Chapter 6 - The Line Between Us

“Holy shit,” I said with my mouth full of food, looking down at my phone.

“What is it?” Toma asked as we sat in our booth in the nearly empty cafeteria for dinner.

“Well…” I said, “it’s Rin, that’s what.”

“Seriously?” Toma asked as he leaned across the booth.

“Yep, here,” I said as I flipped my phone around to show him. “So she said, ‘Hello, this is Rin. I want to try to find a time to talk about the clue that I have that may lead us straight to who it is.’ I mean, it is pretty simple.”

“How about we bring her in on Friday with Ita, and we talk about it all together?” Toma suggested.

“I mean, that isn’t a bad idea, but I honestly just want to know more.”

“That is reasonable.”

“How about this—we say, ‘Sure, but quick question: does it have something to do with our homeroom teacher?’” I said while typing it out on my phone.

“That’s fine, but I feel like something is missing,” Toma said. “Oh, I have an idea, but you’re gonna hate it.”

“What is it?” I said, seeing Toma’s rising grin.

“How about you apologizing for snapping and saying that it was mostly your fault for going so far?”

“Ya, so screw that.”

“HEY!”

“Look, I don’t hate it, but it’s just too early,” I said. “Plus, I want for it to be sincere when I apologize. Not sure why, but I just want for it to.”

“Fine, then send it, Josh.”

I sent the message on my phone and said to Toma, “Now we just wait.”

“While we do, how about we come up with a time and place to meet up on Friday, since it is already Wednesday.”

“That sounds good, you got any ideas?”

“Not really in terms of location, but I was thinking like 5 p.m., as we need time for school obviously, and a little time in between school and meeting.”

“Good idea, that matches up perfectly with the place I had in mind to meet up.”

“What were you thinking, some alley or something?”

“Why would I choose there?”

“So that we are away from cameras and stuff.”

“Jeez, maybe you are dumb.”

Toma then screamed, “WHAT DO YOU ME—”

“Look, we don't need to be in a secluded place. Just somewhere that is busy and we can easily talk,” I said as I grabbed some more food. “Oh, and it needs to be off campus, but that’s obvious since they probably have bugs all over the place on campus.”

“So once again, what do you have in mind?”

“Alright,” I said as I turned my phone around to show him, “a boba shop.”

“Hell no, why would we go there?”

“What? I’ve never had it before.”

“Ya, and it’s overrated as hell.”

“But you said you would help me try out new things in Japan.”

“Ya, but the thing is that boba isn’t Japanese.”

“Wait, it isn’t?”

“Ya, it’s Taiwanese.”

Just then, my phone buzzed with a message from Rin.

“Oh, Rin already texted me back.”

“Jeez, that was quick. Maybe she has a thing for you.”

“Hahaha.” We both broke out laughing.

We both regained our composure and read Rin’s message that said, ‘Yes, although I do have one more bit of info that you’re gonna wanna hear.’

“So it’s pretty easy now. We just say, ‘We are meeting after school at 5 at this boba shop. Does that sound good?’” Toma said.

“Alright, that sounds good,” I said while typing it out. “Could you do me a favor and send Ita a note as well so he’s good?”

“On it.”

I finished typing out my message to Rin as Toma and I went to put our plates away.

While I was putting my plate up, I said to Toma, “Just so you know, I am going to cross country practice tomorrow, and I’ll need to get up early.”

“Sounds good, just wake me up when you leave so that I stop recording and go back to bed.”

“No problem,” I said as we started to leave the cafeteria and head back to our dorms.

—

“JOSHUA!”

Just then, I jolted awake from my dream to the sound of my alarm. I had dreamt about it again; life has never been the same since then.

I looked over to see Toma passed out in a crazy sleeping position. I got up and grabbed my running gear before going to wake Toma up.

“Hey Toma, you don’t need to stay awake—just letting you know I’m headed out.”

“Alright then… see you,” he mumbled, still half asleep.

I had been working hard, and I knew my free trial with the cross country team was going to be up soon. My only question was: was I good enough? Had I proved myself so that I could run with them? I knew they saw some sort of potential in me—hell, that’s probably why I’m still running with them—but I just can’t figure it out.

“Hey Joshua,” Ita said, waving his hand toward me as he stood in the center of the track with Ren and Haruto.

“Hey Ita, how’s it going?” I asked him.

“It’s been going well. I’m just stoked for practice today.”

“Same here,” Haruto said.

“Why’s that?” I asked them.

“Well…” Haruto said while stretching, “today is our fartlek run.”

“What’s a fartlek? I’ve never even heard of that.”

“Wait—you didn’t know?” Haruto asked. “Oh right, I’ve been meaning to do this but have just forgotten time and time again.” He began pulling out his phone from his pocket. “Here, let me add you to the group chat so you know what we’re doing each practice.”

