She could suddenly feel the ground crumbling beneath her feet as a sense of loneliness made her expression freeze.
She’d probably followed the route half unconsciously, because before she realized it, she was in front of the Corvette.
Then, the door opened, the bell above it ringing. It was just like she was dreaming, like she was seeing the scene she’d imagined earlier. It didn’t feel real. The timing was far too significant to call it a mere coincidence.
“Huh... Murata-san?” Kyouhei asked, standing beside the doorway.
It wasn’t just him.
“Hm? Fancy seeing you here, Sanae.” The girl looking out from behind him was, of course, Pamil. “Did you come for a cup of tea too?” she asked.
Like it was obvious; as if there were no other possibilities. The two of them were together, as if it were only natural they would be.
Sanae’s lips parted and a breath padded through them.
She’d just happened to meet him there, they’d exchange greetings, and part. No one, or at least not Kyouhei, would find it odd.
That was as it should be.
If they were just schoolmates—
I don’t want that! she thought. She wanted a reason, just a small reason to be by his side. She wanted to be welcomed in his mind.
Those feelings had been held prisoner in her heart for so long, and now they were growing explosively. It might have been her coincidental conversation with Youko that had caused it, but for her, it must have been fate.
And so, she spoke more naturally than she was expecting: “Nanbu-senpai!” she exclaimed, starting to say something she’d dreamed of over and over. “...I love you! ...Please go out with me!”
It must have been an utter shock. The only thing that left Kyouhei’s mouth wasn’t even a word, just a half-witted noise.
● ● ●
And thus, we return to the present.
Kyouhei and Sanae walked together, mostly through inertia. They didn’t even know where they were going.
When Kyouhei came back to his senses, he was walking back home, and at his side was Sanae, rather than the normal Pamil.
The thought: Do I just not feel right...? passed through his mind. Did he just not feel right without Pamil at his side?
He asked himself that, but didn’t know the answer.
“Um... Senpai?” Sanae spoke uneasily, as if she’d felt Kyouhei’s thoughts.
Suddenly, he realized that they’d not spoken since they’d left the Corvette.
Obviously, she would be uneasy.
“A-Ahh... it’s nothing. Nothing at all,” he temporized, telling himself more than her. After that, though, silence once again fell between them.
He could feel a precarious balance; if he said something carelessly, it could destroy the mood between them. Perhaps because of his nerves, his heart was racing, like an engine with more fuel than it needed.
I’m stuck...
He didn’t know what to do, and let out the second—hidden—sigh of the day.
While he wasn’t proud of it, this was the first time in his life that Kyouhei had been confessed to by a girl; he couldn’t not be gutted by it.
Actually, he thought, suddenly remembering an old memory.
There was some castle, and he’d met a blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl.
He was sure the young girl had said something to him...
“Ich liebe sie.”
He couldn’t remember her face, or even her voice; only that simple statement was still stuck, miraculously, in his mind.
No, no, no, that’s absent history now, he thought, mentally shaking his head.
Right, this was about Sanae.
He didn’t have much time left to think. Whatever answer he gave her, it had to be before they got to his house, and they were already far into the streets to his home.
The silence lengthened.
Sanae was a good girl. Plus, even Kyouhei had long since noticed the womanly features hidden behind her glasses and plain hairstyle.
But...
“Ah...” Sanae suddenly said in surprise from next to him.
Kyouhei looked at her, wondering what had prompted it, and saw her looking at the sky. He followed suit, looking up. There, he saw fluttering, swirling fragments of white.
He’d thought it had been an awfully cloudy day.
“It’s snowing...”
It was a little out of season, but it was probably one of those freak weather patterns you often heard about on TV. Sanae was so taken with the snow that her expression softened and cleared as she lifted a hand out to the snow.
Watching her, he was struggling by how normal a girl she was.
“So pretty...” she whispered.
The snow fell on her hand in large clumps. If it piled up, then it would be horribly cold, but the air was rather warm for snow, so the flakes were already half melted by the time they reached her. So, when they did, they spent the briefest moment on her hand before melting into water.
Kyouhei remained silent.
Obviously they’d melt like that on a person’s skin.
