Part 1.

Four days had passed since that discouraging exchange of words I had with Tamaki-san, it is now Friday, February 19.

With a huge blue sky before my eyes, I was lying on my back on the rooftop of one of the three main buildings of the school, to be more specific, the one designated for second year students, waiting for the lunch break to end. When it was ten minutes before the end of the hour, I lifted my body that was lying on the ground to start walking towards the classroom.

As I walked down the stairs to the second floor, I immediately began to feel the cold and desolate atmosphere of the hallways. After taking a few more steps in a straight line, I was right in front of the entrance door to my classroom.

Piip—

Piip—

Piip—

As I entered, the high-pitched sound of the APA turning on began to be heard ascending as I made my way to my desk.

After a while, the APA was turned on, which was to be used by the teacher in charge of teaching the class at this time of the day. I got up from my desk while Tamaki-san, the class representative, greeted the teacher cordially. After taking my seat, I reached into my school bag to pull out my laptop. As I turned it on and checked the email account given by the school, I could notice that there was an email in the inbox.

Then confused I looked around as I wondered, how quickly has the teacher sent out the guidelines for this class work? That was my first thought, however, none of the APAs of my other classmates in the room had made the high-pitched sound that alerted me that the professor had sent them out.

I immediately opened my inbox to read that email. If it wasn't an email sent by the professor, who could it be from? Spam?

Clearly was a message there, and it had a strange subject line that in capital letters said:

"PLEASE DO NOT IGNORE THIS EMAIL".

I twisted my head for a few seconds looking surprised, then I began to read it.

"PLEASE DO NOT IGNORE THIS MAIL

I must confess that for quite some time now I have been observing your behavior with others. There is no doubt that you are the only one who can help me in this difficult time I am going through.

I want you to meet me today after school, right next to the main building of the school where the huge garden with flower arrangements is located.

If it's about you, I know very well that you will come."

What kind of joke is this…? I could not believe what I had just read, I had never received an email like this before. Also, when I read the sender's address, I realized that the domain after the at sign was not one used by the school. Could it be an external person? No... If I reread the words that were used in the body of the email, it is obvious that the person who wrote it knows me quite well. It is very easy for someone who is enrolled in the school to find another student's email, even if he or she belongs to a different class.

My heart started beating very fast.

Even if this were a joke, for me it can be transformed into a great opportunity. After all, someone wants to talk to me of their own free will.

Piip—

Piip—

Piip—

I was alerted by the sound of my classmates APA around me. Looking once again at my email inbox, this time it was the instructions for the work to be done for this class.

“No way!”

As I read and got to the end of the message contained in the email, I could identify those words.

Work in Pairs.

This was the second time in the week that I had used this very rare methodology of work. Then I read the name of the person who had been chosen to be my partner on this occasion.

Ai Kubota.

I decided to ignore the pair work for a couple of minutes because I couldn't get the words written in that email out of my head.

I continued to think about it until, as I looked around, I noticed that all the other students were already sitting with their respective partners. I also noticed that my partner had not yet come over to talk to me.

After looking around the room one more time, I could see a lone APA sitting right in the middle. I then concluded that this was my partner's APA, so holding my desk with both hands, I walked in her direction. Seeing the hologram above the head of the APA projecting the name Ai Kubota, I spoke to her.

—Hi Kubota-san, I have been chosen as your partner to do the work assigned for this class. This is the first time we've done a pair work together, isn't it?

Her APA did not issue any response.

—…

When I persisted for a few seconds without yet receiving a response from her, I wasted no time and attached my desk right in front of hers while keeping my eyes fixed on her APA face.

—I think we should have started the work about ten minutes ago... How will we divide up the questions?

Twisting my smile I asked her, his APA did not answer me.

—What questions are you most comfortable answering?

His APA remained silent.

—How about if I take questions one through eight, plus fifteen and sixteen, and you take the rest of the questions?

As time continued to run against us, their silence was not going to help us get the job done on time.

—K-kubota-san, are you listening...?

[I-It's fine with me...]

—Oh!

At last, she had deigned to answer me.

—Great!

Once we divided up the work, I and Kubota-san blended into the silence of the room.

Part 2.

The time elapsed since we started doing the pair work until this moment had been no more than twenty minutes.

While half of my brain was trying to concentrate on finishing my part of the job, the other half couldn't stop thinking about everything related to that email.

I looked up for a moment in the direction of Kubota-san APA face, to my surprise, he was watching me.

—Is something wrong, Kubota-san…?

[Uh…? N-no! N-nothing happened! I was just wondering why you had been staring at your laptop screen without typing anything for quite some time...]

—Ah! I-I'm so sorry! I guess I was a bit lost in my thoughts for a while... I'll continue doing my part of the job without distractions!

