The Encounter

***

My name is Okawa Kazuki. Right now, I am a middle school student. Ever since I got hold of consciousness, I have seen a camera running in my house. I, myself, used to appear in the videos a lot of time and I really liked it. It is not the only job my parents did. For them, It is more like a side hobby. Not to brag, but our channel was a little more famous than average so money has also never been a problem for us. We still always had a simple lifestyle. I was cheerful and I guess the followers also loved seeing me in the videos because my parents would drag me in almost every video one way or another. I loved to appear in them because it was fun.

As for friends or school life, I didn't have much going on for me there. They were dull. Maybe because everyone was jealous or whatever, they used to say pretty bad things behind my back so I never got friendly with anyone. Some never said anything but never tried to be friendly too, maybe because they were scared that they might become a target of their gossip too. Things were quite different in elementary though. It was like everyone respected me but they never got friendly with me too and I never wanted to be respected by them. As everyone grew up, I think that developed into jealousy or whatever. Well, it is just my perspective, I don't know what goes through the head of others. And so I never really even cared about them.

Did I felt lonely? Short answer is, No. Would I have loved to have friends? Of course, Yes. I don't think there is anyone who would not like to have friends but I never felt lonely. I had my loving parents and... my cheerful stupid older sister. She was an absolute airhead. We would play all the time with each other, roast each other and have fun. There was never a dull moment with her. But then... that incident happened.

I stopped going to school and shut myself in my room for a lot of time spending time on my computer doing anything I found, just running away from reality. I stopped laughing and my parents also stopped making videos for a lot of time but they pulled themselves up from that situation. I know, probably for me. One day, I thought maybe I should try again, for my parents who are trying so hard for me so I went to school. However, I wasn't welcomed by the class. They said a lot of things that were really bad and the things that didn't used to affect me the least bit did a number on me. I felt like vomiting and I rushed to the infirmary even before the homeroom. Since then, whenever I tried to go to school I would stop outside the door and end up not attending any class and just spend my day in the infirmary. I would sometimes study on my own there or just lay down on the bed. Students who come to the infirmary would not say anything directly to me but I could hear them gossiping as they left the infirmary.

The nurse never really said anything to me because she knew the condition but she would encourage me sometimes. I was thinking that what am I doing to myself, wasting my life just like this? Why can't I be like before? Am I just going to stay like this forever? Until... one day the door to the infirmary opened and a girl appeared who I didn't recognize. I had never seen her in school before. I thought maybe she was from some other class. I didn't even know any of my classmates so it was only natural to not know about any other class. She was cute, to say the least. I decided to pay her no mind but I didn't knew how meeting her in this place so suddenly will change my life.

***

My name is Sando Kayo. I am going to move to another city because my dad is getting transferred to another city. Naturally, I am going to transfer to a middle school there. Still, it seems pretty weird to transfer in the third year and in autumn.

My mom was a housewife. Her name was Sando Yoshiko. After giving birth to me, she developed a terminal illness. My mom was a nice and loving person. Most of my memory of her is from when she was in the hospital. She died when I was seven. The last piece of advice I ever got from her was that I should be nice to everyone and help others. I try my best to do that. Even if not at an international level, my dad still works in a pretty big company. I love my dad as even with all his work he never ignores me and spends time with me too.

I try my best to follow my mother's advice and help everyone as much as I can. At school, I have many friends, although I don't know if I can even call them one. Even I can tell that they are just pretending to be my friends to exploit me. But still, I help everyone whenever they ask because I don't know exactly when someone needs help or not. I think they will probably just forget about me when I am gone.

So, I transferred schools when the third year of middle school was about to end in a few months. On my first day, I enter the class and give an introduction like usually students do. My seat was in the last row beside the window seat. The window seat was empty. On the second day and on the third day too. I got curious.

"Hey, is this window seat just empty?" I asked the girl sitting in front of me.

"Oh that, well... it's better if you stay away from him" she answered in a weird way.

"From him? Who exactly is 'him'?"

"Well... his name is Okawa. He either never comes to school or at least if he comes he usually spends his day in the infirmary. I have only ever seen him there"

"But why?"

"Well..." she was making a weird expression like she wanted to avoid the subject. Then the door opened with a thud and homeroom started. I purposefully didn't ask her after that because she seemed like she didn't want to talk about him.

I decided to visit the infirmary and check for myself. He wasn't there. I went there for three days but he was not there. On the fourth day, however, when I opened the door, there he was. Seemed like the nurse was out of the infirmary. The only one present in the infirmary was a boy with a gloomy-looking expression on his face. What surprised me was the fact that he was studying sitting on the bed for some reason. I had a delinquent image of him in my mind because of the behavior of that girl but he seemed surprisingly different. Actually, he seemed scared to me. Paying that no mind, I decided to talk to him.