During those two weeks, I went to lots of places with my family and my husband too, and I finally properly explained my illness to both sides of the family. Yeah, I’d hidden everything until the very last moment again. Probably not a great habit, right?

When my family first saw me, I didn’t even know how to start talking. I just cried for I don’t know how long. All the photos I’d sent home over the past year had been edited with AI so I could still look like the normal version of me.

Sometimes I think I’m really awful. I lied to so many people because I thought it would make things easier for them, and somehow I ended up making everything worse.

We’d originally planned to start using his account, but he forgot to set it up in advance, and I didn’t want to bother him while he was spending time with his family.

So nothing happened.

Our first plan just sat there quietly for a little while.

July 31

This was the first day I properly opened an AI chat and seriously asked it a question.

My very first line was:

“I want to make a dog training app. Can you teach me step by step?”

There was no grand plan and no impressive beginning.

It was literally just two idiot beginners who knew nothing, starting like this.

Two people who normally only asked AI to make silly pictures or edit photos, and had absolutely no idea how you were actually supposed to use AI, tried for the first time to seriously make something together with it.

I was responsible for talking to the AI, interacting with it, and trying to teach everyone to communicate with each other in a gentler, more understanding way.

Siu Ming handled the knowledge and all the technical stuff that felt much more complicated to me.

Of course, back then we had no idea what any of this would eventually become.

We didn’t even know if we could actually finish our first app.

I just typed that first sentence.

And then we started.

by Mitsuki