● April 7 (Thursday) Saki Ayase
“Whoa, a Mac!”
I turned from my spot by the window, where I’d been waiting for class to start, startled by the voice behind me. The first thing I noticed was her eyes—striking red, despite her otherwise Japanese features. Colored contacts, no doubt. I hadn’t considered those as an option for myself.
Her long, orange-ash hair cascaded past her shoulders, the sunlight filtering through the window lending its edges a faint, translucent glow. Even though spring was barely underway, she sported a one-shoulder top, her nails long and manicured, her skirt daringly short. A chunky glass pendant hung from her necklace, bold but somehow fitting. Cool, I thought. Really cool.
“What?” she asked, catching my stare.
“Oh, uh, just thought you looked cool,” I admitted, voicing my honest impression.
Her eyes widened in surprise, and she dropped into her seat, staring at me intently. “You’re… kinda weird, huh.”
“Am I?” I tilted my head, genuinely curious.
“I mean, you’re pretty out there yourself. What’s with that shocked face? With hair dyed that bright, you’re totally playing around, right?”
“I wonder…” I mumbled, puzzling over it. Playing around? I supposed some people saw me that way back in high school too. But I hadn’t dyed my hair with that in mind, so I didn’t think I was particularly “playing around.”
“Whatever,” she said, brushing it off. “So, that’s a Mac, right?” She pointed at my laptop.
“Yeah, it is.”
“Macs are expensive, aren’t they?”
Sure, in terms of raw price, Windows machines were generally cheaper, I thought. But Ruka-san had insisted that if I was going to work at our company, I’d better get used to a Mac.
“It’s an older model, so it’s not that expensive…” I trailed off. I’d also splurged on a tablet and some paint software, but I kept that to myself.
“Still expensive, though,” she said with a grin. “Mine? Got it for free from my big bro. Free!” She pulled a laptop from her pink bag, and I flinched. It was black, massive, and rugged.
“Wow…” I muttered, staring at the beast of a machine.
“No compromises allowed,” she declared, mimicking a gruff tone. “‘Use this! A real man goes for carbon black!’ he said, shoving it on me. I’m a girl, you know! Geez, making a girl lug around something this heavy? That gorilla of a big bro is such a barbarian.”
She has an older brother, huh? The laptop did look heavy—probably way pricier than mine if bought new.
“Wanna hold it?” she offered casually, passing it to me.
I scrambled to grab it, nearly dropping it. The moment I held it, I blurted, “Heavy!”
What is this thing?
“It’s three kilos,” she said matter-of-factly.
“One and a half bags of rice…” I mumbled, my mind defaulting to my usual weight reference. Since we became a family of four, we’d been buying five-kilo bags of rice, but when I shopped alone, I stuck to two-kilo ones—a habit from middle school when I started helping with groceries. For me, two kilos was the max I could carry comfortably. My laptop, at 1.24 kilograms, was about my limit for lugging around.
“Pfft, what’s that comparison?” She burst out laughing, her voice bright and infectious.
“Thanks,” I said, handing it back. “Yeah, it’s definitely a bit heavy.”
Another voice chimed in, soft and curious. “Is it that heavy?”
I turned to see a girl sitting next to the orange-haired one, her cheek resting lazily on one hand as she watched us. Her light brown hair, seemingly natural rather than dyed, was loosely tied at the nape of her neck. If undone, it looked like it would fan out delicately, fine and soft. Her face was so breathtakingly beautiful it could make you sigh just looking at her. A small, tear-shaped mole beneath her left eye was her only imperfection, yet it added a charming accent.
“Oh, sorry for cutting in,” she said with a gentle smile. “That’s a pretty impressive laptop, huh.”
Her voice was lovely, a soft alto that seemed to flow into my ears, vibrating my eardrums and melting my brain.
“Impressive?” the orange-haired girl shot back. “You’re just saying that because of the sticker, aren’t you?”
The pitch-black laptop had a large sticker on its closed lid—an illustration of a cute anime girl. She’d said it was her brother’s hand-me-down, so it was probably his taste. I wasn’t as into anime or manga as Maaya or Maru-kun, so I wouldn’t know, but it was cute enough to be a popular character.
“It’s impressive,” the soft-voiced girl said lightly. “They probably made a second season for it. Though, maybe it could’ve used a bit more mainstream appeal. The animation quality was high, the direction was great, and it was super erotic—”
I blinked. Did I just hear a word from this beauty that didn’t belong?
“No clue what you’re talking about,” the orange-haired girl said, unfazed.
“What? You haven’t seen it?”
“I don’t know my brother’s tastes! I’m into—” She rattled off a list of K-pop idols and Japanese celebrities, half of which I recognized.
“If I were to put a sticker on it, it’d be one of those,” she continued. “But when I tried peeling it off, he got mad. I mean, it’s mine now, so what’s the big deal?”
“But you didn’t peel it off. So kind~” The beauty flashed a teasing smile, and the orange-haired girl caught her breath, clearly awe-struck. Bullseye, I thought.
“Well, the sticker being all-ages is probably him being considerate, right?” the soft-voiced beauty added.
I tilted my head, puzzled by her words. The orange-haired girl mirrored my confusion, her head tilting at the same angle. The beauty placed a hand to her mouth, letting out a refined giggle. That cute smile carried a faint hint of, “You don’t even know that?” I couldn’t shake the feeling that this beauty might not be as innocent as she seemed.
A ripple of noise spread through the classroom as the lecturer stepped to the front of the tiered room. It wasn’t a proper class today—just a course registration briefing and signing up for classes on our laptops. Once it wrapped up, there was nothing left to do, so I headed home.
On the way, I stopped by the supermarket. For some reason, I found myself picking up a two-kilo bag of rice, even though I wasn’t buying it. I hefted it, testing its weight. Yup, that laptop was definitely heavier than this…
When I got home, Asamura-kun had just returned too, and we sat down for dinner together. As we shared our first impressions of university, I mentioned the two girls who’d sat behind me. Asamura-kun, in turn, told me about a classmate he’d ended up talking to by chance.
“I thought they were gonna start a fight right then and there,” he said. “Gave me a scare.”
“Huh…” I murmured, picturing it.
Asamura-kun described feeling a sense of impending chaos at the time, but as he spoke, I couldn’t help but think I’d also met some pretty colorful characters right at the start of university. Maybe university was a place where even more unique people from all over the country gathered compared to high school.
That’s what I found myself thinking.
