Narrowness

“What's the problem?”

Coral still had her hair wet and the towel around her neck when she lay down on the couch.

“For example, I think.” She added after waiting a few seconds not receiving a response. “That animation studios sometimes take control of the work, and that these are better than the original stories, but of course... not canonical. Look at the anime, the manga is poorly adapted doesn't sound as good.”

“Is it pathological that you relate everything to anime? Or are you just doing it for me?”

“Patho… that, for a few years now…” She thought a little better about the answer. “Since I saw Your name , specifically.”

“Understandable”, he nodded.

“Everything got worse with Spirited Away … But are you going to answer me?”

“I avoid it.”

“I'm sure you were the most popular in your class," she said with a sly smile.

“There was a boy who almost got into a fight on the first day of school.”

“That’s a good start… so you are the second most popular”

“I wonder who he'll talk to now that I'm not there.” he clarified.

“Oh… is a little heart sprouting?”

“I'm just speculating.” he said, without flinching outwardly, although he was slightly troubled inside.

“With all your fans, probably.” She responded to his speculation, Coral’s smile couldn’t have grown any wider.

“You sound pretty sharp to be talking to your literary crush.”

“I have a limit of impure thoughts, there is nothing to worry about today.”

“You're too sincere.” A smirk appear in his face.

“Look who's talking…”

She was still lying on her back on the sofa, staring at the ceiling. No matter how modern the apartment was, someone, for some reason she couldn't understand, had decided to put strippled walls on the damn ceiling. At least it was white, like the rest of the house.

I look away from the painting technique to see Yûusuke. He didn't move his head, just his eyes, which was a little annoying because the boy was on the other end and didn't have the extraocular muscles as developed as his other six hundred could be.

“Tell me… are you worried…” She swallowed. “Not being able to express more than four emotions with your face?”

He burst out laughing, his cheeks couldn't hurt any more. He kicked his feet a little, before flexing his legs.

“I thought you like me" His smile curved slightly.

“Sorry, now.” She exhaled. “I'll stop. Sorry.” She briefly showed his teeth. “It was just a piece of cake.”

The boy squinted, in a gesture of not understanding.

“You mean it was easy? He quickly understood.

“Yeah, but seriously, tell me, or I'll rub my long wet hair all over the couch and you'll sleep cold and smell damp.”

Finally Coral sat up, crossed her legs and paid attention.

“You don't like science, you won't understand it.”

“But I like talking to people.”

Finally Yûsuke agreed, facing the girl in the corner who was sitting on the chaise longue , he oriented his legs towards her, resting his elbow on one of them and in turn his face on the back of her hand.

“Does entropy sound familiar to you?”

“Of course, pff, who do you take me for?” She looked from right to left without a fixed point. “But explain everything well, from the beginning.”

“Yes… yes. It is, explained very briefly, the degree of disorder of a system, the word comes from the Greek, transformation ; if you break a plate, time will leave it there, chaos and entropy only increase, they do not decrease, they do not recede. Good?” He tilted his head as he asked.

“Yes. You gave almost the same example as I did in the exam, my protagonist was a glass.”

“Then you will know that this explanation is absurd and short. We are talking about numbers, about probability. It is unlikely, not to say improbable, that the plate will rearrange itself, or that if we rebuild it, it will fall exactly in the same place and in the same way. We always go from one macrostate to several microstates. A thawed block of ice cannot reorganize itself to its first state, without external help, of course. We always end up evolving to a higher state of entropy. It is easier to destroy than to build.”

“Okay.”

Coral had picked up her phone seconds ago, alternating her gaze from the screen to the boy and back again. She had to answer several messages, or rather arrange appointments and favors, but despite the fact that she was writing, she swore that she was paying attention.

“Don't ask if you're not going to answer.”

“No, no, go on, you go on.” She nodded effusively.

“Entropy is what allows us to differentiate between the past and the future.”

“How?” She raised his thumbs on the phone and tilted his head. “We can tell them apart because one has already gone and the other hasn't.”

“Are you sure? You'd know if you'd been paying attention.”

“Explain it.”

“No.”

“Please.” She tried to make eyes at him and squeeze his chest.

Yûusuke. His face was neutral. Unpretentious.

“There is no such thing as free will, time is written, time is like a river. But the future can affect the past. Being here only increases entropy even more.”

He dropped the phone to the side.

“But what you say is just an assumption. Look, in the time you've been here, you can't know how entropy has increased.”

“The fog, for example, you yourselves said that it was not normal, the time of year, the altitude, or the area.”

“Climate change?!” he said ironically.

“Coral, I'm not a denialist, but I don't think it's going to be the pollution's fault this time. The stranded animals, the lottery won by the fruit seller, the fact that Teresa's grandmother has so few customers, the shipwreck of the cayu - cay - cayuco ?” They had recently taught him that word. “Even, as your brother told me, your parents didn't call this week. Solving the first case was a mistake.”

