Aika and I Pretend to Understand Computers, and Also Kenji Exists.

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Haruki felt groggy today.

A fog that wouldn’t go away no matter how many times she washed her face with icy cold water. Her brain had been made of cotton candy today, melting away and leaving nothing behind but a sticky mess all over the ground. It felt like she'd just gotten out of a coma and time hadn't synced up right. She would’ve blamed May sickness, but it was September. 

She wondered if she could just skip school today and sleep it off.

After all, she had already agreed to meet with the band at Mayumi’s house after school, and Sakura would surely kill her if she didn’t show up.

She forced herself out of bed, shuffling across the floor as she put on her uniform: navy blue blazer, an oversized red necktie, and a pleated skirt.

She wore the same uniform every day, so she wondered why today she half expected something else.

Perhaps the daily routine was finally driving her crazy, she thought as she rushed to school.

⊹ ▬ ▬ ⊹ ⊹ ▬ ▬ ▬ ⊹

The halls were filled with the students going about their mid-week morning. When Haruki arrived, the brain fog, fortunately, had somewhat improved. Though her fatigue still lingered and she wasn't fully awake. 

A few first-year boys spotted her as she walked past. One of them called out, raising his hand in a goofy wave.

“Amane-senpai! You were awesome yesterday. I swear your voice is like magic.”

Haruki offered a sweet smile through her tiredness. “Aha, thanks! It’s all practice, you know.”

She still wasn’t used to the compliments. It wasn’t like she was an idol, was she? She was just Haruki, the girl who sang with her friends. The admiration felt like an expectation she wasn’t ready to meet yet.

After a second period, the bell rang for a short break. Haruki shuffled down the hallway toward her locker, rubbing her tired eyes.

“Hey, Haruki!”

She turned to see Aika leaning against a locker next to hers. “Oh, hey, Aika. What’s up?”

“You feeling alright? You look a little… I don’t know, spacey?”

“Do I? I didn’t sleep that well,” Haruki replied, impulsively straightening her blazer. She had hoped no one would notice but guessed she wasn’t doing a very good job.

“Hmm. Well, just don’t pass out during math again. Remember last time? The teacher thought you really died that time.”

“Please don’t remind me.”

After a moment, Aika’s expression changed. She glanced down at her phone and appeared to pull something up. “So… bad news. I was going through the audio last night. You know? The one we record for our performances? And it's weird...”

“Huh, what do you mean?” For a moment Haruki worried she'd messed up the lyrics somehow.

Aika didn’t look up from her phone but clearly seemed frustrated. “It’s the whole thing, actually. Everything was perfectly fine when we performed, right? But the recording is messed up.”

“Like it didn’t capture properly?” Haruki asked, a bit confused as to where Aika was going. 

“Kinda... more like some weird glitch.”

“Maybe something’s wrong with the recording equipment?” Haruki asked. 

"That's what I thought too, except our back up microphone also came back messed up." 

“Here, listen,” Aika put the phone to her ear. Haruki leaned in and waited for the audio to start.

The first thirty seconds or so were familiar. 

The riffs of Haruki and Aika’s guitars, the steady rhythm of Sakura’s drumming, and the whimsical sound of Mayumi’s keys. 

But soon a white noise emerged, subtle at first but grew louder over time. Eventually, it transformed into a constant, irritating hiss that made Haruki cringe. The riffs that had been so sharp and bold scattered like signals bouncing between mismatched channels. Then came the chorus. Her own voice sounded as if it had been run through an old-timey speaker. Strange.

The glitches seemed to come in short bursts. Some parts of the performance were perfectly fine, only to instantly collapse into a splintering mess of unhinged resonance.

Aika pulled the phone away from Haruki’s ear.

“Well, that was creepy...”

“I know, right? And it’s not just once either! The whole performance is littered with them. It cuts in and out for five minutes straight. I checked a video and that was fine. It’s just our audio.”

She let out a loud sigh. “So it’s ruined.” 

