Schrodinger's Box

        At last, the supplementary class ended. The time now stands at twelve noon. At which the temperature is at its highest reading peak.

        "Ah..... It... Burns...", Aoi complained, tugging his unbuttoned collar trying to let some heat out.

        "If only I could have ice cream or something...", he wished, hoping for a cold and sweet lime popsicle. When out of nowhere his wish came true. A popsicle appeared right in front of his face, floating. Although, the flavor was different than what he wished for.

        "No way...", he muttered, taken aback by the power of his words. Or so he thought.

        *Buzz~*

        He turned his face upward following the buzzing sound. A familiar pink drone hovering a few centimeters above him, holding a popsicle with its single tiny robotic arm.

        "Oh... If it isn't ICHIGO [ written as 1-5 ] ... Hm?... That means...".

        Aoi looked around the small park where he was passing by right now, scanning for the owner of the drone. That's when he spotted her, sitting on the bench under the shade, wearing a one piece white dress, a sneaker and a sun hat. However, contrary to her fashion she seems to be affected severely by the heat.

        "Ugh... ICHIGO... ICHIGO... Where are you...", Kokona mumbled weakly, face inside her hat facing up the sky blocked by the leaves.

        "You think you're the only one getting scorched right now?...", Aoi confronted her in the same spirit, taking the empty space on her left. ICHIGO then passed the pink popsicle to Aoi before parking itself in between the two.

        "Oh... I know this voice...", she uttered, lifting her hat a little bit to take a peek.

        "Your robot gave me a popsicle, don't mind if I do *munch*", Aoi bit a chunk off getting slightly refreshed by the sweets and chills inside his mouth.

        "Wait... what flavor was that...", Kokona asked, turning her face a little bit, she squinted to focus on the flavor of the popsicle Aoi was holding.

        "Hm... Hmm?... Strawberry???", he muttered, unexpected by the taste of pink inside his mouth.

        "Nooooo.....", Kokona shouted in a small voice, having her most favorite flavor taken from her.

        "My bad, my bad... I'll make it up to you next time...", Aoi replied, waving his hand in a half-hearted apology.

        "No... I want it right now...", she protested, pulling Aoi's shirt on the area near the arm with a pinch.

        "You still have some more right...", he pointed with the already naked wooden stick towards the plastic bags sitting on the left of Kokona.

        "Oh this?... I ate them all... I thought about saving the strawberry for the last...", she said, somehow looking proud of what she did, although the same can't be said about Aoi.

        (She ate all of that just now?!), he thought, thinking how a girl like her was able to finish two plastic bags full of nothing but ice creams in one sitting.

        "Okay, okay... what do you want ice princess.", Aoi joked, flinging the stick into a trash can right next to him.

        "You know what, it's fine... it's just a popsicle. Not like I spent 200 yen just to get a special deluxe strawberry flavor popsicle you know...", Kokona smirked, trying to guilt trip Aoi for eating her ice cream.

        "Please stop that, the guilt just got heavy for some reason... I'll buy you an ice cream later...", he begged.

        "Haha... you don't have to do that... but more importantly...", she prompted, peeking from her hat, looking towards Aoi with an inviting smile. A sudden change in a topic and her cute yet cool demeanor stumped him for a moment. Maybe because of his misunderstanding that happened last week during their experiment on the rooftop at night, Aoi became more conscious to even look at her face. However, he himself knew how lame of an excuse that would sound like to avoid looking at her, so he shook his head fleeing from such thought and asked.

        "What?..."

        "Physics test, if you don't mind, want me to teach you at my apartment? You usually do the test blindly all this time right? I mean, it would... be a bit sad if I get to graduate and you don't.", she said, slowly wearing a worried face. Looking at this, Aoi felt another guilt for making a friend of his worries about him. That said, deep within his heart, he felt happy knowing that there is someone out there who still cares for him, of course this includes his lovely family too. But her last word however, somehow meant that Aoi never had a chance to begin with which irked him a bit.

        "Really? I thought you were doing a project or something? I don't want to waste your time you know.", Aoi replied, remembering what Kokona said some time ago about doing a small project privately inside of her apartment.

