Something’s not right.

That thought occupied my mind. Everything was supposed to be normal for me, even including the part where Emily stood beside me, but I couldn’t help but feel something was wrong. After a few hours, I could finally pinpoint the exact cause. It was Emily, but the problem was that I didn’t understand what was wrong.

Emily had been trying to reduce the number of times she talked to others as consideration for me, but that day, she was weirdly silent. It was a normal Friday afternoon at the end of November. I didn’t have any classes on Friday, so for today, I decided I would just relax and complete my tasks.

I glanced at Emily, who stood with a flat expression behind me. She noticed me looking at her and let out a smile, although it felt off in a way. Maybe she wasn’t smiling at me, but instead at someone else? Assuming that to be the case, I turned around and concentrated on the tasks at hand. Emily started moving, walking past my right. She stepped into the wall, hiding herself from my view.

Why does it feel… off?

I had never felt something like this before. It was just… I couldn’t really say I knew what was off, but I just felt something was wrong. I acknowledge that for one reason or another, I had been struggling to keep my mind off her, but even so, I felt like something was going on. She had been like this since morning. She didn’t wake me up with her cheerful self, but rather with a cold face uncharacteristic of her usual self.

I wanted to ask, but since she was still outside, I would only be a bother to her. Instead, I remained seated, not that I could see her now, as she was behind the wall in front of me. I couldn’t even tell whether or not she was looking at me. As I continued doing my tasks, my mind wandered off, telling me the thing it had been telling me all this time. I took my phone and opened Fine. My hand hovered above Emily’s contact.

I had my doubts. I couldn’t see her, after all, nor did I hear anything. Maybe she was concentrating, or maybe she was busy. I started pressing on it, typing down my message, asking her whether things were alright or not.

I looked up to the wall, hoping she would return from there, but there was nothing. I looked back down and pressed send. Had she been outside the wall, I could see her read my notification. I could pull her out by walking away from my desk, but I didn’t feel like standing up. I checked my application. My message was sent, but no notification confirming that Emily had read it could be seen. Failing to hold my curiosity, I pushed the chair away from the desk and forced my legs to stand up.

I then turned around and moved away from the desk, and after a few steps, Emily appeared in front of me. I was shocked when I saw her. She turned her head toward me, letting out a forced smile. Regardless of our relationship, I think anyone would be able to easily tell just how forced that smile was. She herself realized this fact and let out a sigh. She turned around and made her way away from me.

Unable to say anything, I stayed silent.

Emily didn’t reply. I checked my phone, finding the little ‘read’ sign beside my message, confirming that she had read it. She didn’t reply, however, neither by message nor by speaking. I decided to not pursue it further, and returned to my own task. I couldn’t concentrate, however, my mind was bothered by what just happened.

I questioned what I saw. The last time I saw that kind of face was a few years ago, when we were little. I forgot what caused it, but I did remember her showing that forced smile. It felt weird, in a way. I rarely saw her ever showing that kind of face to anyone. Something big must have happened.

I realized that I couldn’t get anything done, and decided to outright stop trying. I leaned my back on the chair and looked up at the empty ceiling, my thoughts going off on their own. Just then, I realized Emily had stepped out of the walls, walking toward me. She appeared behind my laptop, half of her body in the desk before me. Her arrival prompted me to stand up.

She approached me and rested her head on her chest.

“Where are you now?”

“Home.”

Realizing that she had arrived back in her safe spot, I put my hand around her back and pulled her closer.

“It’s going to be alright.”

I whispered. I could hear her rugged breath from beneath me. I didn’t say much as I pulled her into my embrace, feeling her body heat within my arms.

“Thanks.”

She didn’t pull herself away, instead fully embracing my hug. I still didn’t know what was going on, but I knew better than to ask. I remained silent while slowly stroking her head. She looked up at me and smiled.

“It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”

She whispered in a weak voice.

Her mentioning it made me remember. Something happened during elementary school, causing me to run away from class. I went to the top floor of the school building, hiding in between the stored tables. It was Emily who found me first. It was just the two of us, and we hugged each other.

