Smashed Firewall

◆ Yukiteru

There must be something wrong with me.

First, I decided to ignore danger signs from Aishi, such as disparities in behavior and coincidences involving Nozomigawa-kun and Osaragi-kun’s breakdowns. Then, I left it to her to take someone to the infirmary, and suddenly this person turned up dead from alleged suicide.

Well then, something is wrong. Either it’s the stimulation experiment I’m carrying on her, or it’s something else.

Is she copying me, by any chance?

No, she couldn’t possibly… murder someone. This is precisely why I picked her for the experiment; she can demonstrate harsh emotions but not violence.

So why…?

“Earth to Yukki!” Enomoto exclaims, snapping me out of my trance. “What’s with you, now? I know, a lot of stuff has happened, but you can’t just keep zoning out on everything!”

“Haibara,” the teacher says, interrupting, as everyone stands up to leave the classroom. “Could you please solve this equation during break time, since you weren’t paying attention?”

“Okay,” I say, standing up, and walking to the board. The problem there is familiar.

A 3 kg block slides on a horizontal surface. The friction force opposing its motion is 5 N. A student pushes the block with a constant horizontal force of 15 N.

“Is this it, sensei?” I ask. He nods, then leaves. Enomoto doesn’t move from his seat, though.

“I’m staying here,” he says. “Maybe, watching you solve it, I can get better in Physics.”

“Hopefully.”

“Ow, you didn’t need that, Yukki!”

I ignore him and then turn to the board. This is an easy problem that can be solved by anyone who managed to get into Shinkō Academy.

Equation of motion

Newton’s second law:

F_net = m * a

The net force is the applied force minus friction:

F_net = F_applied - F_friction

Substitute numbers:

F_net = 15 - 5 = 10 N

Equation of motion:

3 * a = 15 - 5

Acceleration

a = F_net / m = 10 / 3 ≈ 3.33 m/s^2

Velocity after 6 seconds

Using v = v0 + a * t:

v = 0 + 3.33 * 6 ≈ 19.98 ≈ 20 m/s

Work done by the applied force

Work formula: W = F * d

First, find distance traveled:

d = v0 * t + 0.5 * a * t^2

d = 0 + 0.5 * 3.33 * 6^2 = 0.5 * 3.33 * 36 ≈ 59.94 ≈ 60 m

Now, work done by the applied force:

W_applied = F_applied * d = 15 * 60 = 900 J

Answer Summary:

Too easy.

Thinking this, I drop the pen on the holder and turn to look at Enomoto—but he’s not looking at me. He’s staring at the corridor-facing window, pale like he’s seen a ghost.

“Yukki, look…” he chokes out. I follow his gaze to the window, and realize what he’s looking at.

Aishi. Her face’s pressed to the window, and she’s watching us intently. Her eyes are pink and lit up, and her smile is giddy.

Realizing she’s been noticed, she scurries off, but I reach the door first.

“Aishi-san,” I say. “Is something the matter?”

She blushes while looking down. “That was quite the solution you wrote, Senpai,” she says, smiling. “As expected of the top student! In the last exams, you ranked 1st with a perfect score, for example. I got… 10th place,” she says, shrinking slightly. “But I’ll get better! I’ll reach the second place, I promise you!” She adds, smiling.

She seems so upbeat about this. Why do her actions always elicit such a… response from me?

Truthfully, it’s something I have yet to discover. But it seems that nothing’s wrong, in the end. Aishi is still Aishi, with her shifting eyes and predictable yet pleasurable smile that keeps making me question every data point I gather about her.

I think… this is what others call ‘getting your walls smashed down’ by someone.

If she really smashed my walls, then it means I’m losing control of my experiment. Of myself.

I need to be more careful from now on.

***

A few days pass before something new comes up: the yearly school excursion to Kyoto in a few weeks. Enomoto is all over it, blabbing on and on about hot springs and girls and anything else that that chickpea of a brain can come up with.

“And you, Yukki?” He asks. “What do you want to do, when we go to Kyoto?”

I pause for a moment. “I want to see the local Shinto shrines,” I reply, calmly, 100% sure that this is what he expected to hear but not what he WANTED to hear. And indeed, he shrinks.

“Aw, c’mon, Yukki! Don’t you think about anything else? Like girls, for example. Isn’t Aishi-chan a bit uppity these days?”

“For all that is holy, Enomoto, stop calling her Aishi-chan. It’s cringe.”

“You say it’s cringe but I’m pretty sure you want to call her that too. You’re such a tsundere, Yukki.”

Tsundere. From tsuntsun (standoffish) and deredere (lovestruck). Where is this coming from? Suddenly he’s got an army of otaku slang terms when all he’s watched is cheap ecchi battle shōnen like Gurren Lagann, Sword Art Online and The Familiar of Zero.

“Stop calling me neologisms.”

“Neologisms? Yukki, you’re sounding like an old man. C’mon, just go with the flow sometimes.”

“And to go with the flow I have to read porn magazines and literally drool when Takemoto-san walks by?”

“Don’t be so specific, Yukki!” Enomoto shrieks, then checks if there’s no one else around before hissing, “Man, you nearly got my ass busted right now. Imagine if she was around right now…” He inhales sharply. “Anyways, boys are boys, through and through. Don’t you think about Aishi-chan sometimes? I mean, you know…”

“Get your head out of the gutter.”