        "Helping a friend is NOT a waste of time okay!", she insisted, which made Aoi happy from her words. Not wanting to trample on her genuine support, he took on her offer.

        "Then, see you later! Usual time! Oh! And bring some sweets with you!", Kokona called out to Aoi as he waved his goodbye continuing his walk back home.

        (Tonight huh...).

        For Aoi, it's not that he doesn't feel embarrassed going into a girl's house. It's just the fact that he had already visited Kokona's apartment multiple times in the past either for school projects or just simply studying together. To add to that, they had been childhood friends ever since they can remember, so going into one's another home was not really that big of a deal.

        * * * * *

        (...).

        Aoi stood still in front of his apartment, worried about what might happen if he were to open the door in front of him right now. Certainly, he was thinking about the mysterious package that was placed in front of his house this morning. But more than that, the package was directed towards him, which somehow made it even eerie. This was because he doesn't know where the package came from and who the sender was supposed to be. At first, he thought that it came from his parents, but that was later denied after giving them a call during school. Right now, he labelled the package as 'dangerous' as he doesn't know its content, and the sender of it was anonymous. If it came from any one of his friends, they should have given him a message or something about the package. Checking his phone, not a single message mentioning the package can be seen inside his messaging app. However, unable to withstand the summer heat anymore, he braved himself into the unknown.

        *Clack*

        He unlocked the door, slowly opening it while maintaining a peek towards the inside of his house. The package was still there, sitting on the wooden floor right in front of the door in the same place where he left it. He sighed, a bit relieved that the package somehow didn't contain something that would make the whole box move on its own. Getting inside of the apartment he turned on the light then leaned his back onto the door behind him.

        (Okay... Now what...), he thought with a troubled face, thinking on what to do with the package. He could simply just throw it away, but if the package was actually harmless and the sender appeared in front of him one day asking about it, that would bring another kind of problem in itself. He could also ask an authority to open the package for him, but that would also bring another, much bigger problem. What if the content was something embarrassing? He couldn't stand dying of humiliation.

        "Ah! Damn it! Whatever! Come at me!!!", he said after reaching the end of the rope, somehow turning this into a psychology battle between him and the package. While still under pressure, he carefully removes the tape using his apartment key and opens the pandora box.

        (A... cellphone...?).

        Inside was a piece of device that almost everyone knows yet no one uses them anymore in the current modern day. It was a black cellphone with a sharp rectangular shape. For a cellphone the design somehow fits into this modern world. The keyboard interface also looks a bit futuristic. Grabbing the phone and turning it around, a camera can be seen attached to it. Not just that, the camera somehow looks similar to the one current smartphone uses.

        "Who even uses this thing anymore...", he sighed, somehow relieved with a hint of disappointment. However, he now knew that the package was nothing more than just a refurbished antique piece of device. However, looking back inside the package hidden below where he picked up the cellphone, he saw a piece of paper, believing it to be the manual for the cellphone. Removing the upper half of the polystyrene frame now revealed the bottom half of the box, on it was the manual with the text,

        "CNTRL - A MANUAL GUIDE...?", Aoi repeated, now even more confused than before. Normally, a manual contains the hardware specifications written as the title of it. However this one doesn't seem to be following any kind of common manual standard. Raising a suspicion, he hesitated whether to continue reading it or not, however already going this far he proceeded to flip to the next page. Well, rather than flipping, it seems that the manual was nothing more than a piece of paper, so he just turned it around to read what looks like an instruction to it.

        × × × × ×

        The constraints for Cerebral Neuro-Transmitter Regulation Link (CNTRL) are the following :
        1. This device can easily be activated by pressing the "5" button of this cellphone.
        2. Anyone under the effect will be under a semi-conscious state, so make sure not to issue commands that may stress them out, or the effect will be canceled instantly.
        3. Anyone under the effect will forget every command that the user had issued to them after deactivating the device.
        4. The effects are stronger with those who the user spent a lot of time with.
        5. This device can only target the closest person to the user, that is, within 3 meters radius.
        6. The device can only be used during a certain time, that is, 6:00 pm until 6:00 am.

        × × × × ×

        (Eh... Isn't this...)