“I’ve grown, haven’t I?”

“Yeah… but you stayed the same.

“You think so?”

She nodded, her head going up and down, dragging my shirt with her. Being together like this reminded me of all the memories from our childhood. It made me wonder just how we lost contact for so many years. What kind of memories would we have made had we stayed together? What kind of experience would we go through if we were together? How different would our life be, had things gone a little different?

Those questions were obviously pointless, especially at the moment. We couldn’t turn back time. The three years we spent apart were gone.

But I couldn’t help but wonder, had we stayed together, would I understand her more? Would I know her any better? Would I be able to provide her with the support she needed? I never cried in high school, but my life during that period was bland without her. Had we been together, would there be any moment when I found myself needing to comfort her?

Would things be different, and instead, I was the one needing comforting?

Those three years that had passed, and the remaining nine months together, how would things go? As I kept her in my embrace, I found myself looking both at our past and at our future. I didn’t want to let her go. I want her to continue leaning on me, I wanted to be together with her, I wanted to continue supporting her. Eventually, her grip on me lessened, and despite wanting to keep her there, I knew it was time to let go.

“Phew, thanks for that.”

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Emily let go of me and took a step back, a faint smile on her face.

“Sorry for showing you that.”

“No.”

“No?”

I shook my head.

“I want to see more of you, all your sides, even the less ‘favorable’ ones.”

She turned red and averted her gaze.

“Fi- fine… you better get ready then, because I’m going to show you a hell lot of things.”

She said while looking away. I couldn’t help but let out a chuckle. She then noticed something. She reached her hands down and pulled out a device, presumably her phone. Her eyes traced the surface of the phone, presumably reading something. After she was finished, she looked back at me.

“So, what happened? It’s fine if you don’t want to talk about it, though.”

“Promise you won’t laugh?”

“I’ll try my best.”

Usually, when someone says these words, there could be two possibilities. The first would be something so hilarious that you couldn’t help yourself, the second would be something so usual to the point that you couldn’t help but let out a straight face.

She looked at me with an investigating gaze, before taking in a breather.

“I… missed the deadline for a task-”

“Pfft!”

Yep, it was the former.

“Hey, you said you won’t laugh!”

She said in fury while lightly punching me. I turn my body around, letting her hit my back. It turned from some random punching, into a weirdly enjoyable massage, delivered by her fist.

“Sorry, it’s just- it’s just…”

I couldn’t hold my laughter. Emily seemed annoyed at my reaction and pouted.

“It’s just, I… I thought it was something more serious.”

I felt relieved, however, although Emily didn’t seem to enjoy seeing my reaction. She let out a few more smaller punches, letting out the leftover of her emotions.

“It’s unfair…”

She muttered.

“I was so worried, you know?”

“Yeah, yeah. It’s surprising to see the Emily worry about that.”

“You!”

Emily punched me again, but this one was stronger than the ones before. She couldn’t exactly blame me, though. From the outside, it didn’t look like she was the type to take those kinds of things seriously. I mean, yeah, she studied a lot, but missing a deadline didn’t seem like something she would be worried about.

“Let me guess, Professor Anton?”

“You know about him?”

“I heard some of your conversations. Still… that worried over a single task.”

“Hey!”

Back when we were in middle school, I felt envious of how she could understand things so fast. When she taught me things, she looked like a real, professional teacher. I wished I had her brains, but only after getting stuck with her then I knew just how much she studied behind the scenes. With all that effort, I guess it would be natural that missing a deadline dealt quite a blow to her. She looked at me, pouted, and read her phone again, typed in something, then returned it to her pocket.

“So?”

“He said that I would still be graded for it, just with a bit of a penalty.”

“That’s a relief. So he’s not as bad as he turns out to be?”

“I think it’s just my luck.”

She then looked up at me. She reached out her hands and grabbed my collar. She pulled my head closer to hers.

“Don’t tell anyone, okay?”

