Help! This Cute Boy Thinks My TV Is Revolutionary?

Did you know? This is the first time I’ve ever invited a boy over to my house. It’s even weirder that Aichii~ is here. Hey, oh Kami-sama, what do I even do? It’s not an everyday occurrence you have a boy over let alone an utterly confused dude who has no idea what an iPhone is. Like, I’m almost scared for him. If I were serious, I would be scared for him.

But instead he doesn’t know what Instagram is. Oh, what a poor soul. Or even a lucky soul. To be honest, some people hate social media so to them, he is lucky.

Hmm… maybe I should play matchmaker? Tokuyama-san doesn’t seem to be a bad guy… or I hope so? It’s not like Airi-chan is a good girl either. Wait. I don’t want to doom my potential romance options because I wanted to play Cupid. Stupid me. I can’t have the first guy to come to my house turn out to be the first guy who makes out in my house… with another girl. Then I would kick Airi-san out of my life. Matter of fact, drop the -san. She’s just Aihara the traitor. And Tokuyama-san? Hell if I care what happens to him.

It turns out you can quickly just think of bad situations that are unlikely to happen. We do need to have a plan though. And I’m just staring at Aichii-chan just poking at poor Tokuyama-san with such a high frequency, you’d think it’d make a sound. I hate calling him Tokuyama-san in my head. Toku-chan sounds like a totally acceptable internal nickname, right? A good idea from yours truly!

Now Toku-chan is getting his face whacked with Aichii-chan’s twin-tails. What the hell are these two doing flirting in my living room as I make some matcha tea? All I want to do is be a good girl and this is what I get. Luckily for me, Tokukkun seems annoyed… or is he in a temporal disarray? Let’s go with temporal disarray to save my dear heart. A dear heart that has no idea why it's going so far for this random person. Lucky Tokukkun.

“Tokuyama-san,” I said with a very heavy emphasis on the ‘-san.’ I said whilst gorilla gripping the teapot that some of the hot water was spilling out. Both Toku-chan and Aichii recoiled. I think I heard Aichii make a quick ‘eek’ sound!

“Sorry Ayaa~!” Airi prostrated very quickly to cool my comedic wrath. I think I just scared Toku-chan for life. Sigh. There goes my catch. I’ll just save him and then find another fish.

“So, let’s get to the bottom of this shall we?” I asked them both. “You, Tokuyama-san, claim to be from 2004, from, uh… October, right?” Tokukkun nodded. “I almost forgot the date today but I’m from the 20th October 2004.” Aichii nodded. “Right, right.”

“What do you want to know then, Tokukkun?” Ah. I just said it out loud.

“Tokukkun?” Toku-chan said.

I coughed and made my voice as confident as possible. I don’t think it worked. “That is your name, yes.” I acted as if I was a politician trying to dodge the question.

“Well… thanks for the nickname. I guess this is a 2024 thing, right?”

I tried to stop any more conversations on this name. “Anyways… What do you want to know about 2024?”

“Hmm…” Tokuyama-san just did the literal thinking emoji pose. I mean it’s just a normal pose but, hey, it’s also an emoji, right? “I’ve noticed that thing that Airi-san keeps in her pocket. Is that… is that also a phone? It’s way bigger than what you have”

“Ah… that is indeed a phone. A smartphone if you will. It is a-” Airi stood up so happy to explain. “It’s the latest model iPhone… the iPhone 15 Pro Max!” I gave a feigned smile as I pushed Airi back down to earth. Literally. “A phone that will also be outdated when the iPhone 16 Pro Max comes up next month.” I tried to push Airi down but I knew that her family would just buy that as soon as the new one comes out. God. You can’t defeat slightly richer people and their consumerism.

Oh, by the way, I have an iPhone 12. It does the job still.

“Let me clarify because I don’t think I did when we met earlier. A smartphone is a phone with internet access. That’s it. You can download games and social networks.”

“Woah. What’s an iPhone?” Tokuyama-san asked. “It’s a brand. I literally told you this yesterday.”

He actually looked at the floor in shame. “Oh yeah. Sorry!”

I gestured my hands to make him raise his head. “It’s okay… anything else you want to know?”

“You guys seem to know a lot of things. Like how did you know where that hotel was? Are people in 2024 that much smarter? Oh my god.” He just had an existential crisis because I guess we teenagers are smarter now? He’s acting like he’s not younger than me!

I relaxed my voice a bit to calm him down. “Well, maybe we are smarter but I knew about that because of the map function on my phone.” Next, he pointed at my TV. “So big…”

“Yes. It is big. Could you not make an innuendo out of my TV?” Both he and Airi looked confused. Airi broke the silence and said, “Where did that come from?”

