The Blue-Eyed Terminator of Romance

A hapless young man approaches her in the hallway. Jun Kitamura was a top ten academic student at Roppongi High School with rugged chiseled facial features, and a winning smile that said, things'll go my way no matter what. A few of the students were chirping among one another as he said his first words to her. Unfortunately for him, Fumiko Kotonoha didn't operate with the same knowledge of his apparent popularity in school.

"Hey Fumiko. Just wanted to touch base and see if you wanted to progress our relationship to phase two. After that first date, surely I must have made a good impression," he said, gesturing to himself by waving his hands towards his figure.

She didn't so much as blink. Kitamura tried to breathe in and out as casually as possible, his cool aura suddenly tepid.

"Oh, Jun, how do I say this," Fumiko began. "We had fun together, but that date was never meant to lead to anything romantic. I told you at the beginning, I alway give everyone a date before I come to any judgments."

"But all that time we spent together afterward. You said you needed new romantic experiences."

"And I really appreciate your help with my romantic research. Plus, I thought we became good friends. Didn't you?"

The rising chatter surrounding him made Kitamura recoil and hide his face as he fled the scene.

The stoic girl with wispy silver-blue shoulder length hair and blue eyes with a cold metallic sheen crossed my path. Fumiko Kotonoha stopped in her tracks for a brief instant, her metallic blue eyes assessing my figure as they scanned up and down. She finished with a curious hum.

"Excuse me," Fumiko said, walking past with a novel expression I hadn't seen before.

She actually held curiosity towards something that wasn't one of her notebooks. I felt interest from an infamous girl like her was the last thing I needed. I stopped myself from analyzing the unnerving reasons why she'd show interest in me and headed to my next class.

***

Here I sat in the same seat positioning as I always chose in a classroom, the leftmost aisle, two seats ahead of the furthest desk in the back, to not give the impression I was attempting to dodge any untoward questions about the curriculum I was supposed to study.

And somehow by chance, I was still seated in front of the same girl that managed to develop quite a reputation herself. I managed to catch her in the act of scrawling something in one of her notebooks when I turned around to get a glimpse of her.

We locked eyes for a single instant, her icy-mechanical eyes immediately dipping their focus towards the notebook, her silver-white hair obscured by the hoodie she'd wear over her face she'd always wear as part of her writing ritual.

Usually, this would be the point I'd turn back around and wait for class to start, leaving Kotonoha to her own bizarre machinations.

But this time, she lifted her head again and peered at me curiously before gently tugging at my shoulder. Her demure delicacy in this gesture took me off guard.

"Yes, hello, Yamamoto-san? Since it'd be weird to continue to observe you like this, would it be alright if I ask you a personal favor?"

"Umm, sure I guess. But what for, Kotonoha-san?"

"I'd like to get to know you a bit more, but the way I do it might be a little different than you're used to," Kotonoha said, peering at the scribbles in her current notebook.

"Okay, but I don't think it'll be a satisfying interview for you. Classes will start in a few minutes."

"You're right. Then I'll meet you back here at the end of classes today, okay?"

She asked this as if I've already agreed to the arrangement, an unassuming smile spreading across her face.

For nothing more than what I could describe as morbid curiosity, I accepted.

"Yeah, sure. I'll see you later."

"Okay, sounds good. I'll see you then, Yamamoto-san."

I reluctantly smiled before I returned my focus to the teacher fumbling to get his material ready at the front of the blackboard.

Wait. This wasn't how the beginning of the school year was supposed to go. I've already expended energy in a completely unneeded social interaction. I already had enough friends. It must've been Kotonoha-san's looks that threw me off-guard. As unusual as she was, I couldn't deny the combination of her silver-white hair and her light-blue eyes was rather arresting.

But as I already said to myself, effort is for those that can make use of it.

And a romantic relationship with Kotonoha wasn't something I was interested in initiating.

***

The students filed out of the classroom the moment they were given free reign to leave.

I felt a heavy slap against my back and a deep masculine voice call out to me, breaking me out of my annoyed stupor. I turn around to see Hayato, a tan, taller guy with dark brown hair

cut into a crew cut with front hair long enough to sweep just over his brow. He not only had a scar on the bridge of his nose, but he also had a new bandage on his left cheek.

Every time I saw him, he had a new bandage on another part of his body. He had this reckless, but hard-nosed style of play about him as an athlete. He was simultaneously one of the biggest knuckleheads I knew, while somehow also being one of the most talented.

But he's also been a team player to me for practically all the time I've known him, both on and off the court.

