Chapter 2 - New Faces

“So’s that guy gonna be able to come?” I asked Toma.

“Yeah, it seems like he’ll be able to go out to eat with us.”

“Come to think of it, I probably should have worn a jacket,” I said, looking down at my t-shirt. Despite it only being the start of fall, it was already starting to get pretty cold in Japan surprisingly.

“Yeah, it usually starts getting colder around this time of year, although it does vary,” Toma responded. “This year though, it’s starting pretty early.”

“By the way, do you know how fast your friend runs? At least for the 5K?” I asked him.

“I’m pretty sure he runs around 18 minutes on average. I’d have to ask him in person, though.”

“Fifteen minutes? Oh my God! I was on average somewhere around 21. I need to train really hard to be able to be close to that,” I said. Well, it didn’t really help that I hadn’t been working out very much recently ever since I got accepted.

“By the way, if you don’t mind me asking, what’s your friend’s name?”

“Oh yeah, sure. His name is Ita Yamamoto.”

“Ita Yamamoto, Ita Yamamoto, Ita Yamamoto. Thank you.”

“Why do you say it so many times?” Toma asked me.

“Well, English names and Japanese names are very different, and they’re really hard for me to pronounce, surprisingly,” I said, as I looked down at my phone. We were about two blocks away from the restaurant now.

“Ah, that makes sense,” Toma said. “I mean, English and Japanese are very different languages.”

“Man, the campus looks really nice,” I said. “I mean, I expected it to be really nice and fancy because of how much we’re paying, but this is almost overkill. I mean, you have trees everywhere, along with walking paths. You even have restaurants on campus and probably some of the nicest dorms and classrooms I’ve ever seen.”

“I mean, there is quite a bit here, especially on campus,” he said. “But that’s more because this is an advanced high school than basically anywhere else. Do you have any schools like this in America?”

“I’d have to say no. I don’t think I know a single high school that is this nice that is also a boarding school in America.”

“Really? I mean, I thought you Americans had it all, but I must be really wrong.”

“You’d be surprised how little we have in America in comparison to what you think we have.”

Off in the distance, I could already see the restaurant. It looked like an American restaurant that was trying to be too American, with American flags plastered all over the place and a big cowboy hat at the entrance. I didn’t really complain. I just wanted to try to have a burger for the first time since I’d gotten to Japan.

“Hey, so Jaeger—I mean, Toma—does this mean we’re friends? I don’t really want to force it on you, but I just didn’t really have friends in middle school, so you’d basically be my first,” I said nervously.

“You’re joking, right? I thought you only saw that stuff in anime and shit,” he said, almost trying not to laugh. But then he got his composure and realized that I was being serious. “Oh—sorry. I mean, yeah, I don’t see why not. Our roommates will be hanging out quite a bit, and, well, you seem like a pretty nice guy.”

“Sweet. Thank you so much, Toma!” I said happily.

Toma then opened the door for me, looked at his phone, and said, “Ita’s already here. He says he has a table.”

“Oh, that’s great.”
I started to look around the room, trying to find someone that might look like Ita, even though I had never heard what he looked like.

There was almost nobody in the restaurant, very surprisingly. Although I guess it was just the first day of school, so nobody would really be eating out right now. There were only three people in the restaurant at the time: a girl with blond-ish short hair, a skinny guy who was not too much shorter than me with short black hair, and a second girl who had dyed pink hair that was cut pretty short at shoulder length. So only one person could have possibly been Ita.

Toma and ! made our way over to where Ita was sitting, and Toma said, “Hey, Ita, this is Joshua, the guy I was talking about. He wants to join the cross-country team.”

Ita then stood up to shake my hand. “It’s nice to meet you, Oakley,” he said.

As we sat down, I said, “It’s nice to meet you too, Yamamoto. Just a quick favor — could you call me Joshua instead? It’s really confusing when people call me Oakley, and it just sounds weird.”

“Yeah, totally, no problem,” Ita said. He then picked up his menu to continue reading.

I also picked up my menu. They had very standard American foods — just burgers with fries, a chicken sandwich, and a few other random American-style foods. Or at least foods that were common in America.

“So, I hear that you’re from America,” Ita said.

“Yeah, I’m from America. I got accepted and had to learn Japanese in order to attend.”

He put down his menu and asked, “So, what kind of times were you putting up in middle school?”

“For the 5 km, I was doing about 21 minutes on average,” I responded, picking up my phone to check exactly what my times were.

“I mean, that’s not bad,” Ita said. “Although, do you think you could be going faster than that?”

“I mean, I think so,” I responded. “If I had a better training plan and I was more consistent, I think I could’ve definitely shaved down my time.”

“How about this,” Ita said. “You train with us, and we see how you perform. If you’re able to make it under a certain time, I think we’ll accept you.”