Aika tucked her phone away. “I’ll swing by the computer club after school and see if Kenji can fix this. He still owes us for the time we saved him after he almost burned down the server room.”

Haruki snorted at the memory, but the conversation was cut short by a sudden high-pitched voice from across the hall.

“YO!”

They looked up just in time to see Sakura come barreling around the corner.

As she neared them, she gradually slowed like a suspicious animal. Her eyes narrowed. “What’s this, huh? You two plotting some secret meeting without the rest of us?”

“Oh, nothing, just talking about your extensive list of crushes. They found the shrine, ya know?”

Sakura’s face went flush. “W-Wait, WHAT?? How did you know about tha— I mean, what shrine? I—I don’t have a shrine!”

The two burst into laughter. “Not funny. Again.”

At that moment, the bell rang again, signaling the end of break period. Sakura’s eyes widened at the sound.

“OH shoot, I’m late for Phys Ed!” she yelped, like an alarmed puppy.

She adjusted her loafers like she was about to run the entire length of the school. “It takes forever to change because the first-years keep hogging the stalls!”

Sakura changes in the stalls? Haruki chuckled at the thought of a self-conscious Sakura.

Without another word, Sakura turned and bolted down the hallway.

“And don’t forget, Mayu’s after school!” Sakura called as she sprinted off.

⊹ ▬ ▬ ⊹ ⊹ ▬ ▬ ▬ ⊹

The final bell rang. Students flooded out of the classrooms and into the narrow hallways. Haruki slumped limply against the wall.

“I feel like I aged three years during math alone.”

“You and me both,” Aika said. “Hey, before Sakura cut me off, I was gonna ask. Mind swinging by the computer club with me? Before we head to Mayu’s. Still have to see if Kenji can work some of his socially-stunted tech wizardry.”

“Yeah, sure, I’ve got nothing better to do,” Haruki admitted. “Besides, we have to make sure he doesn’t try burning down the school again.”

They turned down a quieter corridor where some of the club rooms were. Most of the students were headed in the opposite direction, toward freedom, but Aika and Haruki made their way toward the cave of screen-addicted shut-ins.

The door to the computer club was always shut—fitting for the type of people occupying it. Even with the door closed, the whir of too many fans and overworked computers was noticeable.

Aika knocked twice. “Open up, Kenji. Tech support is needed.”

“Is this about your last mixtape again?” a sarcastic voice called from inside. “Because I already told you—burning a CD doesn’t make it retro.”

“Kenji, I swear, I will replace your Ramune with wasabi soda if you don’t help me.”

Without waiting for a response, Aika kicked open the door.

The computer clubroom had no lights… or at least, any that were used. The window blinds were shuttered fully, and the place was completely absent of any light save for the blue luminance of several monitors. It was also, for some reason, about ten degrees warmer than the rest of the school.

Posters of retro video games and sci-fi movies were plastered on every inch of the walls, and one lonely Kotobuki Tsumugi figurine stood solemnly atop a humming computer tower.

Four students occupied the room, each in various states of hunched concentration. One was mid-game, furiously clicking away in an FPS deathmatch. One was typing code with one eye on an anime stream. Another was asleep at his keyboard. 

In the very back was Kenji, leaning dangerously in a swivel chair, legs propped up on the desk like he owned the place.

Kenji wore the standard boys’ school uniform, though his was slightly rumpled, the collar open, and there was a small chip in one of the buttons. The tie was missing entirely. 

His hair was messy in that sort of way that made you question if it was a deliberate styling choice or if he'd just woke up that way. A pair of large round glasses sat perched on his nose, so stained with fingerprints that his eyes were no longer visible. 

He had a character of sarcastic ignorance and inadequate social disposition. 

“Kenji!” Aika called again. “I need you to look at something for me.”

He didn’t respond. His eyes didn’t leave his monitor.

Aika then walked up to one of the windows and ripped open the blinds, flooding the room with warm afternoon sunlight.

“AAAHHHH—”

                           “M—MY EYES!!”

“WAAAAAAH!!”