“Now, a fartlek is a run where each of us runs at our race pace with the group following for a minute, then our rest pace for four,” Ita said. “Then we swap. It’s an easy run if you’re towards the top but horrible if you’re towards the bottom.”

“Oh, that’s just great,” I said sarcastically while pulling out my phone as well. “Wait, real quick—does that mean I’m on the team now, Nishimiya?” I asked nervously.

“Please, call me Haruto. And I thought you were going to tell him, Ita,” he said, glaring at him.

“Uhhhh…” Ita said. “I’ve been wanting to talk to you about it.”

“Here—real quick, before we talk about it, what’s your number?” Haruto asked.

“Yeah, it’s 555-245-2341.”

“Alright. Now go ahead, Ita,” Haruto said, still looking at his phone.

“Well… we see how good you are, and you’ve been improving. So the team talked about it yesterday. We unanimously said that you should be on the team—but you need to do one more thing.”

“Okay, and what’s that? Because I’m down to do anything,” I said.

“It’s a test. A mock race,” Haruto said, looking toward me. “We want to see exactly how fast you can run when your spot is on the line. If you pass the required time, you’re in. You don’t, and you’re out.”

“Um… okay. What is the time to beat?”

“18:00,” Ita said. “I know it’s harsh, but that’s how fast Kaito and Shun are, so you’ll have to deal with it.”

“18 flat? I can do that,” I responded. “I just need to know when, where, and the route.”

“Friday,” Haruto said coldly. “I’ll send you the course tonight, but if you don’t make the time, you are no longer able to run with us.”

“I understand, Haruto,” I said, “but I just have one question. What times do you guys all run? I still don’t know.”

“I run a 17:30, both Kaito and Shun—as I said before—run 18:00, and Ren runs a 16:00.”

“And I ran 17:00, so I’m second fastest on the team!”

“Okay. Thank you once again for allowing me to train with you.” All that ran through my mind in that moment was that I was screwed. There was no chance I could run an 18:00. Sure, maybe in a few months—but next week? No way. It just isn’t possible.

“Oh, there’s Kaito and Shun!” Ita exclaimed as he started to run over to them.

The only thing on my mind the entire practice was how I was going to run a 5K in 18 minutes. I’d have to run a mile every 5 minutes and 40 seconds. I was going to need to train hard—REALLY hard.

By the time we had wrapped up practice, it was still on my mind.

“Hey,” Ita said as I started to walk back to my dorm, “so tomorrow, right?”

“Yeah. Tomorrow the plan is to meet up just after school to talk.”

“I still just don’t understand. Why can’t we talk about it now?”

“We just can’t, okay?” I said, looking at the ground.

“If I told you here and now, someone might hear—and we don’t want that. The only thing we can do right now is stay quiet and tell you guys either in private or off campus.”

“Okay… I’ll trust you,” he said, starting to walk away. “But it better be good!” he shouted to me, now further away.

—

I heard the door ding as I rang the bell while opening it. I walked in to see a small number of people, with only around ten tables in the place. Then I saw Rin, Toma, and Ita all sitting in the corner near the window, all on their phones, not talking.

I walked over to them and said, “Hey, it seems like I’m last.” The location was perfect for this—there were no students from Shiro here since it was far away, and the place wouldn’t be bugged or anything like that.

“Hey Josh,” Ita and Toma said.

“Alright,” I said while taking a seat, “so where do we start?”

“I suggest we go over everything we have figured out at the moment,” Rin said. “Then we can attempt to draw conclusions from the evidence.”

“Jesus, no need to be so formal,” Toma said. “We aren’t at a five-star restaurant—we’re in a boba shop in the middle of Itabashi City.”

“Yeah, seriously,” Ita said. “Can we all just talk as friends at least this one time?”

“Look, what we’re talking about is serious. We should be taking it seriously,” Rin said. “Not as some joke or game, because it never was.”

“I agree with Subaru here,” I said. “And for all I care, talk how you want—it just sounded a little weird.”

“I’d like to start with the obvious: it’s safe to say the robot is in grade 1, specifically Class A.”

“Okay, and what makes you say that?” Ita asked.

“It would make the most sense for the robot to be in grade 1, since then they could run the test for three years at most if they wanted to.”

“I thought about that too,” Toma said, “but I think I disproved it. With everything that’s going on, what is this test for? And why run it longer than a year? If the robot survives for a year, what else is there to learn besides the mistakes it already made? After the first year, it can’t stay in the first-years’ class, so there are only two left.”

“You bring up an interesting point about what this test is for,” I said. “I know the Shiro Science Department is a big thing here in Japan, but what do they specialize in? I don’t even know that.”

“They mostly work on computer technology and, more recently, advancements in AI,” Ita added.