Once again, we were both silent. Then I took advantage of that time and stopped to think, "should I try to Kubota-san?" I'm pretty sure I've already invited her on other occasions, still, "will she be upset if I ask her once again just like I did with Tamaki-san?"

—Kubota-san, by the way... Do you have some free time after this class is over during the second recess? I'd love it if we could talk, even if it's just the two of us for a little while... Maybe it would be more convenient for you at lunchtime?

"I've had enough of you". I suddenly remembered the words Tamaki-san had said to me which made me hesitate immediately. However, I decided to continue anyway.

—I know very well that I have made this kind of invitation to you before and that you are probably tired of always hearing it... If you want me to stop talking to you after we finish our pair work, I will understand very well....

[I have always wondered..., what is the reason why you do all these things? Why do you take the trouble to talk to each one of us? Why do you insist on making all these invitations over and over again? Even though you are always rejected... What is it that motivates you so much to keep going?]

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

Kubota-san words in reply completely shocked me, never before had a classmate asked me all those questions.

—This is something strange..., it's the first time someone asks me that kind of question here at school. Well, it's not something very difficult for me to explain either.

I said to Kubota-san while scratching my right cheek, then I explained.

—Don't you think our life as a student is a bit boring? Every day in the morning we get up and connect to our APA to go to school, during the classes the only thing we do is listen to the teacher in charge explain the subject and then do a work which is almost always individual, when we finish with the classes of the day, we disconnect from our APA to then repeat the previous thing during all our school life. No one here is interested in talking to anyone else, even if we are all sharing the same classroom.

Then, although somewhat fearful of what kind of reaction she might have after hearing me, I flashed her a small smile.

—All I want is to talk to a lot of people, have the chance to make a lot of friends so that I can create good memories together with them. I'm sure that's the only way to change our boring student life once and for all, am I right?

Kubota-san APA was silent as he kept his eyes fixed on my face, then he said.

[Maybe now I can understand a little bit of the reason why you act like that every day… You really are a very good-feeling person Miyagawa-san, and that makes me feel very relieved.]

At that moment my body was frozen. I didn't know how to explain it, but, although his APA face showed no expression, I got the feeling that Kubota-san was smiling from the other side as he said those words.

[I would have liked to be that person you can call a friend, however, I'm not the one...]

—¿…Eh?

[I will continue to do my share of the work.]

—W-wait a moment!

Piip—

During the rest of the class, Kubota-san never logged on to her APA. When there were only ten minutes left to submit the pair work, she sent me her part through the school's internal chat.

Nothing else of relevance happened for the rest of the hours until finally the day's classes were over.

Part 3.

Classes ended at 16:10, that was about five minutes ago.

I was sitting at my desk as I looked around, observing each of the APA, making sure they were all turned off. Assuming the person who wrote the email was in class 2-E, her APA would have to be turned on to go to the meeting place.

I took another quick look around. None of the APA present looked suspicious, so I decided to sit and wait for a couple more minutes. Seeing that none of the APA were emitting that high-pitched sound, I got up from my desk and started walking.

Once down the stairs to the second floor, I found myself walking through the empty hallways. After turning around at the end, I came upon the exit leading to the main courtyard of the school and stopped in the middle. The building I exited through was the one designated for second year students like me, to my left was the building for third year students, and to my right, the building for first year students. The place where we would meet was directly in front, on the right side of the main school building.

After inhaling a couple of times very slowly to try to control my nerves, I continued on my way at a steady pace until I finally reached the place.

The first thing I saw was a huge tree near the wall of the main building which reached almost to the middle of it, with a long silver colored bench just below, surrounded by a bunch of calypsos and lilac-colored flowers, while leaves from the huge tree fell slowly swaying to the grass which was shining in the warm rays of the sun.

It was an incredible sight. However, and being 16:41 in the afternoon, there was no one in the place.

I continued walking until I was in front of the huge tree, then I sat on the bench as I watched the leaves fall and waited.

I waited until the sun finally hide behind the main school building.

Part 4.

I was still sitting waiting under the big tree, a little over an hour had passed since I arrived at the meeting place.

"No doubt about it, this was nothing more than a simple bad joke..." Disappointedly I muttered to the air with a blank stare pointing to the ground. Of course, I had already concluded the above about half an hour ago, even so, a certain part of me had the hope that someone could appear at any minute. That's why I never wanted to stand up and leave the place. It was a pretty obvious joke, and I was stupid to even hope to believe that there was a person in this school who had a different mentality than the others.

I looked up as I slung my bag over my shoulder and started walking home. Then as I turned the first corner around the right side of the main school building, I ran headlong into a metal object.

I immediately looked up to identify the object with which I had collided.

—Ah…!

It was a female APA.

[I-I'm so sorry! Are you alright?]