“*sigh* Yukki, please tell me you’re secretly not 100 years old.”

I shush him when I catch a fragment of conversation in the air. We hide behind a wall in the courtyard just as Aishi and her group pass by, chattering.

“So, girls, now that we’re all on our lonesome, let’s get on with the gossip,” Takemoto starts. “Truth or dare, or just plain gossip?”

“Please, not truth or dare!” Nishimura squeaks. “I always get scared when this happens!”

“Aw, c’mon, Chihocchi, it’s not like someone’s listening!” Takemoto says, grinning. “Besides, we’ve sworn never to laugh at anyone’s secrets. ‘Kay?”

“O…okay.” Nishimura nods. The three sit in a circle, and Takemoto puts a bottle in the middle. She spins it.

“Chihocchi, truth or dare!” She exclaims, when the bottle points at Nishimura.

“Um, truth,” the gothic lolita says.

“Is it true that you got confessed to precisely seven times the day you said you were going to Shinkō Academy?” Takemoto asks.

Nishimura nods. “Yes. I don’t remember their names now, but seven boys confessed to me that day. I rejected them all, after all…” she trails off. “I like someone else,” she explains quickly.

“Okay,” Aishi says. “My turn.” She spins the bottle. “Tae, truth or dare.”

“Truth.” Takemoto doesn’t blink. Aishi then grins.

“Is it true that you have a crush on Enomoto-senpai?” She asks.

Next to me, I hear Enomoto’s breath catch in his throat. For a moment, there’s deadly silence. Then, Takemoto speaks.

“…Yes, it’s true.”

Nishimura lets out a high-pitched squeak. “Really? Congratulations on your first real crush, Tae!”

“What, you’re saying I flirted with those other guys for sport? Yes, I flirted without reason, but this time’s different,” Takemoto says. “I think he’s an adorable dum, that’s it. But I don’t think I could ever pursue him. He probably just likes me because of my boobs.”

“Senpai already said he was depraved,” Aishi agrees. “He told me he had hair samples of us in his bathroom.”

“Now you’re getting fed brown press, Rainbow-chan,” Takemoto exclaims. “That’s bullshit. He’s too stupid to do something like that.”

I can already picture Enomoto’s face without even looking at him.

“That’s true,” Nishimura says. “Enomoto-senpai is your textbook blissfully ignorant protagonist’s wingman. He’s not the stalker, for what I know.”

“‘The’ stalker? Not ‘a’ stalker?” Takemoto raises her eyebrows questionably. “Who’s the stalker, then?”

“Oh, nothing,” Nishimura hurriedly dismisses. “Anyways, I think you should at least try to tell him, Tae. Maybe he isn’t fully in the gutter, and sees the girl behind the trends.”

“Yeah, maybe.” Takemoto stares at the sky. “Okay, Chihocchi, spin the bottle.”

It lands on Aishi.

“Truth or dare, Kacchan?” Nishimura asks.

Aishi inhales sharply. “Dare,” she says.

“Okay,” Nishimura says, before glancing around. “I dare you to guess where are the people who are eavesdropping in this game.”

I clamp my hand over Enomoto’s nose and mouth to shut up his gasp as Aishi stands up. She takes a glance around, and our eyes meet for a moment.

Hers turn pink, then lemon yellow, then pink again. She sits back down.

“There’s nobody,” she says. “You must be mistaken, Chiho-chan.”

“Really?” Nishimura clearly isn’t convinced. “I could swear I saw someone.”

“That must’ve been a shadow of a bush or something,” Aishi says. “Right, Tae?”

“Yeah,” Tae says, but she also doesn’t seem so sure. “You know what? Let’s go back. Break is already ending.”

“Good idea,” Nishimura says, standing up. “Or else we’ll be yelled at for missing the time.”

The three girls scamper away quickly, but I wait until their chattering disappears in the distance to let go of Enomoto. He staggers forward, gasping for air.

“Jesus Christ, Yukki!” He exclaims. “You heard that? Takemoto-san, she… she likes me too! But she thinks I’m a pervert for some reason.” Then he looks at me. “Yukki, did I hear Aishi-san saying you told her I was a creep who stole hair?”

Error. System code: 10142181421181421195201921. Information leaked to Subject Enomoto.

Loading error correction code…

“I would never tell Aishi-san such nonsense,” I tell him. “Someone pretended to be me and gave her fake news. I lost my phone a few days ago and got it back recently, so this would have been easy if someone knew my password.”

“Ah, I get it now.” Enomoto grins apologetically. “Sorry I suspected you, Yukki. I know you’re my friend, you wouldn’t do something like that.”

Friend?

I’m sorry, Enomoto.

But you’re nothing but an auxiliary program to me.

You’re just filling in the holes that social awkwardness prevents me from filling alone.

He then looks around. “We gotta go, Yukki,” he says. “Class is almost on. Okay?”

“Okay,” I say, following him back to class. My mind wanders, though, to the moment Aishi lied.

She lied to her friends to keep me safe.

It is… not unpleasant.

At that moment, she made a choice. And she chose me.

I want her to keep choosing me. It is a valuable data point, after all. Right?