By the looks of the basketball in his hand, it looked like another recruitment attempt.

"Hey, bro, you feeling up for a pick-up game," he asked with no irony whatsoever and a smile on his face.

"Bro, Hayato what are you doing? You know what happened the last time we played."

"I think you'll find I've developed a more mellow game since we've played," he said, spinning the ball on his index finger, an uncharacteristically subtle smile painted on his face.

"I have no doubt you've improved while I've been sitting at home, but I don't feel like explaining to your folks how you nearly broke one of your ankles again."

"'Since you've been sitting at home' huh? Does that mean your interested, then?"

"The answer's no."

Somehow he goaded me into being mesmerized by the basketball in my hand. If I was still in my usual game shape, I'd be tempted to snatch the ball from his showboating finger.

"Alright, I get it, you're not interested," he said, sighing.

After rejecting his proposal for the seventh time in a semester, I switched my focus to the blackboard ahead of me. Since classes had concluded, Kotonoha should be heading to the classroom we shared a homeroom in. After lingering on the subject for a bit, I felt it was only fair to ask her some questions as long as she was probing me for personal information.

Maybe I could ask her what exactly she scrawls in her notebooks during homeroom.

Hayato sat down on the desk chair next to me and set down the basketball next to one of the chair's legs. He looked in curiosity at the space I absent-mindedly honed in on. I felt compelled to explain myself now that Hayato was scratching his head and squinting his eyes, trying to view it in a different perspective to understand.

"What are we looking at here," Hayato asked.

"It seems I've caught the interest of someone undesirable," I said, strumming the black bangs that hovered over my eyes.

"Interested as in they want to fight you in a cage match to the death?"

I delivered a clean punch to his upper arm. He winced as he gripped the reddest part of his arm.

"Agh, well, can you at least tell me a name," he said.

"Fumiko Kotonoha. Can't even begin to imagine what she would want with me," I said.

The question raised a genuine curiosity from Hayato. The shock forced him to sit down and cross his arms as he meditated in his seat more than any point in class. He eventually formed a social hypothesis for her behavior after a set of varied hums.

"Well, there's a recent theory going around school that she's conducting a series of social experiments with guys around the school. No one knows why though."

"What kind of experiments?"

"Something about her testing to see how people fall in love. The rumors were all pretty contradictory, some downright insane."

There's no way that the intense white-haired girl in his homeroom period that scrawled in her notebooks everyday had any interest in love.

"Just so I can confirm, we are talking about Fumiko Kotonoha, right?"

"Hey, maybe you'll be the Blue-Eyed Terminator's next test subject," Hayato said, ribbing me with his shoulder and laughing through a small open corner on his mouth.

"Yeah, no thanks," I said with an exasperated breath.

"Kenta, I understand Fumiko is a little weird, but is it really bad that a girl with a pulse has an interest in you," Hayato asked.

There it was. Ever since the end of our freshman year, he's had that curious way of laughing then subtly rolling his shoulders when he said something serious. Seeing his intent, I tried to answer as sincerely as I could.

"I already told you, Hayato. I'm enjoying the single life. Surely you understand."

"Well, I've noticed you sulking in the back of the class while watching other students enjoy their school days."

His heavy shoulders relaxed as he scoffed and chuckled, releasing all the gravity from his previous serious gesture. But in all honesty, I found his serious side to be really unnerving. He never used to do this in practice.

"Haha. Anyways, even if I started dating again, shouldn't I be more carefully vetting my dates?"

"I don't know, man. I say just talk to her and find out what she's like. Maybe you'll even warm up to her."

I gave a resigned grunt after running out of my usual repertoire of snarky comments. Hayato and I lifted our book bags and left the classroom. The two of us traveled to the stairwell located to our right at the end of the school hallways. But instead of taking my usual route with him outside the gates, I decided to head upstairs.

"Hmm, so you're going after all, then," Hayato said.

"Eh, may as well find out if there's any truth to these rumors," I said, tilted my gaze toward the flight of steps leading to the third floor above us, my hands tentatively in my pockets.

"Well, see ya later, bro."

We waved each other off.

***

I decided to meet her after class. With a mutual homeroom, and with it being the end of our school day, I was in an ideal situation to talk to Kotonoha. She would always linger after the end of classes to write in one of her notebooks.

In a rare break of habit, I found her at her desk but her notebooks were neatly tucked away into an unzipped backpack next to one of the desk's legs. She sat upright with her hands clasped, with an uncharacteristic smile.

"Hello, Kenta, thanks for coming," Fumiko said.