I immediately got myself embarrassed and coughed. “Anyways. Yes, that is a TV. Also connected to the internet.” He opened his jaw in shock. Oh, you simpleminded early 2000s teens.

Which reminds me, I’ve always wanted to know what the 2000s era was like! Even if he seems to have only been around for 2000 - 2004. So, maybe I’ll have an ask-

“So, Tokku!” Airi immediately said. “What were the trends in your school life? What did the girls wear? Most importantly, how were the boys!” What. The. Hell? You’re meant to say these things after you butter them up, not literally say them out right! Where is your art of subtlety?

“Hmm… I remember a lot of short miniskirts… is that a thing now?” Pervert. But that does sound like a cool era.

“Yes. Those are still a thing now.” Then he thought again. “We wore spiky hair and we left our buttoned shirts on our uniform to hang out?”

Airi-san went closer up to him. “So, you mean your clothes were untucked. Those are slightly still a thing here.”

“Hmm… I guess nothing has changed in some aspects,” Tokuyama continued. “You know when you’re on the spot, you realize that a lot of things that you internalize, you actually can’t bring them up to your mouth.”

“That’s true!” Airi agreed wholeheartedly. “There was this one time where this girl called me a maneater and then I said there are boys that I don’t like and then she told me…” I continued it for Airi. “Name one and I’ll drop the nickname.”

“Right, right!” Airi said. “But I couldn’t so I guess I’m stuck with the name.”

But you are a maneater! Just playing, I could never betray my best friend. I’m not sure how it was back in Tokuyama’s days but, honestly, in 2024, you stick with the clique in high school for life… in school. From the playgrounds to the canteens, to the schoolyard, you stick with folks for life. Maybe it was his generation that started it… or maybe they just continued with it.

Tokukkun coughed. I think us two sort of got carried away. “Anyways, I don’t know what to know. I think I’ll just hang with you guys around town.”

“Ah. I forgot to tell you Tokukkun.” He looked a bit confused. “What do you want to know, Ayami-san?” Hey, nice that he’s using my given name! Anyways, I told him “I might have asked you this before but how did you get into our year? Doesn’t sound like you purposefully teleported through time to arrive at this destination, right?”

“Right!” Airi affirmed me.

“So, maybe we should retrace your steps between your arrival here and you meeting me outside Kanesue Shinsei.”

Tokukkun’s eyes lit up. “That’s right!”

And I looked at Toku-chan again. “I can’t keep you a secret from your parents forever, imagine if I told them you were from the past? They’d probably just kick you out and call your parents… do you want to know what happened to them in that situation?” He immediately shook his head. “So, let’s just figure it out and retrace your steps.”

He immediately went to his thinker pose. He’s done this three times in this short space. “I remember in my present day, I went to the toilet to, well, urinate,” Airi smiled. Who smiles at the thought of someone peeing? Oh never mind, she’s always smiling. Teehee. “So, what happened after you, uh, peed?”

“Well, I left the cubicle, and I noticed the brightness around me was down. I thought, ‘Gee, that’s a bit odd,’ and then I realized that some paint had magically aged years in the future. I washed my hands,” Tokukkun’s eyes had a sudden realization as if he was reliving it. “Then I saw it was dark, and random buildings had teleported.”

“Ah! Then let’s return to the toilets!” Aichii said. “That way, we could probably send you back home.” Tokuyama-san started to question Airi. “What if there was a time paradox? I know that it’s possible to transport to the future, but back?”

“Well then it's futile, but at least it’s a try, no?” I did my best to reassure Tokuyama-san. “If at worst we can’t return, then we can just show you around town.” A bit boring but, hey, you gotta show new people around.

“Hmm… so we just chill out in Umegae Park?” Tokuyama-san said.

“That sounds like a good plan!” Airi agreed with me.

“Lead us the way, Tokukkun. The way to the toilet.” They both looked at me for the nickname. “Oh you poor souls don’t know how many weird nicknames I’ve cycled through for Tokuyama-san.”

I drank my matcha tea as fast as possible. The rest seemed to take their leisurely time. That’s weird. Shouldn’t we get to the bottom of this mystery? Like, this guy is literal living proof that he is breaking our known preconceptions of time and space… and he’s just chilling drinking matcha tea.

Matcha tea that I made! Oh my god, I’m a part of history!

I’m slightly bored. Turns out, you don’t want to do anything with a guy if you have your friend over. The best thing to do is get some quick shuteye.

“Hey, you two, I’m taking a quick nap. Don’t do anything when I’m asleep. Wake me up when you want to go out.”

Yep. I’m the lazy girl with cotton candy pink dyed hair. I live up to what you would say expectations but I would consider them stereotypes. But, I guess your prejudices are right, person-I-made-up-in-my-head.

Totally not faking napping to see if those two do something so I can catch them in the act.