They were distracted by a “Beep”, and it wasn’t Imobach’s insulin pump, she was taking a shower. It was Coral’s phone, and it was a message from Adassa:

<<Oh my gosh!!!!>

<<To much TEXT>>

Do you think I'm going to read all that??? I've read the first words and the last ones

<<TO MUCH>>

Coral smiled, she expected nothing less from Adassa, and besides, she was good at those things, with the little she read she would understand it. Teresa would surely have finished reading it for the second time if she were reading it at that moment.

Coral's fingers were burning, years of belonging to different groups, writing fanfics and comments on any type of platform that related to her tastes had given her the fastest thumbs in the west.

“And what do we do?”

“The damage has already been done. I must return as soon as possible.”

“So… do you have a way yet?” Coral said in a sad tone.

Footsteps were heard in the hallway, and shortly afterward Imobach appeared, freshly showered, a few drops still running down his torso until they reached the towel tied around his waist.

“No. As I told you, I'm missing some instructions, manpower and materials.” The dark-haired one responded after a few seconds to focus again.

“Ada… she knows about that.” She answered what she should, not what she wanted to say.

“… It’s not that easy.” the answer made her breathe a little with relief.

“So…?” I didn't really know what the boy was getting at.

“I can't leave, but I can't upset things any further either.”

“But if you enjoy cases, I've seen it. Otherwise you'll be an amoeba!”

“Coco…” Her brother warned behind her.

“But that's how it is. Without doing anything, that's not life.”

The older brown-haired boy gave her a firm and reprimanding look. He understood what his sister was saying, but he had no reason to meddle in other people's reasons.

“I haven't said I won't participate, I just say I won't do it when it's a turning point. Or when I consider it to be one.”

“That is, if this, for example, were universe number 1610, and you come from, say, 42, even if our universes are similar, you will do nothing to make ours follow its course and not resemble yours.” Imobach summarized. Although the example was more confusing in Yûusuke's opinion.

“Yeah.”

"Okay," Imobach replied, taking the towel wrapped around her hair out. "I'll be right back."

Another beep, Coral reached back to see her brother, but it was Adassa again.

<<WHAT IF HE DIES???>>

<<The entropy will reduce>>

She read it out loud. Coral was sure the message was going to be much worse, but Teresa had calmed her down a little.

“It wouldn't help either. I'll just keep taking up space and time.”

“I'm amazed at how you keep your cool in the face of Ada's psychopathic plans.”

“Me too.”

“Well, I just want to tell you that if you ever get scared or feel bad, you can come sleep in my bed.” She winked at her. “It's a huge bed.”

Yûsuke looked behind her in silence, and when she got no response she did the same, bending her neck so she was face up and saw her brother. He was now wearing a loose shirt, shorts, comfortable glasses for wearing at home and, like her, a towel around his neck.

"What?" she snapped at him.

He raised his right eyebrow.

“You go to one date a month and I don't say anything to you... It's just sleep, human warmth.” She decreed. “By the way, where is miss/mister May?” She raised an eyebrow. “You are taking too long.”

“I'm going to take it easy,” he replied calmly.

"And that?" She jumped up and sat on her knees facing her brother. "What did he mean? What did I miss?"

“Nothing.”

Now it was Yûsuke who raised his eyebrow. What do you mean, nothing?

“Boring,” she whispered loud enough for his brother to hear from the American-style kitchen.

“I wouldn't have interrupted them if you hadn't snuck into the bathroom," he said after taking a sip of fresh milk.

“I didn't sneak in.”

“Oh, no?”

“I had planned on taking a shower an hour before you came, but I got distracted… and just as I heard your door open, I remembered.”

"Look, I forgot to make dinner," she replied quickly. "Yûusuke, good luck with the butter sandwich I make you." Her lips turned mocking and she revealed her teeth.

"I'm not hungry," he said quickly. He remembered the Matcha tea that Coral had prepared for him the other day to make him feel "at home," to which she had added sugar because "it's very bitter," but it turned out to be salt; or the yogurt that she offered him without warning that had been spoiled for 2 days but "it's okay."

“Huh” Coral sounded offended.

“Don't blame yourself, no one has bothered to teach us the basics, although YouTube is a good teacher. Good night.”

Coral opened her mouth to say something, then raised her finger, but she didn't know what to say. There was little wrong with her.

She offered the guest to watch some episodes of her series, there were many to watch, with how busy she was lately she had many seasons behind. Yûsuke accepted, he was not a fan but he had grown up with the anime, but after the second episode he managed to sneak away, the girl was tired enough to fall asleep on the couch.