“That sounds great, Yamamoto. When do you guys start?” I asked.

“We meet every morning. So if you want to join us tomorrow at about 6:30 in front of the auditorium, then we can run together.”

“That sounds great,” I said. “What are you guys planning on running tomorrow?”

“We’re planning on probably doing a 4-mile run at an easier pace.”

“What do you guys mean by ‘easier pace’? There are a lot of people who say 5:30 miles are easy.”

“No, no, no, we don’t run that fast. We’ll probably be running about 8:00, 8:30 miles.”

“Yeah, okay, I think I can do that, even though I haven’t trained in a little while.”

“So you guys are just gonna leave me out of this entire conversation?” Toma asked.

“Oh, sorry,” Ita responded. “What do you want to talk about? This experiment thing? What do you guys think about it?”

“I mean, it’s really interesting. I didn’t really expect it after coming overseas, but it’s just one more thing to add to the list,” I said.

“Yeah, sort of the same here, but I don’t think I’ll really work on it at all,” Toma said.

“Yeah, I don’t care about that. Do you guys have any leads or any clues on who it coul—” Ita was cut off as the waitress walked over.

“Well, howdy,” she said. “Do you boys want anything to eat?”

I had to try so hard not to laugh at how horrible she sounded.

“Um, sure. I’ll have the Cowboy Special,” Toma said.

“I think I’ll have the same,” Ita said.

Still trying not to laugh, I said, “I’ll have just the regular burger, no pickles.”

“Well, I’ll make sure to have that out for you boys soon,” she said before walking away.

Toma leaned in. “What the hell is your problem, Joshua? Why were you trying not to laugh?”

“I’m sorry,” I said in between laughs. “It’s just so funny how they’re trying to act like cowboys or something. I get they want it to feel like an authentic American restaurant, but this is too much.”

“I mean, I get that you guys don’t talk like that in America, but is it really that bad?” Ita asked.

“Yes. It is,” I said, still trying not to laugh. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone dress like a cowboy unironically.”

“Really? Well, I guess I should go to America sometime to see for myself,” Toma said.

“Anyway, as I was saying,” Ita continued, “do you guys have any leads? Or clues on who it could be?”

“Oh yeah, that’s right. We were about to talk about the robot. I got absolutely nothing,” I said.

“Same. I haven’t gotten to think about it much, but I guess one person seemed suspicious,” Toma said, leaning in. “They were acting super weird, bland, and boring. Their name? Ita Yamamoto.”

We all broke from the huddle as Ita shoved Toma. “Haha, very funny. Now seriously — do you have any leads?”

“Yeah, no, I got nothing,” Toma said.

“What about you, Yamamoto?” I asked.

“Well, I did think one person was a little suspicious, but that’s only because they were walking funny. I don’t really know.”

“And who was that?” Toma asked.

“Her name was Natalia Sato, I think.”

“Natalia? Isn’t that a Russian name?” I asked. “Is it common for Japanese people to have Russian names? I mean, Russia is close, but…”

“Well, it’s more common than almost any other foreign names,” Toma said.

“The real question is,” I said, “what are we even supposed to be looking for? The principal said the robot is almost perfect.”

“That’s true,” Ita said. “But it can’t be too perfect if they expect us to find it.”

“Are they hoping the AI slips up?” Toma asked. “I mean… does it even slip up?”

“Maybe they’re testing it,” I said. “Maybe they want to see if there’s a moment where they're more likely to make mistakes.”

“If there is a time it would slip up, when would that be?” Toma asked.

“I mean, everything has a battery; everything needs to recharge,” Toma added. “Unless they figured out some way for it to run for months without needing maintenance.”

“Man, maybe you guys did get good grades and aren’t actually stupid,” I joked.

“Alright, that’s enough of that,” Ita said.

“Although you do have a good point, Toma,” Ita continued. “There has to be a way they recharge it without anyone noticing.”

“Maybe they don’t need a roommate,” Toma blurted out. “If the AI lives alone, then they’d have 8 hours to recharge and work on it.”

“But didn’t they say they want to learn and adapt? That would mean it does have a roommate,” Ita said. “It would learn better that way.”

“So we’re back to square one,” I said. “There has to be some way they keep it online constantly.”

“Man, I really didn’t think we’d talk about the robot this much,” Toma said.

“It’s only normal,” Ita said. “The principal basically forced everyone to participate.”

“Yeah, that was pretty weird how he brought it up in his spe—”
I was cut off as the waitress returned with our food.

“Here y’all are. Make sure to enjoy your food,” she said.

I tried not to laugh again at her horrible cowboy impression.

As she walked away, Toma said, “Joshua! It seriously can’t be that bad.”

“Yeah, Joshua,” Ita added.

“Trust me, it is,” I said, still trying not to laugh.