She Might Be Weird, but What About Me?

Anyways, time for another day at school, I make my way past the school gate and into the main building. The halls are mostly quiet other than slight chatter and the sounds of students doing their club activities spilling from the outside. There are still about fifteen minutes before school starts, so there are already a few students just arriving.

Ugh, I don't want to go to class and sit alone the entire time, people will definitely notice me. I usually arrive just before homeroom to avoid sitting awkwardly alone. Maybe I should walk around for a bit? Nah, that's stupid I will just pretend to be busy at my desk or something. I slowly make my way upstairs to where my class is.

I open the door to my classroom, there are already a few students here chatting away with each other. They turn to see who just opened the door and go back to talking when they realize nobody important was coming in. I put my head down and walk past everyone over to my seat at the back corner of the class. Luckily I see the only other person I have talked to in this school, who also happens to sit next to me, Kawashima, Yuri. We have recently become close and just like me, she is one of the loners in our school. We talk to each other every now and then at school, but most of our interactions are online.

“Morning...” I say as I slide into my seat.

Yuri is intensely tapping away at her phone. There is a weird moment of silence. Did this thick glasses nerd even notice me pass by? I look over at her phone, she's playing some RPG game that's gotten popular recently. Watching her play, my eyes can't help but stray away from her phone.

She is certainly an odd one, although there isn't anything visibly wrong with her. She's not weird looking or anything, I’d even say that she's has her own charm to her looks. She's got short hair and big glasses that hide a small spec of a beauty mark under her left eye. Despite that, what makes her on the same social level as me is... she is just a bit strange to say the least. Even the other losers in our school find her too much to handle and don't want to be friends with her. Well, I'm also not friends with the other nerds in our school... but it's different, it's my own decision to not be friends with them.

I see her peak over with the corner of her eyes just to immediately look back at her phone. Crap! It's only the morning but it's the second time I've been caught idly staring at someone today.

“Good morning Nakahara-Kun, how was the mission yesterday?” she says without taking her attention off the game she is playing.

“Mission…” I sigh as I feel my soul cringing. “I told you before, calling it a mission sounds a bit weird.”

Completely ignoring what I said, she continues to tap away on her phone.

“Well, we played for a few hours, he helped me level up a bunch and gifted me items that cost real money. This guy was really falling for me so uhh... guess I could call it a mission success.” I grumble out those last few words.

“Heh heh heh perfect.” She says with a slight snicker in her voice. “Just like I said, you follow my tips, and you can be the best gamer girlfriend out there!”

“Huh?! Look I don’t think I will ever be anyone’s actual girlfriend!” I almost raised my voice but stopped myself since I don't want to bring any attention to our strange conversation.

Yuri puts her phone on her desk and finally faces towards me.

“Don’t tempt me Nakahara-Kun, believe me I could do it if I really wanted to. Actually, I have plans whenever you are rea--”

“Whoa whoa, that will never happen so slow down there!” I say in a panic trying to stop her from whatever she was about to say.

"Maybe you’ll change your mind..."

"Never"

"But what if---"

"Never"

Realizing I was not backing down Yuri gives a slight pout and goes back to playing a game on her phone.

Plans for me to become an actual… this girl is something else. What am I doing with my life for me to be thinking something like this? I slouch over on my desk and ponder this question for a moment.

I didn’t really get to think about it much but thanks to Yuri, I succeeded in getting my first boy to buy me something with real money. I've gotten plenty in the past to give me in-game items that don’t require real money but this time I went farther than I usually did. Her plan to get me to learn to do a female’s voice worked, I don’t have the deepest of voices so following the guides she linked me with was simple. I was reluctant at first, but I kind of thought it was a fun idea. It surprised me how much she was willing to help me, well I guess she's just that type of nerd that gets really into random things.

"Hey Shiki, I heard some rumors about your friend... this morning."

"What friend? You know I don't really have any."

"That weird normie you walk to school with all the time."

Weird normie… is she talking about Saya?

"Tachikawa Saya? How do you know we always walk to school together?"

"Yea that girl! Some girls talked about how Tachikawa-San was recently getting close with some guy."

She completely disregarded my question, but I'm more curious about these rumors she speaks of.

"Wait, first of all do you talk to other girls in this school? Where'd you hear this?" I ask while raising my eyebrow in suspicion.

"I was doing a little eavesdropping... but that's not the point!"

"A-alright I guess… but I had no idea about this, she's never mentioned anything about guys ever."

"Really? Then I guess it was just regular normie gossip."

Our conversation fades out after that.