"Uh, sure. I actually wanted to talk to you anyway."

The curve of her smile became more parabolic, her eyelids shuttering for a second. I was being assessed by her blue metallic shifting eyes in the same way as our last exchange. If I didn't feel like I was being probed into the center point of my thoughts, I would have enjoyed the interest an attractive girl like her was expressing.

But I didn't want to let down my guard. I had to find out her agenda.

"Oh is that so," Fumiko said, her eyes widening. "I didn't expect you to show an interest in me."

Is she actually kidding me right now?

"Wait. Why is that a surprise?"

"Out of all the boys I see in the hallway, you're the only one that doesn't approach me with a love confession. You only observe, keeping your distance. If I didn’t know any better, I’d almost be tempted to say that you’d rather not be in a relationship."

“Hmm, well there’s a perfectly good–you know what, never mind.”

When you people watch as much as I have, I guess you're bound to be noticed sooner or later. It really irks me that, for once, someone figured me out before I figured them out.

"Since you're here, can I ask for your opinion on something, Kenta," she asked.

"Sure, shoot Kotonoha."

"Do you find me a cold, robotic person?"

I returned my gaze to her face after straying to her desk, unaccustomed to this level of emotional vulnerability from a girl. Her precise blue eyes finally began to short out, a blue misty layer of tears barely being held at bay. She's acutely aware of the rumors about her.

"No. Not anymore anyway."

"Oh, really. I'm so relieved. I have a habit of being too formal and polite when talking to strangers."

"Don't even worry about it, Kotonoha. It's best to not be too trusting, at least not right away."

"Haha, Kyoko said something similar," she said.

For a reason I couldn't explain, my heart was beating slightly faster than it normally was. It couldn't be nerves, I quickly adjusted to this version of Kotonoha. It then suddenly struck me that I forgot the main reason I decided to talk to her.

"Kotonoha, I was meaning to ask, but I assume you don't have any interest in me romantically. So... why do you have a sudden interest in me? Enough to ignore your normal writing routine."

"No interest, huh? I wonder about that."

"Am I wrong? I feel like I have as many answers as questions at this point."

"I'm just kidding. I won't be cryptic with you. With the past several boys I've come to know over the past few years, I've come to the conclusion that I struggle to make romantic connections with other people."

"So what can I do for you in this situation?"

"So I guess I should tell you why I wanted to meet you here. I said I wanted to ask a favor from you, but it's for a practical purpose. Kenta, I want to learn more about love, and I can only do that by going on a date with you."

She began casually twirling the wilder strands of her silver-blue hair in one of her hands. It wasn't fair how she caught me off guard like this, in such an unconventional way no less. My fast beating heart was revving to unsustainable levels.

"Kotonoha, do you understand the weight of your request? Once you fall in love, it's not so easy to change course. "

"I know. But if I fall in love with you, I trust that you'll make all the right decisions."

"You couldn't possibly have this much confidence in a classmate you've observed in one mutual class," I said, squinting my eyes.

She spun her head in response, flashing a smile that told me how dead serious she was.

"Oh, but I do. I have a sixth sense when it comes to people's hearts. And yours tells me that you have a large respect for relationships. That's why you're biding your time, waiting for the right person to come along."

I felt my cheeks somehow become hotter than when she offered me her strange love proposal.

"I must have been putting out the wrong message with my single status," I said, chuckling.

"You can't tell me you aren't at least curious about my proposal," Fumiko said.

She held her arms out folded in front of herself, leaning forward in anticipation of my future response. I was heading into dangerous territory. All the alarm bells in my head were blaring at me to stay away from this girl, and this situation. But maybe there was a way I could approach this, that could give me a safety net for the inevitably chaotic result that would follow this social experiment.

As if in answer to my internal bargaining, Kotonoha tried to assuage my doubts.

"There's no need to be so serious, Kenta. I asked you for a single date. Date, as in singular. If the date goes poorly, things can go back to the way they were. You can retain your romantic independence, and I can learn more about love. Sounds good to you?"

She reached out to me with her outstretched hand, the fluffy cuff of her hoodie's sleeve rolling back, presenting a toothy grin that could only be described as the visage of a pure-hearted Shonen hero. Except, of course, the protagonist was a teenage girl.

"Wait, why do you need to learn more about love anyway? I rarely see you with any guys. You're almost always scribbling something in your notebook in your spare time."

"You're only the second person that had enough interest asking why. I'm already taking a liking to you, Kenta," Fumiko said, snickering through a closed lip smile.