Are You Sure You're not Tired, Cuz You've Been Running Through My Mind All Day?!

As soon as the dean started speaking Risa could feel her eyes becoming heavy. She really should have pounded an energy drink on her way to school. Risa let out a silent yawn. Her head kept falling forward each time she picked it back up.

Noriko could see her friend struggling so she grabbed onto her arm and lowered Risa's head onto her shoulder. “She must have had another late night. She's always doing this to herself. I wish she would just sleep like a normal person sometimes,” thought Noriko. Then again, if she wasn't like this she wouldn't have been using Noriko's shoulder as a pillow. 

Noriko Saito had a secret and her high school goal was to tell Risa all about it. The truth is, Noriko had been secretly crushing on Risa since middle school.

 Risa was one of the few people that understood Noriko's anxiety induced shut downs. While everyone else was cruel and made fun of Noriko for her inability to cope with social anxiety, Risa had always called her cute and tried to calm her down. In fact, in elementary school she had become so accustomed to being bullied that she didn't even bother to speak anymore. She always sat and ate her lunch alone or near the teacher's desk and hadn't managed to make a single friend. 

That all changed when she met Risa. Noriko vividly remembered the first time that Risa had come to her rescue on the first day of middle school. Risa was passed out on her desk in a pile of drool, muttering something that sounded lewd, while her hands were making some kind of squeezing motion. Stuff like that was what everyone had come to expect from Risa, who was known as a weird, hentai obsessed, lesbian. No one bothered commenting on her weird outbursts anymore.

While this was happening, one of the popular girls decided she would have some fun and mess with the shy girl. One of the girls went up to the teacher who for this class was an AI bot and asked them a question about an ethical dilemma. Those kinds of questions caused the bots to basically shut down for about 90 seconds as their artificial minds searched for an appropriate answer. All of the students knew that and would use it as a way to get unsupervised time in the classroom.

Noriko, who just happened to be looking at Risa being weird,  was approached by two of the other girls. She immediately felt nervous when they started asking her a bunch of personal questions.

Bully one, “Saito-san I've seen you staring at Amane-san a lot today. You into girls or something?”

Already starting to quiver, Noriko tried to type her answer back with her phone, then one of the girl’s took it from her and dangled it above her reach. 

Bully two, “What’s wrong? You stupid or something? Can't answer without your phone?”

Noriko was shaking uncontrollably and started to stutter, “I…I…My……,” suddenly from Risa’s desk, there was an astonishingly loud slam as she pounded her forearms on the desk.

Risa scraped her chair loudly on the floor as she stood up and wiped the drool from her cheek. “Hey there idiots, picking on Saito-san are you? You think it's funny picking on someone who can't defend themselves huh?” Risa walked right up to the bullies.

Bully one, “So what? We're just having a little fun with her. Just asking her if she likes girls? It's not a tough question to answer.”

Risa with balled fists, “And so what if she is into girls, it's none of your fucking business unless she wants to tell you,” she looked at the bot. It was still wigging out. Without warning, she punched the bully square on the jaw. 

The girl stumbled back while holding her jaw, “You crazy bitch! You are so gonna get in trouble for that.” 

With a stoic smile, Risa stood in front of the girl, grabbed her by the collar and planted a kiss on her lips. Then she punched a couple buttons on her cellphone, “Oh, you won't be saying anything. Look at your socials. If you talk I'll post this to the public. And before you change the password just know, I'm a hacker. I can get back in under a minute. ”

The bully looked at her phone quickly and saw a picture of the kiss Risa just gave her.  Eyes wide in disbelief. 

“I would sit the fuck back down now before the teacher stops freaking out,” Risa ripped Noriko’s phone away from the bully and nicely set it on her desk. 

“You ok Saito-san?”

Noriko managed to shake her head yes. 

Since that day, Noriko thought about her best friend non-stop. She had even tried to confess a few times, but all had the same result. Noriko would wind up freezing and be unable to get her feelings across. When she wrote love letters, she never was able to deliver them. That's why this year, she had decided that no matter what she was going to confess her feelings. 

For now, Noriko just held Risa's hand as she slept, and rested her head on the top her friend's light pink hair. This was enough, at least for now.  Noriko hoped that Risa's announcement about being in love was just another one of her brief and unfruitful obsessions and that she would have more time to prepare herself, but honestly one could never know with Risa. Sometimes she fell hard and fast and wound up devastated when she was rejected. Noriko didn't wish her pain but also wanted Risa for herself, which only led her to feel conflicted.

Suddenly Risa jerked up, “Senpai, I'm home!” She shouted loud enough that the entire student body and the dean turned and stared at her. With a goofy expression on her face, Risa let out a nervous laugh, scratched her head, and shrunk down in her seat. 

“Oh great! I've gone and made a fool of myself twice and it's only the first day. Great!” thought Risa.

Noriko nudged Risa and in a quiet whisper said, “I, …. uh…I think the ceremony is almost over. Maybe you should, uh, go see the nurse?”

“Nori-chan why the hell would I do that?”

Noriko pointed to the blood soaked handkerchief tied around her ankle. 

“Oh shit!” Risa muttered to herself. She gave Nori-chan a thumbs up. 

After the assembly, Risa limped up to her bot teacher and asked to go to the nurses office. The robot ran a scan of Risa's body, identified the wound, and sent her in the direction of the nurse’s office. 

Robots nowadays were just creepy compared to the way they were before. The metal frame of the robot and many of its wires were now exposed rather than hidden behind artificial flesh. After the passing of a few anti bot equality laws, robots were no longer designed to look like humans. No artificial skin or hair allowed. Clothes were fine but pretty much nothing else. 

Apparently too many robots had started to pretend to be real humans and they were too hard  for the authorities to identify, so those human-like features had been removed leaving ugly metal husks on the older bot models or decommissioning them for noncompliance. Newer ones had more sleek designs without so many exposed wires. Not that it mattered, because bots were always going to be bastards to Risa no matter how they looked.

As she opened the door, Risa was suddenly face to face with her new crush. She was so caught off guard that she fell back, her landing on her butt with a loud thud. Risa winced when she tried to pop back up. She hadn't realized how badly it hurt. 

All pain suddenly faded as the seductive voice of her new crush echoed in the quiet, empty hallway, “I thought I told you not to fall anymore? You truly are such a naughty first year. If you weren't hurt I'd have to punish you.” Senpai had a sly smile on her face and a mischievous look in her eye as she helped Risa into the office. 

“OMG!!!!!! Was that a come on?” Risa's inner voice squealed. 

Risa must have had some kind of odd expression on her face, probably one of bliss because Senpai burst out laughing.

“You're a strange one aren't you? Anyways, see you later Risa-chan”.

“Yeah, see ya!” Wait a minute, thought Risa, how does she know my name?