As I listened to the APA voice, I realized that it sounded somewhat distorted. I immediately looked up at his head, however, no name was projected on it.

—D-don't worry, that hit didn't hurt me at all! You must be the person who wrote me the email..., right?

She took a pause to respond.

[Y-yes...]

After that little exchange of words, we both decided to walk until we were right under the big tree, then, we stood in silence facing each other.

[…]

—…

The silence that was present in the environment was different from the one I was used to feeling in my day-to-day life as a student; how could I describe it? Something like uncomfortable and desperate.

"Doesn't she intend to say a word? After all, she was the one who brought me to this place…" I had no choice but to move forward myself and get straight to the point.

—H-hey, I would like to know..., what is the reason you sent me that email and cited me here?

Realizing that I had spoken to her, she was quick to respond.

[Y-you see..., for quite some time now I..., I-I've been watching just you...]

Automatically my face turned red as I looked away almost instinctively, then we both fell silent once again.

[Miyagawa-san…]

The APA of that girl timidly pronounced my last name in her distorted voice.

[The truth is..., I've never had this feeling for anyone before… Every time I see you, I feel like my chest hurts and my heart doesn't stop pounding.]

A strong wind came out of nowhere from behind me. Because of it, the leaves of the big tree began to fall like raindrops. The glow of the evening sun peeked out from the side of the main building and rested beautifully on the girl's APA. That scene that looked like something out of a movie stuck in my eyes.

Even though I didn't know what her real face looked like, at that moment she managed to captivate me.

[From the first day I saw how you approached to talk to the students in your classroom, and even to me, from that day you started to catch my attention... I don't know if it's because you are the only person in the whole school who doesn't use an APA. I don't know if it's because of your way of addressing others, always showing a kind smile on your face. I don't know if it's because of your way of addressing others, always showing a friendly smile on your face.]

Each of the words that his APA reproduced were indescribable to me, and made me wonder over and over again if all this was happening and was real.

[Or maybe because despite always being rejected by others, you never give up and keep trying. That's why, I think that...]

Here and now, really someone.

[I'm in love with you.]

Someone had just confessed their feelings for me.

"What is this strange feeling in my chest?" As I finished listening to the last words that, distorted, the APA of that girl reproduced, I pushed my right hand hard against my chest as my heart would not stop beating.

At that moment, I could not think how I should react to his words. Neither, could I articulate the right words to deliver a response to him. My mind had gone completely blank.

Then, the fleeting memory of one of the many stories my aunt Hikaru used to tell me appeared, which caused a small tear to show itself sliding down my right cheek.

Upon seeing me, the girl's APA reacted.

[A-are you all, right? Did I say something I shouldn't have?]

—...Eh? N-no, no! On the contrary, I am experiencing a happiness that I find very hard to believe.

[T-that means...]

I took a couple of seconds to organize my thoughts as I looked down at the grass that was covered with leaves. Then I took a deep breath and let it out very slowly. Once I was mentally prepared, I gave him my most sincere answer.

—Perhaps it may be a bit selfish of me, after all you have told me. However, right now, I cannot give you an answer to your feelings.

[W-why...?]

—I don't know your real self.

She was silent, I just kept talking.

—I don't know the reason why you hide your name from me, and even went to the trouble of distorting your voice. Even though you gathered enough courage to call me to this place and open your heart to me.

I looked up at the huge crimson-colored evening sky.

—For two years now, I can't understand the people of this country and their obsession with APA. By using them they have denied themselves from experiencing so many moments in their lives... moments that can only be experienced if you are not using an APA.

I quickly returned my gaze to the face of that girl's APA, then showing her a huge smile, I determinedly extended my hand towards her.

—Put aside your APA and let's be friends! Let's get to know each other better! What do we like the most? What do we dislike the most? Our hobbies, our interests… I want us to live our youth together! Then, only then..., I will be able to give you a clear answer to your feelings.

The strong wind that was blowing stopped, the leaves on the big tree stopped falling and the crimson red of the evening sun faded. The scene that had been etched in my eyes was gone.

[I…, I-I don't know what else I can do... I-I need someone to help me... O-or it will be too late...]

—¿Uh…?

Suddenly, my breath stopped short. For some reason, even though the girl's APA voice was distorted, I felt it crack with each of her words. It was as if the girl on the other side was about to fall apart.

Then, out of nowhere the APA turned around and walked away from me without another word.

—…W-wait a minute.

"Why?" I clenched my fists tightly as I slowly started walking towards that girl's APA.

—Please stop, let's talk!

For an instant, his APA turned around and replayed his last words.

[Tomorrow at the main entrance of the school at 12:00 in the afternoon! That will be the place where I will show you my real self.]

After this, his APA continued on its way and disappeared around one of the corners of the main school building.