Chapter 2: Haruka’s Call

Haruka had barely stepped into her own room after getting home when she started making a phone call.
The person she called was a hometown friend—Tsumugi.

The call connected before the ringtone even had a chance to sound, but the voice on the other end was clearly annoyed.
“I was messing with my phone and picked up by accident. What is it?”

“So, um, today, I got called out by the girl I like and was told, “I like you!”
Despite the content, her words sank heavily.

“Yeah, yeah, congratulations. Can I hang up?”
“Wait, it hasn’t even started yet.”
She sounded utterly uninterested, but Haruka had no one else to turn to for advice except Tsumugi.

“So, you know, I was like, Yes! and thought, ‘Who do you like?’ and asked her—what do you think she said?”

“Did she say the name of some other guy?”
“How did you guess that?”
“So I got it right? That’s what you get for teasing someone who’s panicking.”
She could even hear the laughter through the phone.

“This isn’t funny! I got called out by a girl who’s totally my type, went there thinking, This has to be a confession!— and then after ‘I like you!’ she goes, ‘…about Nezu-kun.’”
Haruka rattled off her explanation, but Tsumugi just kept laughing.

“In the end… are humans really just about men and women…?”
Her tone suddenly dropped, and she murmured it sadly.

“Of course it is. Humans can’t carry on their bloodline unless it’s a man and a woman. They’re different from us.”
Tsumugi’s voice, which had been laughing just moments ago, suddenly turned serious, as if that laughter had never existed.

“Do you have any idea how I felt when she said, ‘There’s something I want to talk about, so meet me behind the gym after school,’ during lunch break? I waited for that moment, my neck practically stretching as I did!”
“That’s just half a day—Just sit tight and wait!”
The voice on the other end of the phone echoed oddly loud.

“I want to wrap my neck around a girl I like, too!”
“The only one whose neck stretches is you, a rokurokubi. That doesn’t count as wrapping.”
Tsumugi said quietly, then sighed and went on.
“If that’s the kind of thing you wanted, you should’ve stayed in the village.”

Faced with Tsumugi’s perfectly reasonable point, Haruka murmured, “…The village is boring…”

“But then, once I realized she wasn’t interested, something in me just snapped, so I pinned her against the wall, did the chin-lift thing, and confessed, ‘I like you.’
After that, I hugged her and even patted her head.”
The sudden cheer in Haruka’s voice was met with an exasperated reply from the other end of the phone.
“…The only reason that slid is because you’re a girl. That’s sexual harassment, you know…”

“No way.”
She protested as if deeply offended, but Tsumugi cut in and kept talking.
“In the first place, you were teasing her right when it mattered, so she probably just blurted something out. Go check again. Later.”
With that, the call was abruptly cut off on her end.

“…Maybe you’re right, but… what kind of face am I supposed to make when I ask again…?”
On the ended call screen, Haruka’s downcast face was faintly reflected.