“Ugh, why do I have to be such a coward?”
Alone in the girls’ bathroom at her middle school, Misato Taniguchi sighed into the mirror she was looking at. Misato’s reflection looked as dejected as she was.
It was all because of how things had gone during her school club meeting earlier.
Misato was in her first year of middle school, and she was a member of the tennis club. She wasn’t athletic at all, but because she was in the club with her friend Nanami Shibata, every single day was fun. She also got along with the other kids in her grade, and the older students were all nice, too.
But what Misato looked forward to the most each week was when they had joint practice with the boys. Normally, the clubs practiced separately, but just once a week, they would have one session together.
Misato was really excited to be near the older boy she liked in the tennis club.
Yuuma Yamashita. He was the boys’ tennis club captain.
He had smooth brown hair and healthy, tan skin. His eyes were sharp, the bridge of his nose was high, and whenever his mouth opened, she saw the flash of his white teeth.
During those weekly sessions, Yamashita would teach Misato and the rest of the first-year students. He was serious and strict, but sometimes he would crack a joke, and he was always kind and cool.
Misato fell for him right away.
Whenever they had joint practices, Misato would try to get to know him better. But she was terrible at talking to people and hadn’t spoken with boys very much, so months had gone by, and she still hadn’t managed a single decent conversation with him.
Misato liked anime, but Yamashita probably wouldn’t be interested in that.
But she had promised herself today that she would definitely approach him at the joint practice.
But I still didn’t…
That day, Misato had been even more nervous than usual. Yamashita had shown up, but she didn’t manage to say a word to him even after practice had come and gone.
At this rate, no matter how much time passes, he’ll never get to know me…
Misato sighed loudly and dejectedly left the bathroom.
Once tennis club was over, she typically headed home with Nanami.
When she left the bathroom, she went to the school gate where her friend was waiting.
“Sorry for the wait!”
To keep Nanami from noticing, Misato pretended to be extra cheerful.
She hadn’t told her that she liked Yamashita, and she didn’t want to deal with Nanami asking why she was feeling down.
Then she noticed that Nanami was staring hard at her phone while she stood in front of the school gate.
“Are you playing a game?” Misato asked. Nanami shook her head and smiled.
“I was just doing something for good luck. Misato, do you know about the kamisama e-mail?”
“The kamisama e-mail?”
Misato had never heard of anything like that.
“One of my friends from class showed it to me,” Nanami said. “It’s a love spell thing you can do on your phone. When you do it, supposedly your crush will immediately start to like you.”
“Uh, immediately? How do you do it?” Right away, Misato was very interested in that spell.
“It’s pretty easy.” Nanami showed her phone to Misato. “First you open up a new e-mail and write [email protected] for the recipient. Then the subject is supposed to be the name of the person you like, and you write things like ‘I want to go on a date’ or ‘I want us to go out’ in the message, and then you send it.”
“You send it? Will it actually reach anyone if you use that address?”
She doubted that “love.mail” was a real domain name.
But Nanami casually replied, “It doesn’t go anywhere.”
“It comes right back with an error,” Nanami told her, “but that’s the important part. Then you delete the error message and keep only the one you sent. If you do that, the thing you wrote in the message will come true.”
Nanami showed her the e-mail.
The subject said, “Masato Ayano,” and the body said, “I wish we would go on a date.”
“Masato Ayano?” Misato asked.
“A boy I go to cram school with. We’ve been talking a lot, and I started thinking it might be nice if we went out.”
Apparently, Nanami had been writing this message on her phone earlier.
“Do you think it really will come true?” Misato asked.
“Yeah. The classmate who told me about it said that it worked for her, and she went on a date with her crush.”
“Really…?”
Misato was surprised by the whole thing and almost couldn’t believe it. If the spell actually worked, then maybe she could go out with Yamashita sooner than she’d thought.
But I doubt it could be that easy…
As Misato wondered that, a smile formed on her face.
“You like someone, too, don’t you, Misato?” Nanami asked.
“Huh?”
“It’s written all over your face. C’mon, who is it?”
“Well, it’s…” She started to say Yamashita’s name, but she was so embarrassed that she couldn’t manage it.
Nanami had a crush on a boy she talked to a lot, but Misato had barely ever said a word to Yamashita.
“I don’t have a crush or anything…,” Misato answered instead.
Evening on the same day.
Misato was doing her homework in her room, but she couldn’t get the kamisama e-mail out of her mind.
If it really does grant wishes, then I should try it…
Misato stared at her phone, which was at the corner of her desk, but she still wasn’t sure it would work.
Right then, she got a message on her phone.
“It’s from Nanami…”
Misato read the message.
Nanami: It worked!
That was all it said.
Misato immediately messaged her back, What happened?!
Then the reply came in.
Nanami: I’m going on a date with Masato! It’s all thanks to the kamisama e-mail!
“No way…”
Misato’s eyes went wide.
So the love spell actually works?
Suddenly, Misato brightened.
“Then I’ll try it, too!”
Now that her faith in it was ignited, she immediately opened a new e-mail message and entered “[email protected]” in the recipient and “Yuuma Yamashita” in the subject line.
Okay, so now it’s just the message text…
She had no idea what to write once she got to that point.
Nanami had asked to go on a date with a boy she was already friends with. On the other hand, Misato had barely even had a conversation with Yamashita.
I can’t just go out with him straight away…
Even if they went somewhere together, she doubted they would find anything to talk about. So even if she managed to get a date with him, he might end up liking her less.
Misato thought over what to write.
The important thing is for us to get to know each other first. So the first thing we should do is…
Right at that moment, Misato had the perfect idea.
I know! Talking! We just need to get to the point where we can talk with each other!
If she managed to talk with him, then they’d naturally progress to a point where they could go out.
So she wrote in the body of the e-mail, “I want to be able to talk to Yamashita and get to know him better!” Then she sent the e-mail.
The error message came back right away.
“I’m supposed to delete this, right?”
Misato carefully tapped the delete button.
“And if I keep the e-mail I sent, my wish should come true…”
In her mind, Misato repeated her wish to herself as she saved the message.
The next day.
Misato’s heart pounded as she headed to school. Yamashita went to school the same way she did, so they’d run into each other at a particular intersection pretty often.
At that intersection, there was an optometrist with a sign that had a large drawing of glasses on it, so everyone called it the glasses-sign crossing.
Even though Misato saw Yamashita there sometimes, she never said hello to him and only ever watched him from afar.
But today will be different!
Misato believed her wish would be granted and Yamashita would talk to her.
Eventually, she got to the glasses sign and stopped to wait for the light to change. About a dozen other people were at the intersection as well.
Misato looked around for Yamashita.
“There he is!”
Yamashita was at the edge of the crowd waiting for the crosswalk signal. Misato moved closer to him so he would notice her.
But right then another boy came over to Yamashita.
“Morning,” the boy said.
“Hey, morning.”
He was another member of the tennis club. Yamashita was so preoccupied with talking to the other boy that he hadn’t even noticed Misato, who was right behind him.
The light turned from red to green, and Yamashita started to cross with the other boy.
Oh no…
Maybe the love spell didn’t actually work?
Misato deflated again and looked down at the ground.
“Taniguchi, right?” someone unexpectedly said to her.
Misato raised her face and saw that Yamashita had stopped and was looking right at her.