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● April 7th (Thursday) – Ayase Saki
“Whoa, a Mac!”
I was sitting by the window, waiting for class to begin, when a voice from behind me broke the classroom chatter. Turning around, the first thing I noticed were her eyes. She has Japanese features, her pupils were a striking red—colored contacts, I realized. Come to think of it, that’s a tool I’ve never used.
Her long, orange-ash hair flowed past her shoulders, its edges catching the sunlight and glowing with a faint, beautiful radiance. Though spring had only just arrived, she wore a one-shoulder top, a short skirt, and long nails that completed her bold look. A large, rugged glass pendant hung from her neck, an accessory that somehow perfectly suited her. Yeah, she looks cool.
“What?” I asked, caught staring.
“Oh, uhm… I just think you look really cool,” I admitted, voicing my honest impression.
Her eyes widened in surprise for a moment before she plopped down in the seat behind me, her gaze fixed on me. “You’re… somethin’ else, aren’tcha?”
“You think so?”
“Totally! What’s with that innocent act? Rockin’ blond hair like that… you’re a party girl, right?”
“I wonder,” I mused, genuinely considering it. “I don’t really know…” I guess people saw me that way in high school, too. But I never dyed my hair with that intention, so I didn’t really see myself as the type to ‘party’.
“Eh, whatever,” she said, waving a hand dismissively before pointing at my laptop. “So, that’s a Mac, right?”
“Yeah, it is.”
“Macs are pricey, aren’t they?”
It was true that most Windows laptops were cheaper, but Ruka-san had advised me to get used to a Mac if I planned on working for her company. “It’s an older model, so it wasn’t too bad,” I explained. Though I did end up buying a pen tablet and painting software on the side.
“Still sounds expensive. Mine was a hand-me-down from my big bro, so it was free. Totally free,” she declared proudly, pulling a laptop from her pink bag. I gasped. It was massive, black, and built like a tank.
“Whoa…”
“He was all like, ‘No compromises! A real man shuts up and picks carbon black!’ and just forced it on me. I’m a girl, y’know! You don’t just shove something this heavy on a girl! That gorilla is seriously barbaric.”
She has an older brother, huh… Still, that thing looks like it costs a fortune.
“Wanna hold it?” she offered, nonchalantly pushing the machine toward me.
“Eh?” I scrambled to catch it, my hands fumbling for a grip. The moment I secured it, one thought dominated my mind.
“It’s heavy!”
“What is this…”
“Three kilos,” she said with a grin.
“That’s one and a half bags of rice…”
“Pfft, that’s hilarious!” she cackled.
As a family of four, we always bought rice in five-kilo bags, but I was used to the two-kilo ones I’d buy when helping with shopping back in middle school. Since then, two kilos became my personal standard for what I could carry. My own laptop is 1.24 kilograms, which I figured was the absolute limit for portability.
“Thanks,” I said, handing it back. “Yep. It’s definitely heavy.”
As I did, a soft voice chimed in from beside her. “Is it that heavy~?”
I looked over and saw another girl, her expression gentle and her head tilted with curiosity. Her light brown hair, which seemed to be her natural color, was loosely tied at her neck, so fine and delicate it looked like it would puff into a soft cloud if she let it down. She was so perfectly beautiful it could make you sigh, her only “flaw” a tiny beauty mark under her left eye that served as a charming accent.
“Oh, sorry for interrupting~” she said, her voice impossibly lovely. It wasn’t just like rolling bells; it was a soft, alto melody that flowed into my ears and seemed to melt my brain. “I just thought, what a magnificent laptop~”
“Magnificent? You only think that ’cause you saw the sticker,” the orange-haired girl retorted.
A large sticker of a cute anime girl decorated the lid of the pitch-black laptop. It was clearly her brother’s hobby. I’m not an expert on anime like Maaya or Maru-kun, but I could tell she was probably a popular character.
“It is magnificent~” the girl insisted. “It’ll probably get a second season. Oh, but~ I do wish it was a bit more mainstream. The animation was great~ the direction is good~ and it’s super lewd~”
…I’m pretty sure I just heard a word that shouldn’t have come out of that beautiful girl’s mouth.
“Nah, I wouldn’t know,” the orange-haired girl replied.
“Ehh~? You haven’t watched it~?”
“I don’t know anything about my bro’s tastes! I’m all about—” She launched into a list of Korean idols and Japanese celebrities, half of whose names I didn’t even recognize. “If I were gonna put a sticker on, it’d be one of them. He gets mad when I try to peel this one off, but it’s mine now, so it should be fine, right?”
“But you’re leaving it on for him~” the other girl cooed with a sweet smile. “How kiiind~”
The orange-haired girl’s breath caught in her throat. A direct hit, huh?
“Well~ I suppose he was being considerate by making sure the sticker was the family friendly version~” she added.
I tilted my head, not understanding what she meant. The orange-haired girl mirrored my confusion. Seeing us, the girl with the soft demeanor brought a hand to her mouth and let out a graceful laugh. But behind her lovely smile, I felt a subtle pressure, as if she was thinking, “You don’t even know that?” This beautiful girl might be more than she appears.
Just then, a wave of noise passed through the room as a lecturer entered the hall. As it turned out, there were no actual classes today; we just received an explanation of the curriculum before registering for our courses online.
With nothing else scheduled, I headed straight home. I stopped at the supermarket on the way and, for some reason, found myself picking up a two-kilo bag of rice.
Yup, that laptop was definitely heavier than this…
When I got home, Asamura-kun had just returned as well, so we ate dinner together. I told him about the two girls I’d met, and he told me about a classmate he’d also struck up a conversation with.
“I was on edge,” he admitted, “thinking they were going to start a fight right then and there.”
“Oh, really…”
Asamura-kun seemed to have a premonition of turbulent times ahead. Listening to him, I couldn’t help but feel I’d also met some truly unique individuals on my very first day. University, I realized, might just be a place where people with even more personality than in high school gathered from every corner of Japan.