She whispered into my ears, her eyes as sharp as a dagger, her grip as strong as a bear. I forced a nod. She let me go and smiled. She then turned around, hand on her back, and walked away with relaxed steps.

“Anyway, I’m going to take a shower now. You know what to do.”

“What if I don’t want to do it?”

Emily stopped and turned her head around.

“Then you’ll pay.”

She said with a freezing tone, the previous smile gone from her face. It sent a chill down my bones, and I promptly did as told and looked away.

She refused to leave me alone, huh?

I thought, although to be fair, it wasn’t her that refused to leave me. Instead, it was my own brain that refused to let her go. As she enjoyed her shower, I couldn’t keep my mind off her. The recent events triggered a long-lost memory in my mind. We were only seventh graders, first years in middle school. There was this one very strict teacher, and I do mean very.

His exams were hard, and half of our class, including me and Emily, only managed to get slightly above the passing grade. The other half failed. I wasn’t particularly worried, to be honest, mainly because from what I heard, the school itself wasn’t that strict. We could still pass our grade as long as we weren’t too terrible. While I couldn’t call myself a perfect student, the same couldn’t be said for Emily.

A class star, prodigy… okay, maybe not that much, but she was around the top five of our class, I forgot the exact rank. She was scared of this one teacher, and for good reason, thus she studied hard for one of the exams, which unfortunately she failed because she was too tired to do it properly in the class. That was the first time in my nine years of knowing her that I saw her break down.

Looking back at it, it was a weird event. She didn’t cry, either, but I remember seeing her as if her entire world was falling apart. I did what I could do back then, trying my best to help her get back on her feet. I felt grateful that now, after all these years, I once again was given the chance to do the same. I found myself wanting to do my best for Emily. As I rolled around the bed, while keeping my head facing forward, I thought about our relationship so far. The times she helped me, the times when it was my turn to support her, the things we went through together. Our childhood had been filled with nothing but memories made with each other, but every time I remember that empty three years of high school, I feel like a hole opened up in my heart.

I kept asking myself, why did I let that happen? Why did I let the two of us drift apart, not contacting each other for so long? Had this phenomenon never happened, would things stay the same? Would I and Emily both live our lives entirely separated from each other? I didn’t want to think about that possibility. I was given the chance to recover my lost friend, and I didn’t want to let her go.

“Phew, that was nice.”

Emily came out of the shower, although from my view, she came from my desk. She wore a pink shirt with casual shorts. She sat on the bed behind me, causing me to turn around and sat upright.

“I just remembered something.”

“What is it?”

She asked while she dried her hair with a towel on her head, one that didn’t register as a clothing item and thus wasn’t shown to my eyes.

“You cried in grade sev-”

She grabbed the towel, folded it into a ball, and stuffed it my way. I pulled my body back, trying to free my face from that towel, but she continued pushing.

“Shut up! Memories, be gone!”

“Pwaah! What’s wrong with that?”

I pushed the towel away. Despite being invisible, since Emily held it in her hands, it still counted as an object, so in my sights, I was pushing her away with a soft force field or something.

“It’s embarrassing, you know? And besides, I didn’t cry!”

“Yeah, yeah. It’s fine, though-”

“No, it’s not!”

She pushed the towel again, sending me lying down onto the bed. She lost balance and fell above me. With our faces less than seven centimeters from each other, I stared into her cedar brown eyes. Neither of us pushed each other away, and we remained in that position for an entire minute.

“... You’re pretty.”

“Thank… wait, what?”

She pulled herself away and leaped back.

“Simon, complimenting a girl, am I dreaming?”

“What else do you expect me to say?”

I pulled myself back and rested on the wall behind my bed.

“Still, I think it’s fine to let loose for a while. Bottling up your emotions isn’t good.”

“Fine, fine. But you also need to tell me when you’re the one in trouble, alright?”

“Sure.”

She let out a smile and turned away.

“I’m going to do some of my homework.”

“Ah.”

After the events before, I find myself hungry and without any tasks done. I sprinted to the kitchen to make lunch and continued doing my tasks.