Would they melt like that on her hand too? Kyouhei wondered, considering the self-proclaimed android, Pamil. An android, huh?
Even now, he didn’t know who she really was. Whether she was an android, or just loopy... At any rate, she ate and slept just like anyone. She bathed, went to the toilet, and if you touched her, she was soft and warm.
But...
She could fire beams from her eyes, stop a truck with a single hand, generate fire and lightning, and easily tear through handcuffs.
However open-minded you were, that was clearly abnormal. An abnormality impossible to explain away as a personal skill.
I...
Kyouhei wanted a normal life; to just fade into the background as one of the crowd. His wish was a rebellion against his insane father, and the many near-death experiences he’d had whilst being dragged around the world by him.
He wanted to fall in love normally, marry normally, have kids normally, live for raising his kids normally, and finally take his last breaths normally, surrounded by his children and grandchildren. That was the kind of life he wanted.
Therefore, a partner that had eye beams was absurd. And the day his child did the same would be the day he gave up on life.
So, what about Sanae?
Actually, if Pamil really is an android, we couldn’t even have kids... Wait, wait a minute; that’s a bit of a leap there. Calm down, he thought to himself.
The shock at his own thoughts was sending them off down unrelated tracks. In the first place, it was very rare nowadays to marry the first person you dated.
But...
If she’s really an android... then she’d never... be able to realistically think about love...
Those thoughts in his mind, he looked back from the sky to his side.
And there, he met Sanae’s gaze as she thought seriously, making his breath catch in his throat. “Senpai,” she said, being rarely—very rarely for her—forceful as she spoke to him. “...I don’t have any amazing powers like Pamil-chan, but I love you as much as anyone.”
Kyouhei’s expression was overwhelmed. She had clearly told him her feelings; he couldn’t falter now. “Murata-san...”
“It doesn’t matter how amazing Pamil-chan is. I know I’m nowhere near as cute as she is... I’m not beautiful. And I’m not strong enough to use beams and fire—”
“No, that’s fine. You don’t need that,” Kyouhei interjected instinctively.
Sanae didn’t seem to have heard him, though, and just continued seriously: “But I... really... really love you, Senpai!” she said flusteredly.
She couldn’t get her feelings properly into words, and now everything was spilling out like a broken dam.
...I, Kyouhei thought to himself, suddenly self-recriminating, seriously didn’t notice a girl loved me this much...?
That was far too cruel, he decided.
And yet...
“Senpai,” she addressed him.
He had no answer to give her.
“You... still haven’t... told me your answer... to my first request...”
‘Please go out with me.’ It was a phrase as commonplace as they come, but it meant everything to adolescent girls and boys.
“I...” he started.
What did he feel?
Since he had met Pamil, things had been chaotic—impossible, even. Memories of chasing around after the very embodiment of absurdity day after day went rushing through his head like a zoetrope.
He then had a premonition... This could be his only chance for a ‘normal’ romance.
Right at that moment, he felt a strange sensation caressing his back. He looked over his shoulder.
“Senpai...?” Sanae asked curiously.
“Ah... I just...” he said vaguely, but even so, could still feel an ethereal something digging into him.
Someone was watching him. Focusing on him and Sanae. A shudder ran down his back. It might just be baseless paranoia, but he still had a bad feeling about it.
Pamil wouldn’t sneak up behind us... Nah, definitely not.
She didn’t go back on her word. And regardless, she saw Kyouhei as her brother and nothing else; she wouldn’t get jealous of him being alone with Sanae...
...I guess I’m just nervous, he decided, scratching at the back of his neck.
Any gazes he felt on him were just because he was too self-conscious, he told himself.
However...
“Herr Kyouhei Nanbu?” someone asked him in a calm tone of voice. The voice itself was brusque and cold, though, almost like a machine. “What should I say here, I wonder,” he continued in Japanese, fluently. “Japanese is a beautiful language, but truly difficult. Ah, that’s the word: namaste—wait, no.” He snapped his fingers, covered by white gloves, as he remembered the word he wanted. “Hajimemashite, that’s it. It means it is the first time you’ve seen someone, and it is indeed the first time we’ve met face-to-face.”