“It would make sense that they’d develop something like this, although it is a stretch,” Toma said.

“Hmmm…”

“Now, back to my original point,” Rin said. “They have to be in Class A, since it has the most advanced teacher with Dr. Aizawa.”

“This one’s all mine,” I said. “While that’s true, she has nothing to do with the Shiro Science Department. She was a college professor before coming here. Plus, Class A is simply the most advanced class on campus, with the top minds from grade 1.”

“So you’re telling me this basically holds no proof?” Toma asked.

“Yeah, which means we’re back to square one,” Ita said.

“Not completely. We have more evidence than just this,” I said.

“Alright, so let’s hear it then,” Rin said.

I cleared my throat before saying, “The robot thinks they are human—and not a robot.”

“What the fu—” Ita started to say.

“We have evidence,” Toma chimed in. “Look, I don’t want to steal your thunder here, so I’ll let you explain it, Joshua.”

“Basically, when your dad gave the speech on Sunday, he was highlighting that we should all be participating in this event. Just saying it once should’ve been fine, even with the number of people against this. But what if there was another meaning? What if he was implying that the robot will be included in this—meaning the robot doesn’t know they’re a robot. This was the revelation we were talking about with you, Ita. Do you understand why now?”

“Yeah, but—” Ita was cut off again.

“What the hell… wait, I think you might be right,” Rin said. “I found something while digging on my dad’s computer. This is what I wanted to talk to you about at lunch. Basically, I found evidence that there’s some sort of uploading process of memories they took from the robot. Like they may have a past, but it’s all fabricated. There’s nothing real to go off of.”

“Shit, that just makes things worse for us,” Toma said.

“Now, if this is all true… how do we know that we aren't the robot?” Ita asked.

“Pretty simple, actually,” Rin said. “They’d have to have known someone at the school before attending.”

“I’m clear with Toma,” Ita said.

“I’m clear with Ohka,” Rin said.

“That just leaves me.”

“So, Joshua, this is my question,” Rin said. “What were you talking about at lunch?”

“Hey, he doesn’t need to be answering to you,” Toma said.

“I don’t need to tell you shit,” I muttered under my breath. “We already have a test in place to prove I’m human. Me and Toma set up cameras every night to make sure we don’t leave the room in any way, so we can assure we’re clear.”

“Alright, but still—if you don’t tell us about your past, we can’t trust you fully,” Rin said.

“I UNDERSTAND, RIN!” I took a deep sigh, then said, “Look, I can’t tell you about my past. Not yet, at least… I’m just not ready to admit to everything that’s happened. So are we done here? Because I’m done.” I stood up and walked away.

—

I watched as Joshua left the shop before saying, “Great going. The man has already refused to tell me anything—now you go asking him questions like it’s your business.”

“Hey, at least I’m not the one trying to keep secrets.”

“Look, calm down, both of you,” Ita said. “Maybe there is a good reason he’s keeping this from us.”

I looked over at Ita and could immediately tell something was off. “What did you find, Ita?”

“I went digging after he wanted to find out about his times and found something weird.”

“What exactly could you find on a running account?” Rin asked.

“I found his mom’s Instagram account. It wasn’t private, so I could see all her posts—and it was interesting.”

He pulled out his phone and opened Instagram to show us.

“The last post was made over two years ago about his sister winning some tournament. Look at this picture.”

He turned the phone to show Joshua’s mom, dad, and sister standing together—with someone cropped out of the image.

Rin beat me to it. “Is that Joshua cropped out of the image?”

“Yes. And it gets worse.” He began scrolling down the account.

“Now, if you have two kids, wouldn’t you post about both?”

“Yeah, I mean, that’s obvious,” Rin said.

“This account was active during cross country season in Joshua’s first year—and there is nothing of him on here. Not a single photo. And to make it worse, this post was made the same day as Joshua’s first cross-country meet.”

He showed us a post of Joshua’s sister on stage while the camera panned to the audience. The caption read: ‘So proud of our daughter for striving for greatness as our only child!!!’

“Holy shit,” I said.

“What the hell… that’s messed up,” Rin said.

“That’s what Joshua has been ‘hiding’ from us,” Ita said, using air quotes.

“We keep this to ourselves,” I blurted out. “We can’t have Joshua break down in public again—we saw that happen with you, Rin.”

“But I didn’t know,” Rin said quietly, guilt flooding her voice.

“We leave here without saying a word. Agreed?”

“Agreed,” Ita added.

“Agreed,” Rin said, still in shock. It was obvious she was putting up a façade—but whether it would hold was another question entirely.

—

We didn’t know it at the time, but Rin had one other thing to tell us. If she had told us then, everything may have gone differently. Maybe we all could’ve continued the way we were…