I don't really know much about Saya's social life as the only time we get to talk is on our way to school. Other than that, we don't really talk much except for the rare event where we eat lunch together. Since childhood, I don’t think Saya has ever been interested in dating anyone unless I just never knew about it.

The classroom is starting to fill with more students as homeroom is about to start. I start to take out my books from my bag.

"Ah, back to what we were talking about before. I need to give you objectives to complete for our next mission."

"Again with the mission stuff?" Saying it out loud like that makes me feel so embarrassed. Everyday I understand more and more why she has no friends.

"Look you got the voice, personality, and experience…” she leans over towards me and whispers “Next we do the looks and your feminization will be closer to completion!"

"Feminization… What in the world? When you put it like that it sounds so..."

“Hear me out okay, trust me!”

"Let’s talk about it after school, now’s a bad time." Definitely can't risk someone walking by and hearing us talk about this anymore.

“After school it is!” She gives a wide grin and also starts to take her books out from her bag.

My day has just started, and I already desire the comfort of my bed that I was in a while ago...  

***

It’s lunch time. Usually most students would stay in their classroom or go to the cafeteria with their friends. As for me, last year I found a place where I don’t have to look at anyone and nobody can look at me. It's at a part of the school where mostly the first year students have their classes, so it mostly goes by unnoticed. On the way there I usually stop by the vending machines to buy something to drink.

I walk up the dimly lit flight of stairs and push open the metal door with both my hands. The change in atmosphere immediately shifts, fresh spring air fills my lungs cleansing me from the stiff air of the school. As I step out the door, a vast sea of houses and small buildings come into view below. Looking out in the distance, seeing a calm forest of trees on the mountains always makes me forget about what happened during the day. A few moments of peace all to myself. There isn't much space up here, it’s maybe a quarter size of a classroom, and no places to sit. So I usually sit on the floor and eat lunch on my lap.

Today's lunch is the usual tea that I drink. I sip away at it while reading some manga on my phone. After a few minutes, I hear the door next to me creak open. Saya slides through holding her bento box wrapped in a pink cloth with a flower design.

"Found you!!! I knew you would be here!" She says while looking down at me.

"I'm not that hard to find."

"If I asked someone where Shiki-kun is they would say "Shiki? Who's that?" haha."

"Very funny..." I mutter.

Saya sits down next to me crossed legged and opens her bento. Despite the cute looking nature of the box, inside revealed some poorly made onigiri.

“Want some?” She picks one up and it almost falls apart in her hands. “Shiki, just a drink isn't enough for lunch! You won't grow if you don't eat!”

Admittedly I was a bit hungry since I haven't eaten anything all day, so I humbly accepted her offer. Either way, I was not going to deny any homemade food from Saya.

“Fineee” I pretended to reluctantly take the ball of rice that was falling apart by the second.

As bad as it looked, it actually tasted good. It would be pretty hard to mess up such a simple food like onigiri but I had my doubts. We spent a few minutes munching away without saying a word.

I remember what Yuri mentioned this morning and start to wonder if that’s what she wants to talk about today. I don’t want our whole lunch time to go to waste without bringing it up so I decided to break the silence.

"Anyways, why did you want to talk with me today? Something happen recently?" I try to ask casually as I try not to raise any suspicion.

"Hehe, not really"

“Having boy problems?”

“Yea...? How’d you know?”

“Let’s just say I had a feeling” I try my best not to smile but some of it slips out.

"Haha, you have known me the longest so I thought I'd get some advice from you."

I turn to face her as I feel she is about to say something important. She stops eating and puts her lunch down beside her.

"There's this guy I’ve gotten close with since last week… but I'm not sure if he's into me or not... Shiki you are a guy right?! How can I know if he likes me or not?!"

Trying her best not to look directly at me she stares down into her lap. I’ve never seen her this flustered before, and all over some guy? I guess talking about this sort of stuff is her only weakness.

“I- I don’t know! By close, how close are we talking?” I say nervously.

She nervously bites her lip and I can see her face turning redder by the second.

"Well yesterday we were hanging out… one thing led to another… I tried to move my head but it was my first time and all so I kinda froze up… then maybe we might have kissed…"

My eyes widened… Kissed?

As I’m looking at Saya, thoughts of guys making out with her invade my mind. Guys pinning her against a wall with nowhere to escape, forcing her to give in. Disgusting.

He took Saya's first kiss only after a week of meeting her?! I already despise this guy! I feel like I shouldn't be this upset about it, but that doesn't quell the anger that is building up inside me. Then suddenly something wild comes across my mind that I shouldn't have thought about at all. I feel crazy for even entertaining this thought.

That should have been me…