Yukari’s purple eyes opened wide, but she couldn’t stop. She ran right into me. But she must have been trying to avoid a head-on collision, because she twisted all strange as she ran into me. I responded reflexively to her dangerous-looking position by reaching out and grabbing her. It was a pretty rash move. I was left learning the hard way that the omnipresent saying “No running in the halls” at schools was actually a pretty reasonable rule. Even a body like Yukari’s—light as a feather—could be a lethal weapon with a running start. I realized there was no way I was going to be able to take the full-throttle momentum of Yukari, so I guess I lowered my center of gravity and tried to break my fall while also protecting Yukari. She ended up on top of me as my back smacked against the floor, as if she’d pushed me down to the ground.
And I don’t know what gods’ sense of humor was responsible for this, but our lips were locked tight.
How much time passed with us like that? Probably not that much in reality, but it felt like an eternity. Neither of us breathed until our lips separated. One of my hands was on Yukari’s butt, while the other had slapped the floor the way they teach you in martial arts. My mind was spinning. My heartbeat was raging out of control, yet I still had the presence to be amused by the situation. I forgot to breathe, yet I still was careful to take note of Yukari’s comfortable weight and the heat that came to me through her uniform. It didn’t even occur to me what an unpresentable state I was in, held down and kissed by another girl in the middle of the school hall.
We were the only ones in the world, as if time had frozen, and I was waiting for it to start again.
I took another good look into Yukari’s eyes.
What a pretty purple, I thought.
I wonder how long that lasted. I guess what set things back in motion was that my tongue got curious about how dry or moist my lips were and came out to lick them—along with Yukari’s, which were in close contact. Yukari’s upper body instantly shot up. I groaned as her full weight fell on my stomach, and hearing that, Yukari hurried up and got off.
“Oh! Oh! Oh!” she started. “Oh! Oh! Oh…! That wasn’t my intention! Um, I’m sorry! Hatou-san, I, um, didn’t think…you’d turn around, so…”
“Wait. Do you mean we didn’t run into each other by coincidence, but you were following me?”
“Oh! Um, no, it’s not as if I had something… Well, I did, but I was planning to take care of it myself, not to ask you, you know, to be discreet. I just wanted to check in advance whether you were a boy or a girl, so—”
“Are you saying I don’t look like a girl? You thought I was a boy wearing a skirt? And that’s why you came and kissed me?!”
“Oh! No! I’m not saying you don’t look like a girl. I just—wanted to check… So, I mean, you are a girl, right? Oh! No! I mean—um—I didn’t kiss you on purpose—um—I’m sorry—I, um—Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh!”
I already knew she didn’t do it on purpose. I was just trying to tease her, but Yukari ended up crying. It was in my rush to console her that I found out about her eyes—about how, to the purple eyes of Marii Yukari, all living things other than her looked like robots.
So, I looked like a robot to her, and with that along with my name being Manabu (and probably because of my vibe, though she was evasive about that), she wasn’t sure if I was really a girl or not.
Of course, I didn’t believe her right off the bat. I mean, it was pretty out there, and after all, anyone can make up some subjective stuff about how things look to them. So I just figured Marii Yukari was one of those cringey, edgy weirdos who say they’re aliens or that they can see fairies or stuff like that. I said whatever seemed appropriate, swore to keep the events of the day between us, and wrapped it up like that.
However, I kept what she said in mind and watched her. Then I saw that she did act oddly in many facets of her life in ways that suggested people really did look like robots to her—and she was doing her best to hide it. If Yukari really was just trying to be special, why would she try to hide it? If you looked at “eclectic” celebrities, they had to know they were weirdos, but they didn’t try to hide it. (If they hid it, then we wouldn’t be calling them weirdos, now would we?) Meanwhile, Yukari was doing her darndest to hide her odd behavior and seem as forgettable as possible.
She was desperate to be normal.
Once she explained herself, I got a better understanding of who she was. So, when I spotted Yukari trying to paper over her eccentricity and then getting herself in even more of a jam, whether or not I believed her, I had to help her. Every time she got in trouble—like in art class or swimming lessons—I was compelled to go to her rescue. We spent more and more time together. Yukari started to rely on me more, probably because she had revealed her secret to me. Before long, we were close.
So that’s how we met.
I did ask Yukari afterward what our shocking first meeting was like for her—you know, what it was like kissing me. She said she was too shocked to think or feel anything. I don’t think she was being shy. That was probably the truth for her.
Honestly, even if it was my first kiss, the actual act of kissing her left zero impression on me. I don’t even remember what Yukari’s lips felt like. Were they soft like people say? What I remember is not the feeling of her lips, but that heat and weight of Yukari as I held her and that sense of being in a world that only included us.
So, that’s how Yukari and I met. I think that’s where my story began.