The other three club members shrieked, shielding themselves with anything within reach. One went for a notebook, another grabbed a keyboard. Then, as if by instinct, they scattered out of the lab, door slamming shut behind them.

“WOAH, WOAH, what the hell?! Don’t let the light touch the GPUs! Do you have any idea how much these cos—”

“KENJI OTA!”

With that, he finally looked up at Aika, slipping his headphones off.

“Well... if it isn’t my favorite threat dispenser,” he said with a defeated sigh. “You bring a USB virus or just more emotional damage?”

“Neither. I brought a Haruki.”

Haruki waved awkwardly from the doorway. “Uh, hi, Kenji.”

Kenji’s cheeks reddened ever so slightly. He cleared his throat.

“Oh, hey Amane-san. I, uh… how's it going?”

Haruki suppressed a giggle. Aika rolled her eyes.

“Enough with the flirting. Look, our performance audio’s busted. It’s all glitched and staticky.”

Kenji pushed his oversized glasses up the bridge of his nose with his index finger. “…And why should I?”

Aika casually strolled over to his desk, picked up the lone Kotobuki Tsumugi figurine, and held it between two fingers like a claw machine prize.

“Because if you don’t, I’ll replace her keyboard with a leek and repaint her hair lime green.”

Kenji’s eyes went wide. “You wouldn’t.”

“She’ll look like a radioactive flight attendant.”

Kenji shot out of his chair like he’d just taken critical damage. “Okay! Fine! Hands off Mugi-chan... I’ll fix it! Geez, no need to be so emotionally fragile.”

“Thought so. Now work your nerd magic.”

Kenji grabbed the USB from Aika’s hand and stuck it into his computer. He opened a program and pulled up a waveform, clicking and letting the audio loop.

The same ear piercing distortion from the speakers.

“So… what’s wrong with it?” Haruki asked. 

Kenji listened for a second longer, then paused the audio. “It just seems like a standard artifacting issue. Could’ve been bad buffering, or maybe a corrupted WAV header. But hold on…”

He started clicking through spectrograms, scrubbing the audio back and forth. A thoughtful 'hmm' escaped him as he rubbed his chin like he was stroking an invisible beard.

“Well, what is it?” Aika asked impatiently.

“Okay, see this?” Kenji said, pointing at the screen. “The glitches peak at perfect 4.3-second intervals. That’s way too consistent to be just a hardware issue.”

Aika squinted at the screen as if she understood any of that. “So what type of issue is it then?”

“Dunno. Almost looks like malformed parity bits. Those spikes are way too periodical to be random. See, look, there’s a pattern...”

The two girls looked. 

“...A pattern like that usually means something’s syncing in the background. Either the recorder’s internal clock was drifting and recalibrating, or it was caused by something external.”

Haruki let out a small gasp. “So like, we got hacked?”

“Eh, not hacked-hacked. More like hijacked. Imagine you’re trying to tune your guitar, but someone’s de-tuning it every time you blink. The strings sound right… until you play them.”

“So… we got hacked,” Aika said flatly.

“I mean, it could be anything. Power fluctuation, bad drivers, unstable software... but the noise right before each spike, like a buffer overflow or a bad checksum loop. Unusual, but not impossible.”

Before either of them could respond, Haruki’s phone buzzed in her pocket. She pulled it out to see a text from Sakura:

"Where r u?? Mayu already brought out the snacks and I’m eating all the Pocky."

“Looks like we’re being summoned… Are you guys finished?”

Aika glanced over briefly, but Haruki could tell she was still invested.

“Um, tell Sakura and Mayumi I’ll be a little late. I have to make sure Kenji doesn’t turn into a cryptid while debugging this mess.”

Kenji gave Haruki a wave. “Later, Haruki. Uh... see you soon, maybe.”

Haruki gave a small smile and headed for the door. “Don’t let her bully you too hard.”

“Only if you come rescue me.”

Haruki blurted: “Deal.”

A voice cried out as the door closed behind her.

“STOP FLIRTING!”

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