Chapter 5:
Marii’s Arrival
“BY THE WAY, Gaku-chan, do you like your name?”
“How could I? If I could go back in time, I’d make my parents pick something else.”
“Oh! Ah, but I like it…”
My name is Hatou Manabu, with my given name “Manabu” written using the Chinese character for study. Apologies to any other ladies with this name, but it absolutely sucks. I mean, Manabu’s normally a masculine name, after all. I don’t know if this is some ancient sacred tradition or what, but my grandma gave it to me. Thanks to that, I’ve been mistaken for a boy countless times! And can you guess how many times I’ve been teased? It’s got to be this name that’s cursed me with such a foul expression on my face by default. It had to be my name that’s led me to barely act feminine at all!
I could tell people to call me Mana, but that’s a little too girly for me. And I’d die of embarrassment to bring it up at this point, so instead I ask friends to use my family name or my nickname, Gaku, which also means study.
“But you know, Gaku-chan, I got interested in you because of your name being Manabu.”
“That was because your eyes couldn’t tell whether I was a boy or a girl, right?”
“Oh, no! I always thought you were a girl! You were wearing a skirt, after all.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better…?”
Most people find it easy to determine someone’s gender (well, maybe not so much these days), but Yukari struggles due to the way she sees others. Robots are sexless, so she relies on a ratio of 60 percent silhouette, 20 percent on naming conventions, and the remaining 20 percent on the clothes a person is wearing (like pants means the person is a boy, but a skirt means the person is a girl).
I have a masculine name. I also have a low, boyish voice—even more confusing when surrounded by boys whose voices haven’t dropped in range yet. I have an androgynous silhouette (yeah, I’ve got small boobs, but get off my case! I’m still growing…) and even when I was wearing a skirt, Yukari couldn’t figure out my gender, despite what she says now. She couldn’t get it off of her mind back then.
Yukari had checked the class roster, but that didn’t solve the mystery for her, so she followed me from the shadows. I was clueless the whole time until I bumped into her in a dramatic way. You could say that was my first kiss, if such a thing counts with a girl.
Yukari was shocked to the point of tears by this encounter in a way that was practically out of a manga. As I struggled to sort things out with her, I noticed her purple eyes. Then I ended up having this kind of change of heart and growing my hair longer. (It was really short and now it’s styled in a bob, leading at least one heartless jerk to call me…you guessed it, Bob.) Anyway, she had a point that we sort of met because of my name.
“Well, I guess after fourteen years, I’m used to this name by now,” I say.
“But I wish you’d actually like your name. I like it a lot,” Yukari says.
“Uh…thanks.”
“You know what? If it’s okay with you, I’d like to call you Manabu-chan, please.”
“That’s, uh… I’m not…just…ugh, gimme a break…”
I purse my lips and look away all pissed to avoid seeing her look up at me like that. I wonder what I can do to hide my hot cheeks. They’re probably as red as a tomato.
Manabu-chan, huh?
Well, hmm… I guess I don’t hate it as much as I used to.